With the election of Donald Trump, never-ending attempts by anti-liberty/gun cracktivists to disarm law-abiding Americans, to deprive them of their unalienable rights and to make them easy prey for the criminals they support will likely find even less success. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris never stopped trying to obliterate the First and Second Amendments, and one of their primary targets was “assault weapons.” 

Graphic: Colt AR-15. Author

There is no such thing, despite the term being enshrined in some anti-liberty/gun laws. There is such a thing as an “assault rifle,” but that describes a class of fully automatic infantry rifles firing intermediate—not “high-powered” cartridges. “Assault weapons” are best understood as any scary-looking gun of any caliber, always semi-automatic, cracktivists want to ban. Their usual target is the ubiquitous AR-15, which outwardly resembles the fully automatic military M4, but has long been America’s favorite semiautomatic modern sporting rifle. It has been in widespread circulation since the Vietnam era, lawfully employed for self-defense, hunting and all manner of sport shooting.

But that’s not the only gun cracktivists want to ban. Consider the KelTec Sub2000 Generation 3:

Graphic: Kel Tec Sub2000 Generation 3. Author

It’s a small, light, relatively inexpensive, semiautomatic 9mm carbine which fires a pistol cartridge with less power and range than the AR-15’s .223. But because it’s black and looks militaryish, it’s precisely the kind of “assault weapon” cracktivists long to ban.

So long as Republicans control at least part of the Congress, and judges beholden to the Constitution remain the Supreme Court’s majority, it’s unlikely nonexistent “assault weapons,” or “high-capacity magazines,” will be banned. Public sentiment too—not that Democrats/socialists/communists (D/s/cs) care much about that—is dramatically changing in favor of liberty: 

Gallup’s report on the poll carried the headline, “Majorities Still Back Stricter Gun Laws, Assault Weapons Ban.” And technically, that’s true. However, channeling our inner Paul Harvey, now you’re going to hear the rest of the story.

As one might expect, the truth is hidden between the lines and in the details:

While a majority, only 52% of respondents said they favored a law banning so-called “assault weapons,” while 48% responded that they didn’t favor such a ban. But what’s interesting is that support for such a ban continues to fall from year to year.

In 2019, when Gallup first asked the question, support for such a ban was 61%, with only 39% opposing, and by 2022, support had dropped to 55%. If that trend continues, by the time the question is asked again it’s likely the majority will not favor a ban.

It’s even worse for gun-banning cracktivists:

The important finding, however, is that support for stricter laws has fallen precipitously over the past few decades, which probably would have made a more accurate headline. In fact, in 1990, the first time Gallup asked the question, 78% of respondents said they favored stricter gun laws—a full 22% more than answered that way this year. And the 56% favoring strict gun laws this year is down from 66% in June 2022 and 57% in October 2022. Last year’s polling revealed the same number—56%.

This is also bad news for gun-banners:

One thing the story did get right was mentioned in the subhead: “Support for a ban on handguns in the U.S. dropped to a near-record low.” In 1990, 60% of Americans said they favored a ban on handgun ownership. In the August survey, only 20% favored such a ban, second lowest only to 2021 when that number was 19%. Interestingly, according to the report, it is the changing opinion of Democrats that have driven that great decline in support.

What accounts for that precipitous drop? And it is substantial when polls, over time, only change a mere percentage point or two.

D/s/cs have long relied on deception and the help of their media propaganda arm willing to mislead the public into thinking anything that sort of looks like a machinegun, like the Sub2000 or AR-15, must be a fully automatic weapon, laying waste to innocents in our streets. In reality, such weapons, including semiautomatic rifles, are seldom used in crimes. Handguns, knives, clubs, hands and feet cause far more damage, year after year. Americans have gradually been awakening to that reality.

Also turning the tide have been the hysterical efforts of D/s/c politicians, whose lies and blatant hatred of Americans have increasingly convinced them they can’t be trusted, not only on Second-Amendment related matters, but on pretty much everything else. Even many Democrats have concluded they can’t trust the politicians they reflexively supported for decades. That mistrust returned Donald Trump to the White house, only the second time a president has served two non-consecutive terms.

Where unalienable constitutional rights are at stake, opinion polls shouldn’t matter, but the trend, as with much else at the moment, is encouraging.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.