It’s Time for Real Talk about the Assault-Weapons ‘Ban’

By David French

Tuesday, February 27,

It’s back. In the aftermath of the Parkland, Fla., school massacre, House Democrats are making another attempt at banning so-called assault weapons. A “supermajority” (156 of 193) of House Democrats have signed on, leaving no doubt as to the party’s move left on gun control. The bill, called the “Assault Weapons ban of 2018,” is a non-starter — at least so long as Republicans control the House — but it’s a mistake to simply write off any proposal backed so overwhelmingly by one side of the aisle. This debate isn’t going away.

So let’s deal with he bill on the merits, beginning with taking on its inherently deceptive name. The bill calls for a “ban” on both “semi-automatic assault weapons” and “large capacity magazine feeding devices” (magazines holding more than ten rounds). But then — in the very next paragraphs — it exempts every single weapon and magazine lawfully possessed before the enactment of the law.

In other words, the assault-weapons ban isn’t a ban at all. It would leave tens of millions of guns and magazines on the streets. In fact, nobody actually knows the number. Rifle sales have skyrocketed. Counting rifles made and distributed in the U.S. only (in other words, not counting imports), the number has increased from 1.6 million in 2007 to 4.2 million in 2016. During that time, the AR-15 has been among the most popular rifles sold in the U.S.

In other words, even if the proposed “ban” were enacted, a person who wanted an AR-15 could find an AR-15. A person who wanted a large-capacity magazine could find a large-capacity magazine.

Moreover, the phrase “assault weapons” is also inherently deceptive. The drafters include within the definition not just the scary-looking, military-style rifles such as the AR-15 but also semi-automatic pistols that can “accept a detachable magazine” and have at least one common additional feature such as a threaded barrel. The proposed ban also includes semi-automatic shotguns with, among other things, a pistol grip, a fixed magazine that accepts more than five rounds, or the ability to accept a detachable magazine of any size.

This is the worst kind of gun control. Any measure that preserves the ability of criminals to access guns while restricting the access of law-abiding Americans is a measure that fundamentally impairs the very purpose of the Second Amendment. For the law-abiding, the existing stock of tens (hundreds?) of millions of weapons and magazines would instantly become more expensive. Yet with the slightest premeditation, a criminal could easily circumvent the ban. It’s a simple matter, in fact, to make your own high-capacity magazine.

Moreover, it’s sheer speculation that a ban on so-called assault weapons would reduce mass shootings, reduce gun suicides, or reduce overall gun violence. Rifles are rarely used in “normal” gun crimes (blunt objects and fists kill more people), and you don’t need an AR-15 to kill yourself (rifle suicides are rare). And as ample, grim experience shows, you don’t need an AR-15 to commit a horrific mass killing. America’s worst school shooting — the Virginia Tech massacre — was committed with handguns, and the list of deadly handgun shootings is long and sad.

Mass shooters are among the most committed criminals in the entire United States. They often fantasize about their attacks for years and plan them for months. They can find an AR-15. Yet an AR-15 isn’t an indispensable weapon for a spree killer. They have options.

At best, then, the argument is that making an AR-15 slightly more difficult to obtain won’t make spree killings less common, but it might make spree killings less lethal. Again, that’s more speculation, assuming that the most committed killers 1) can’t get their hands one of the tens of millions of legal weapons still on the streets; and 2) that a man with a semi-automatic pistol isn’t just as deadly as a man with a rifle. Neither assumption is warranted.

In fact, experience with the previous federal assault-weapons ban demonstrates that any benefit gained by decrease in crimes committed with one type of weapon is often offset by increases in crimes committed with other weapons, leaving no net benefit. Here’s the key language from a comprehensive study of the impact of the federal assault-weapons ban:

We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence, based on indicators like the percentage of gun crimes resulting in death or the share of gunfire incidents resulting in injury, as we might have expected had the ban reduced crimes with both AW [assault weapons] and LCMs [large-capacity magazines].

And that study is based on a world where tens of millions fewer assault magazines and large-capacity magazines were in circulation. The facts on the ground have changed, substantially, since 2004.

But we have to offset the known and undeniable negatives against the entirely speculative positive effect. Millions of law-abiding Americans would find it more difficult to obtain guns and magazines that would match the foreseeable criminal threat. Indeed, the necessity of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines to confront the criminal threat is illustrated by the proposed ban itself, which exempts law-enforcement officers. Police officers need 15 rounds in a pistol to defend themselves, but I don’t need 15 rounds to defend myself? How is that coherent?

