The weather outside is sweltering enough for most of us, but even triple-digit temperatures can't compare to the blast furnace of hot takes that are emerging in the aftermath of Saturday's attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump. 

Ventura County Star columnist Tom Elias, for instance, maintains that Trump is "a victim of his own policies", suggesting that the attack wouldn't have happened it Trump and Republican lawmakers had banned so-called assault weapons. 

Meanwhile, the three justices Trump placed on the U.S. Supreme Court have unanimously nixed almost every gun-control law they’ve encountered, a prominent exception coming last spring when the court refused to take up an anti-assault weapon law in Maryland, not far from the Butler, PA site of the political rally where Trump was shot.

But as this summer began, the San Francisco-based Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reported that Pennsylvania has no law prohibiting transfer or possession of assault weapons. This one belonged to the shooter’s father.

So, it appeared likely to have been legal for attempted assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from nearby Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, to take his dad’s assault gun. There’s no doubt he shot Trump and blasted other bullets killing one man and wounding two others from a rooftop near the rally site. Had he wanted to get his own AR-15, he could have gotten one legally under Pennsylvania laws allowing purchase of long guns by almost anyone over 18.

Republicans in Pennsylvania and most other states steadily resist toughening those laws to make them like the ones forbidding handgun purchases in 22 states by those under age 21.

Pennsylvania also has no minimum age to buy long guns from unlicensed sellers. No permit is needed before purchase of automatic rifles, nor training after the purchase. The state’s GOP-controlled state senate has thwarted efforts to fix this.

It's not legal to steal a firearm, and at this point there's been no indication on the part of law enforcement to suggest that the assassin's father was aware his son had taken his rifle. But as Elias points out, under Pennsylvania law residents can purchase long guns at 18, and it doesn't look like there were any disqualifying factors that would have prevented the shooter from legally purchasing a rifle if he chose that route. What Elias leaves out is that it's also federal law, and multiple judges around the country have already concluded that gun bans for adults younger than 21 violates their constitutional rights. 

Elias also boldly claims that "automatic" rifles can be purchased without a permit, which would be news to anyone who's ever gone through the lengthy process of legally purchasing a machine gun, which requires an extensive background check and payment of a federal tax stamp. That may not be a permit, but it's still a government-issued permission slip. 

Of course, an automatic rifle wasn't used on Saturday, and Elias should be smart enough to know that. My suspicion is that he used the most incendiary language possible, even though it was incorrect, in an attempt to drum up fear and loathing for modern sporting rifles before turning his attention to California's restrictions. 

Republicans immediately after the Trump shooting blamed President Biden for his metaphorical remark the other day suggesting it was time again for Democrats to “put Trump in the bullseye,” rather than merely resisting calls that Biden stand down after his impaired performance in a June 27 debate with Trump. But the GOP can certainly look in any mirror to see who has consistently furthered the legal climate surrounding the attempt on Trump’s life.

Similar shootings are also possible in California under a 2021 decision from San Diego federal Judge Roger Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee whose 79-page opinion ruled unconstitutional this state’s controls on semi-automatic rifle ownership.

And rightly so. But what Elias fails to inform his readers is that Judge Benitez's decision was put on ice by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which means California's ban on so-called assault weapons remains in place. 

Conveniently, Elias also failed to mention that the most gun-controlled state in the Union was home to the most active shooting incidents last year. 

About that ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom last year said “It's time to wake up. Unless we enshrine a right to safety in the Constitution, we are at the mercy of ideologues like Judge Benitez. All of our gun safety laws that are proven to save lives are at risk.”

But Newsom’s effort to create a constitutional amendment to limit gun ownership and sales of assault weapons has gotten little traction even in other Democratic-controlled states like New York and Illinois.

That's because Newsom's proposal is nothing more than an attention-grabbing stunt from a man who's looking ahead to his own White House bid; either this year if Biden does withdraw from the race, or more likely in 2028. In order for an amendment to be enshrined in the Constitution, it would have to be ratified by 38 states, and there's not even the slightest possibility that's going to happen anytime soon. That's why the gun control lobby pretends that the Second Amendment is a toothless relic of the 18th century with no real meaning or importance today;  it's much easier to pretend that a right doesn't exist than it is to try to take it away from We the People. 

We're going to see plenty of arguments to that effect in the coming days; we don't need to amend the constitution, we just need the "courage" to turn tens of millions of lawful gun owners into felons overnight by criminalizing the possession and sale of the most common and popular rifles in the country. Ironically, those demands from Elias and others are likely to lead to an increase in gun sales, not the freeze that he's hoping for. Nothing drives gun sales like the threat they could be taken away, and if Democrats decide that their response to the attempt on Trump's life should revolve around a ban on modern sporting rifles, they shouldn't be surprised when it backfires bigly.  

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