On Wednesday, Senate Democrats led by Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a bill that would ban the sale of more than 200 semi-automatic weapons and ammunition. Appealing to hoplophobia (fear of firearms) rather than sober reasoning and the facts, Feinstein advocated for further limiting Americans’ Second Amendment right to self-defense while at the same time promoting the flawed promise of statist utopia. Feinstein pontificated, “We’re introducing an updated Assault Weapons Ban for one reason — so that after every mass shooting with a military-style assault weapon, the American people will know that a tool to reduce these massacres is sitting in the Senate, ready for debate and a vote.”

No, the real reason is that Feinstein is taking advantage of people’s emotions as a pretext to demand that Americans give up their rights and freedoms and bow to an elite ruling class which is powerless to protect them. Feinstein has completely ignored the fact that this latest mass shooting testifies to the limits of government’s ability to prevent crime. After all, the laws were on the books that should have prevented this mad man from purchasing the weapons in the first place. Where is the apology from the government for its gross failure?

In this case the laws that should have presumably prevented this massacre failed, so now Feinstein wants to blame the availability of the tool? The same tool that was used to perpetrate this evil was also used for good in ending it and saving lives, but statists like Feinstein will never care about that inconvenient fact. Rather she holds out the absurd notion of a gun-free society, suggesting that then mass murders would be non-existent. Tell that to the eight people killed by a jihadi with a truck in New York. She and her gun-grabbing cohorts are again asserting that evil somehow originates only due to one’s proximity and access to a certain tool rather than from within that self-willed individual.

Feinstein’s objective here is purely and unabashedly political. Eric Boehm of Reason writes, “This bill has been introduced for ‘one reason’: so Democrats can score political points by holding it up and waving it every time there’s a high-profile crime with a gun. Look! There’s a bill right here, ready for debate and a vote! Will the bill do anything to stop these horrific attacks from happening? Well, no, but that’s not the point.” There is nothing more despicable than those who seek to manipulate and prey upon the emotions of others by holding out empty promises designed only to further their own power.