Categorical weapons bans are a thorny problem because, in principle, they represent a 'foot in the door' for the state's limitation of further categories, citing prior bans as precedent.
Exactly my point, although better than I made it myself. The slippery slope that sets a precedent, and then keeps on sliding from that precedent, until a total gun ban is reached.
There were several rulings (I don't have the case numbers handy at the moment) where district courts and even SCOTUS narrowly blocked total firearms bans in several jurisdictions, and those measures were largely built upon the precedent set by the Assault Weapons Ban from the Clinton administration. (This might also be a good time to point out that semi-automatic rifles of the sort used in several recent mass shootings are only responsible for maybe one percent of gun deaths nationwide; the overwhelming majority are inflicted by handguns.)
Another great point (among several here). The push for banning rifles/assault weapons, despite that they clearly are not the guns that are causing the overwhelming majority of deaths.
Truthfully, that legal precedent is the only substantial purpose another assault-weapons ban would serve, considering how many provisions of such proposals focus on the aesthetic characteristics of a weapon and have little bearing on its lethality.
Yes.
And that's a point I often see made by pro-gun advocates and NRA types interviewed. That those proposing a ban of semi-automatic weapons don't understand that "semi-automatic" almost never means machine gun. But the push to ban something they don't even understand. Or deceitfully push it in pursuit of another agenda, a move toward ban of all weapons.
But getting back to the point I was attempting to make, it only becomes easier for the state to block access to each subsequent category of firearms once they deem them an adequate threat to public safety.
Again, the hidden agenda of a complete ban, that is the actual goal.
More practical and less Constitutionally risky measures exist - the limitation of magazine capacities, mandatory minimum waiting periods on anything beyond a revolver, and the elimination of waiting-period and background-check loopholes and exemptions for gun shows come to mind - that don't involve feel-good Band-Aid fixes, meaningless political footballs, or old-media fearmongering over Scary Black Guns™.
Again, I'm for the enforcement of existing laws, rather than expansion to new restrictions. But eliminating loopholes would be an enforcement of existing laws.
I'm only unclear about your last point of "old-media fearmongering over Scary Black Guns™". Could you give an example? I'm not clear if you're referring to white conservatives whipping up a false spectre of blacks with guns, or referring to media liberals bemoaning an unfair characterization of blacks as scary.