An assault-weapons non-ban does nothing to address the underlying causes of mass shootings. It does nothing to empower citizens or police to respond to troubled individuals before they pull the trigger, and it does nothing to enhance the ability of citizens to defend themselves once engaged. In fact, it may well put the armed citizen at a meaningful disadvantage. It’s not the answer to mass killings. It’s not even “an” answer. It is, however, an infringement on individual liberty, and it’s one that a majority of American voters will not tolerate.

Jewish Americans Deserve Better Than The ADL

By David Harsanyi           

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Anti-Semitism is a serious, albeit relatively small, problem in American life. Still, it’s a shame that the folks at the Anti-Defamation League, self-styled spokespeople of we Jews, are in the business of exaggerating threats when it serves their partisan interests and underplaying threats when they do not.

The ADL’s most recent study on rising anti-Semitism was, as always, carried by a number of media outlets. “Antisemitic incidents in US soar to highest level in two decades,” read one headline atop a picture of angry Tiki-torch Nazis in Charlottesville. “Largest year-on-year increase since 1979 comes as Trump administration is accused of failing to condemn bigotry.”

Anti-Semitism isn’t “soaring” in America, and the ADL knows it.  Among 330 or-so million Americans, the ADL notes that there were 1,986 anti-Semitic reported incidents across the United States in 2017. That’s a 57 percent increase over the 1,267 reported incidents in 2016. Yet the ADL admits a part of the spike was driven by a surge in self-reporting rather than a surge in incidents.

Yet, even if we were to take all of this unscientific survey at face value, it hardly supports the dramatic contention that the number is “soaring.” Put it this way, in 1939 the German-American Bund could pack Madison Square Garden with 22,000 cheering fascists, but today neo-Nazis can barely pull together 200 people for a national conference.

The ADL’s report states that there “were 1,015 incidents of harassment, including 163 bomb threats against Jewish institutions, up 41 percent from 2016.” No one should doubt that harassment exists. I’ve been on the ugly end of such efforts myself. And bomb threats are a form of terrorism, a threat of violence used to intimidate entire communities. The thing is that every single one of the bomb threats in the ADL survey were made by a single deranged self-hating Jewish teenager who was arrested in Israel. His actions have little to do with any supposed “soaring” animus towards American Jewry.

It is true that Jews are most often the victims of the rare faith-based hate crimes in America. In 2016, the FBI reported that 21 percent of hate crimes were prompted by religious bias and, of those, 54.4 percent were victims of crimes motivated by an anti-Jewish bias. (The next closest is anti-Muslim crimes, at 24.5 percent.) This consists of 834 total hate crimes against Jews in 2016, the vast majority non-violent. That is 834 too many, of course, but also 834 of among tens of million criminal offenses. Those genuinely concerned about anti-Semitism don’t do anyone a favor by exaggerating the problem.

It should be pointed out, though, that there is a population that runs into anti-Jewish sentiment more than most. The ADL and its activist head, Jonathan Greenblatt, would have you believe that “white supremacy” is the leading cause of anti-Semitism on college campuses throughout the United States. The narrative must be fed, after all. The ADL tells us that from Sept. 1, 2016 to Feb. 1, 2018, “346 incidents” of Nazi types handing out propaganda on campus were recorded. This, according to the ADL, is the most disturbing trend on campuses.

As one of my Twitter followers correctly noted, “The idea that Jews are more likely to encounter white supremacists than aggressively anti-Israel bds groups is utter delusion.”

The BDS movement, for example, embraced not only by most progressive groups these days but also by some school administrations, specifically — and, for that matter, exclusively — targets businesses that deal with the ideologically diverse population of Jews. As the AMCHA Initiative, a group that tracks anti-Semitism on campus, puts it, “BDS campaigns are coordinated internationally by groups committed to the elimination of the Jewish state, including terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, that engage in and promote the murder of Jews worldwide.” How many “incidents” do you think are there on college campuses of the BDS spreading its message?

Unsurprisingly, this effort is associated with the uptick in anti-Semitism on campus. In 2016, researchers at Brandeis University conducted a study concentrating on Jewish undergraduate students at 50 U.S. campuses who had applied to go on the Birthright Israel trip. The study found that CUNY schools and University of California systems had become “hotspots” of hostility towards Jewish students. The more campuses were involved in BDS, the higher their rates of anti-Semitic harassment and hostility, driven by animosity toward Israel.

