Is something banned if it’s just difficult to get? That really depends on just how difficult it is to get it. Usually, for the wealthy, it’s never that much of a ban. For regular people, it can be.
Take machine guns, for example. While there’s an outright ban on anything made after 1986, there are still transferable machine guns out there. In total numbers, a lot of them.
But they’re expensive, and the ability to buy makes them anything but accessible to many people. For all practical purposes, it’s a ban for most Americans.
And Colorado’s new semi-auto law essentially does the same thing with the most common firearms in the country. Republicans in the state are lashing out over the supposedly libertarian Democratic governor signing the bill.
Colorado Republicans are pushing back against Democratic Gov. Jared Polis for signing one of the most extreme anti-gun laws in the country this month, accusing him of turning a constitutional right into a privilege bought with permits and fees.
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“This bill is putting a paywall in front of a God-given, unalienable right — and that’s the right to self-defense and the right to keep a free nation,” Winter, assistant minority leader in the Colorado House, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Gun rights aren’t a red or blue issue. Gun rights are an American issue. We forget what the Constitution is for — it’s not to go hunting. It’s not to go target shooting. It’s to keep a nation free. It’s to keep a government in check. And I think that’s the first thing our colleagues across the aisle don’t realize.”
Under the new law, Coloradans seeking to buy virtually any semiautomatic firearm with a detachable magazine — most modern guns — must now navigate a three-part gauntlet: completing 12 hours of training, scoring at least 90% on written test and obtaining an eligibility certificate from their county sheriff — none of which will be free.
Winter says that’s the point.
“First and foremost, it’s the cost,” he said. “They’re increasing every fee in this state … if you’re getting dinked and dunked and nickeled and dimed every time you turn around, and that’s what’s keeping you away from your gun rights — and then you figure, OK, if they can afford the fees, then they have to take off work for the class. Then they have to take the time out of work to go talk to the sheriff. There’s just so many different things that make it hard.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 55.6 percent of Americans earn an hourly wage. That means time off from work–almost any time off from work–costs them to some extent or another. Even if they’re able to use vacation time, that’s time that they won’t be able to use with their families, and many hourly employees don’t really get vacation time.
Assuming that the percentage is fairly constant in each state, that means more than half of all people in Colorado will lose money just in taking time off from work to meet these requirements.
That then gets factored into the cost of the training and testing, as well as the permit itself, which gets added onto the cost of the firearm itself.
In other words, poorer people are screwed while the wealthy of Colorado can do whatever they want.
That’s not how it’s supposed to be.
Yeah, wealth will always have some benefits that you can’t just wish away, and I wouldn’t even try. It’s a way to encourage people to step up and work their way to the top.
But when the law seems specifically designed to favor them, we’ve got a problem, and that’s the case with literally every law that tries to add more and more expense into just owning a firearm.
Semi-automatics are the most common firearms in the country and are the preferred defensive firearms for pretty situation you care to name. Sure, you can use any gun defensively in a pinch; you shouldn’t be relegated to “in a pinch” by state law, though. It’s not right.
So Polis is catching heat, and he should.
Unfortunately, unless the legislature steps up and does something about it, all there will be are words until the courts decide.
Read the full article here
