The Patriot Post® · Dems Don't Want Kids Trained With Guns
Earlier this week Democrat Sen. Edward J. Markey and his colleague in the House, Rep. Ruben Gallego, teamed up on a gun control measure that would bar America’s youth from shooting machine guns — an already highly regulated weapon — and other “military-style weapons.” But as we’ll explain, “military-style” literally means anything now, not just Uzis and AR-15 “assault” rifles.
A press release on Gallego’s website explains that the cutely labeled Help End Assault Rifle Tragedies (HEART) Act “will prohibit children under the age of 16 from possessing or firing machine guns and assault weapons, including at gun shows and shooting ranges.” The lawmakers cite “a firearms instructor who was killed in Arizona in 2014 by a nine-year-old who lost control of an Uzi submachine gun” and “[a] similarly tragic incident [from] 2008 in Westboro, Massachusetts [in which] an eight-year-old child accidentally killed himself while firing an Uzi at a gun show” as reasons for the proposal.
A few observations. First, notice that both of the incidents mentioned in the press release involved an actual machine gun. The government already maintains and enforces extremely strict guidelines on who is allowed to own and operate one. There’s no question that what happened in Arizona and Massachusetts is tragic — indeed, there is even a rational argument to be made regarding the merits of allowing children any access to machine guns, even under supervision. Nevertheless, that’s currently at the discretion of the instructor.
Which gets us to the second point — the lawmakers’ real agenda. According to Sen. Markey, “The small hands of children and big power of machine guns are a deadly combination. The HEART Act is simple and straightforward: It prohibits the transfer of a machine gun or semiautomatic weapon to anyone under the age of 16 [emphasis added].” Notice the subterfuge: The duo cites two exceedingly rare examples of deaths by children-operated machine guns to create emotional appeal and then demands the prohibition of all semi-automatic firearms. In other words, based on Markye’s interpretation, kids would even be banned from owning or shooting a .22.
These Democrats are, at best, completely oblivious to the difference between a fully automatic machine gun and a semiautomatic rifle or, worse, they’re intentionally conflating the two, using exceptionally infrequent machine gun tragedy as a means of implementing complete gun control. The bill stands nary a chance in Congress, but leftists will go to any lengths to incrementally abolish the Second Amendment.