Democrats keep chasing the next shiny object on gun control

The Democratic Party’s incoherence on gun control leads to politicians chasing the next shiny object for regulation with little regard for how to seriously address the issues they claim they are handling.

Senate Democrats attempted to push through a bump stock ban by unanimous consent, which predictably failed and will turn into yet another gun control talking point for the party. Why a bump stock ban, and why now? Because bump stocks are the shiny thing, with former President Donald Trump’s ban being found unconstitutional on Friday.

Are bump stocks, which exploit the recoil of a semiautomatic gun to allow users to simulate automatic gunfire, used prominently in gun crimes? Not really. But bump stocks were the shiny thing that Democrats clung to after the Las Vegas shooting in 2017, becoming yet another scary gun term that Democrats wanted to use as an excuse to crack down on law-abiding gun owners.

This is how gun control debates always go with the Democratic Party. If it isn’t bump stocks, it is a focus on “high-capacity magazines.” If not that, the focus goes to the vague and undefined characteristics of “assault weapons” or “expanded background checks.” If not that, there is always some “loophole” that is to blame. The proposals always would do next to nothing to stop criminals or shootings, and are always focused on making things more difficult or taking things away from law-abiding gun owners.

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As has been the problem with Democrats on gun control, the party still has little appetite to address the fact that its support for “criminal justice reform” empowers prosecutors who refuse to prosecute gun crimes. Locking up criminals who commit armed robberies, illegally possess firearms as a felon, or have committed other existing gun crimes would keep people far safer from gun violence than a bump stock ban would.

That would anger the party’s activist base, though, so Democrats are left with an incoherent plan of imposing new gun control measures on people who are already law-abiding gun owners while ignoring already-existing gun laws when it comes to violent criminals. They cling to some detail from a shooting, such as the use of a bump stock, and make that their battle cry, all to simply roll out many of the same gun control measures we know will have little to no impact on gun crimes in the first place.