In yet another signal that Republicans are very serious about governing now that they control the House of Representatives, Rep. Barry Moore (R-Alabama) is introducing a bill to declare the AR-15 (and its knockoffs) the “National Gun of America.” Rep. Moore, who was elected to Congress in 2020 and sworn in just in time to vote with the Sedition Caucus on January 6, 2021, explained at a gun shop in Troy, Alabama, that
The anti-Second Amendment group won’t stop until they take away all your firearms… One rule to remember: any government that would take away one right would take away them all.
The Second Amendment is as American a right as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. Second Amendment rights are worth protecting and must not be infringed, and we must send a message that we will meet every attack on any of our constitutional rights
And then everyone in England, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia, and other industrial democracies with strict firearms laws sarcastically said, “Yeah, right, we have no freedom and no rights, and also we don’t have more mass shootings than days in the year.”
Also we are pretty sure approximately one gabillion Americans with uteri might have a tiny objection to that “any government that would take away one right would take away them all” crack.
Mind you, any symbolic designation of a “national gun” would have fuck-all to do with the continued legality of any firearms, since that’s kind of a matter for actual laws and for the Supreme Court of Gunhumping Loons. Yes, the bald eagle is the national symbol of the USA, but the birbs and their habitats were protected because of the Endangered Species Act, only being delisted in 2007 after they had made a spectacular comeback under the law. They’re also much better for the ecosystem than the AR-15.
Also, no matter how much it might be a good idea, taking away all the guns isn’t going to happen — at least not anytime soon —because that would require repealing the Holy Second Amendment, which has too many fanatical armed supporters in Republican politics. It would additionally require major staffing changes on the Supreme Gun Court. Maybe later in the century, after disgust at all the carnage finally reaches critical mass. But Rep. Moore will be a trivia question by then.
While the full text of the bill hasn’t yet been posted, a placeholder on the congressional webpage says it would “declare an AR-15 style rifle chambered in a .223 Remington round or a 5.56x45mm NATO round to be the National Gun of the United States.”
As of yet, the bill has only three Republican cosponsors: Reps. George Santos (New York), Lauren Boebert (Colorado), and Andrew “normal tourist visit” Clyde (Georgia). That makes all sorts of sense since Clyde is the bozo who distributed all those AR-15 lapel pins Republicans wore during Joe Biden’s State of the Union address two weeks back, we guess to demonstrate that the GOP has become an actual death cult.
The USA saw two new mass shootings in the last 24 hours, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In Orlando, Florida, yesterday, a 19-year-old gunman killed three people, one of them a nine-year-old girl, and wounded two others. And in Daphne, Alabama, a 21-year-old man was arrested after allegedly killing four people, all members of his family. Daphne is not in Rep. Moore’s district, for what that’s worth.
It appears the Orlando shooter was carrying a handgun when he was arrested; we haven’t yet seen any specifics on the firearm used in the Alabama killings. So maybe the AR-15, that beautiful glorious freedom machine that so perfectly represents America in the 2020s, wasn’t involved, although it does tend to be the favorite weapon of mass shooters. But it’s also the reason we remain free, according to sociopaths, so there’s that.
[AL.com / WHNT-TV / HR 1095 (2023)]
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