Alabama’s deadly fantasies about guns

AR-15 rifles and other weapons are displayed on a table at a shooting range during the “Rod of Iron Freedom Festival” on October 12, 2019 in Greeley, Pennsylvania. Rep. Kenyatte Hassell, D-Montgomery, recently introduced legislation to require permits to buy or possess assault weapons in Alabama. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Rep. Kenyatté Hassell’s bill requiring permits for assault weapons stopped me.

Not because there’s anything unusual or objectionable about the legislation . Instead, it was how it laid out the damage a modern, legal firearm can do.

Take the bill’s definition of “assault rifle.” At base, it’s a semi-automatic gun that can accept a detachable magazine. We should all be familiar with that. AR-15-type rifles can fire at least 30 rounds a minute . With training or weapon modifications, that number can go higher.

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But the legislation also notes the other modifications these guns can accept. Like flash suppressors; muzzle brakes; flare launchers and grenade launchers.

Wait – grenade launchers?

I had to look that last one up. Grenade launchers fall under the 1934 National Firearms Act, meaning they’re harder to obtain than other items you’d slap on the rifle. But you can get one, if you pay a fee ; get approval and register it with the federal government.

And that’s what stopped me.

In Alabama, you can own a rifle that fires a bullet every two seconds. One that, when modified, can fire explosive devices.

I don’t know why someone outside a war zone would need a grenade launcher. If you have no other way to take down a deer, let someone else do the hunting.

But launcher or not, you can get something akin to a combat weapon, descended from a gun meant to kill people . That fires bullets so quickly that they create explosive damage in a human body .

And Alabama doesn’t keep tabs on who has those.

These firearms are not like shotguns or single-shot rifles a hunter or competitive shooter carries. Creating legal distinctions between them could only disturb the most extreme firearm zealots.

But our Legislature is filled with those gundamentalists. Most have either bowed to or embraced the firearms industry.

They’ve stripped away permit requirements for gun ownership. They’ve treated the most innocent attempts to improve gun safety as Stalinesque assaults on individualism and personal liberty.

Even though Alabama has one of the worst firearm death rates in the nation.

One of our U.S. House representatives even introduced legislation to declare the AR-15 the national gun of the United States . Forgive me, but I am not about to honor a device that has killed children .

Right behind our lawmakers are our federal courts, determined to subject us to the rule of childish irresponsibility.

The U.S. Supreme Court rewrote precedent on gun ownership to ensure that the most paranoid people will never face obstacles to buying deadly weapons.

I suppose some of these folks think that owning these weapons means they can take down a bad guy with an assault rifle. Others, perhaps after gorging themselves on conservative media, might imagine that they’re on the brink of war with the federal government. Visions of militias dance in their heads.

But God forbid you get into any of those situations. Because however heavily armed you are, you’re going to lose.

If someone confronts you with an assault rifle, the odds are they’ll have the drop on you. No amount of firepower will change that tactical fact.

And if you think a semi-automatic rifle will allow you to rebel against the federal government, let me introduce you to the concept of air power . Unless you can slap an F-22 on that gun, good luck.

Hassell and other legislators, including Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, have introduced bills that would at least nudge state law toward a rational understanding that guns are devices used to kill and not totems of manhood to be elevated.

It’s unlikely any of them will move in the 2025 session. The inertia for the gun industry is too much to overcome.

But I hope the efforts to introduce some basic regulations on a dangerous sector of society continue.

The way to end gun violence is not to keep flooding the state with firearms. It is not allowing every Alabamian to reach for a semi-automatic rifle whenever they get frustrated or scared.

The way to end gun violence is to make it harder to get a gun. Running vigorous checks on those seeking to purchase firearms. Establishing some basic training and storage requirements for possessing one. Allowing the courts to take firearms away if the owner is about to do harm to himself or others.

To treat guns as the dangers that they are.

“A firearm is an object used to kill” should not be a controversial statement. Nor is it be impossible to regulate firearms without unduly burdening responsible gun owners.

But it says a lot about how far we have to go that a bill that would require permits for guns with grenade launchers will go nowhere in the next legislative session.

The fantasies about what we can do with a firearm distract us from the tragedies that guns are creating right in front of us.

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