There is a long history of leftist anti-Semitism and a corresponding history of liberal Jewish groups belittling its importance. Jew hatred, of course, isn’t confined to one fringe. But Nazis and Klansmen remain stigmatized and excluded by the vast majority of political operators. On the other hand, terror-apologists like Linda Sarsour, a leader of the Resistance who claims Zionism is incompatible with feminism, are being increasingly welcomed into the fold of mainstream left-wing activism.

The idea of Zionism being an “inherently white supremacist ideology” has gained some popularity not only on campuses but among a growing group of progressives. While the ADL notes this trend — and it has to be stressed that the ADL does often note instances of anti-Semitism on the Left— it has a bad habit of burying that pertinent news to create a more convenient plot for political purposes.

Liberal Think Tank Refutes Case against Trump’s Health-Insurance Deregulation

By Chris Pope

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

On February 20, the Trump administration released a proposed rule that would make it much easier for Americans to escape the inflated costs of Obamacare’s health-insurance exchanges. It would repeal an October 2016 regulation with which the departing Obama administration had sought to restrict the availability of “short term, limited duration” (STLD) insurance — a market exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s regulations, on which health insurance could be purchased for around $124 per month, compared with $393 on the exchanges. Obama’s regulation stipulated that these plans could last only three months, while the previous rule had allowed them to last a year and permitted guaranteed renewal of enrollment beyond then.

Congressional Democrats have denounced the Trump administration’s attempt to restore the STLD market to health as an attempt to sabotage the ACA. They have argued that the availability of affordable plans outside of the ACA’s risk pool could deprive the exchanges of essential revenues from healthy enrollees, and thus increase premiums for those who remain.

But when premiums on the exchanges rise, public subsidies automatically expand to guarantee that insurance will be available to enrollees at a limited cost as a share of their income, regardless of their medical risks. There is no need to force unwilling healthy individuals to pay hugely inflated premiums for this to be the case. Punishing them with an individual-mandate tax was unnecessary and unfair, while seeking to prohibit cost-effective alternatives that actually did meet their needs was similarly senseless.

Yesterday’s study from the Urban Institute demonstrates with unprecedented clarity just how small a trade-off would be associated with the substantial gains from the policy.

The report bears a dispassionate title, and the executive summary picks out several statistics related to the combined effects of the mandate and the STLD deregulation. But as was made clear during last year’s legislative attempts to replace the ACA, estimates of the mandate’s impact are so speculative and likely exaggerated that they serve to obscure less ambiguous and more important statistics.

More interesting, and unmentioned in the introduction to the Urban Institute’s report, are some remarkable findings that can be observed directly in the report’s Table 1. From this table it is clear that:

•    7.4 million on the exchanges eligible for tax credits would see no change in premiums.

•    4.2 million would enroll in STLD plans, whose premiums would be far below those for plans currently available. (STLD premiums in the fourth quarter of 2016 were 68.4 percent lower than those on the exchanges.)

•    4.5 million on the exchanges without tax credits would see premiums rise somewhat (by an average of 18.2 percent, compared with 8.3 percent in states prohibiting STLD plans, according to Table 4 on page 16).

While there are roughly similar numbers of winners and losers, the scale of benefits far exceeds the costs. Furthermore, while the modest premium increases would be felt only by unsubsidized high-income enrollees, the savings would be enjoyed across the income distribution — including by large numbers of low- and moderate-income households.

On balance, the Urban Institute also estimates that Trump’s proposal would reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 1.7 million — a finding the report buries by grouping those enrolled in STLD plans together with the truly uninsured.

In other words, restricting the sale of attractive, affordably priced health insurance isn’t necessary to forestall the collapse of the exchanges, but it has needlessly concentrated enormous costs on millions seeking health insurance and forced many to go entirely without.

The Urban Institute’s study is also enlightening with respect to the net fiscal impact of STLD deregulation. As a cheaper alternative to the exchanges becomes available, low-risk subsidized individuals may disenroll, and hence the government may save money. But as the risk pool on the exchanges becomes sicker, subsidies expand, costing the government money. The net impact of these effects has as yet been unclear.

The Urban Institute finds that the number of people on unsubsidized ACA-compliant plans would fall by 1.5 million, while the number on subsidized plans would fall by 600,000. As a result, the reform would slightly reduce federal spending on health care for the nonelderly — by $686 million, or 0.2 percent — and should allay whatever federal budgetary concerns may have impeded the proposal’s more thorough implementation.

These empirical findings (from authors who had expressed opposition to STLD insurance) suggest that the deregulation of STLD plans overall substantially reduces the cost of health insurance, covers more people, and slightly reduces the burden on taxpayers. States should embrace it — and give their residents a real chance to purchase affordable insurance coverage for themselves and their families.