The facts around Charlie Kirk's assassination don't lend themselves to the typical anti-gun talking points, but the media and their allies in the gun control lobby are doing their best to use the tragedy to advance their agenda.
Over the weekend I got an email from a reader named Rick, who said that "ever since Charlie Kirk's assassination, much has been made of the "high powered" Mauser 30-06 sniper rifle by the media and probably stoked by the ATF. They have vilified millions of Mauser hunting rifle owners with implications of being snipers with an evil weapon."
Rick's right. Just look at this report from NBC News titled "Charlie Kirk assassin's alleged gun was powerful, vintage and hard to trace".
In the frantic hours after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, investigators discovered a gun in a wooded area near the scene in northern Utah. The federal agents seeking to trace the weapon faced a daunting task.
It was a decades-old, German-made rifle built for use by the military in both World Wars, according to multiple law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation. So old that it may have been brought into the U.S. before laws were enacted in the 1960s requiring guns to be affixed with serial numbers or other marks to enable tracing.
There are believed to be millions of such weapons in homes across America.
Fortunately for investigators, the alleged shooter was identified through other means — his family — who convinced him to surrender to police. But the alleged use of such a vintage weapon has raised fears among some former federal agents of the potential for other would-be assassins to seek out these powerful, accurate and hard-to-trace firearms.
“Short of the security afforded to the president, there’s no way to defend against the threat posed by this,” said Scott Sweetow, a retired official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Later in the story NBC News does admit that Mausers are "ideal weapons to take down medium to large game like deer, elk and even bear," and are hardly ever used in crimes. But after that brief acknowledgment, NBC News pivoted right back to the fearmongering.
But they are, in some ways, ideally suited for use in sniper-style killings. Because they are so ubiquitous and beloved by hunters and recreational shooters, a person toting such a rifle in a place like Utah would not arouse any suspicion.
And they are so well made that, with a decent scope, a person with basic firearm proficiency can strike a target from 150 to 200 yards away, roughly the distance of the shot fired by the Kirk assassin.
“You do not have to have gone to sniper school or have been any type of champion marksmen,” said Brian Greco, a retired NYPD officer who served in the counterterrorism unit and a Marine Corps veteran.
I'm guessing that a person carrying a hunting rifle on a college campus (or any other urban setting) would arouse suspicion, even in Utah. As for NBC's breathless claim that "anyone with basic firearm proficiency" can hit a target 200 yards away with the "well made" Mauser, the same is true for virtually every hunting rifle on the market today. That's what they're designed for, after all.
After being sure to mention that Lee Harvey Oswald also used a bolt action rifle to assassinate John F. Kennedy, which in turn helped lead to the Gun Control Act of 1968, NBC News then obliquely suggests that Kirk's assassination could spark a round of gun control legislation targeting pre-GCA firearms.
Gun control advocates have long been pushing for more restrictions, such as a ban on semiautomatic, military-style firearms like AR-15s. But they acknowledge that such a ban would not cover a bolt-action rifle like the Mauser 98.
“It’s a hunting rifle, and people hunt legitimately,” said Greg Lickenbrock — author of the book “Safe Gun Ownership for Dummies” and a senior firearms analyst for Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group founded by Mike Bloomberg.
He said the use of this kind of gun in a violent crime highlights the gaps in law enforcement’s ability to track down the owners.
“This is a very obvious example of the tracing system having huge holes in it,” Lickenbrock added.
People also legitimately act in self-defense, legitimately shoot competitively and recreationally, and legitimately collect firearms, but that hasn't stopped Everytown from targeting gun owners who engage in those lawful activities. But with anti-gunners currently targeting AR-15s, Glocks, and other semi-automatic firearms with limited success, pushing for an outright ban on bolt-action rifles probably isn't the cards in the short term.
“I am definitely not a ‘more government’ type of person, but as someone who takes firearms safety seriously and has worked with firearms for 30 years through the Marine Corps, NYPD and now as an armed guard for a Long Island school district, I do feel there has to be accountability to these older and unserialized firearms,” Greco said.
“A vintage firearm in grandpa’s old trunk is cool,” he added, “but it also unfortunately gives access to a firearm to someone who may otherwise have not had access or could have been denied access.”
And what does "accountability" look like to Greco? Putting someone in prison because they didn't serialize grandpa's hunting rifle or kept it stored in the attic instead of locked up in a safe? I don't know about you, but that sounds like "more government" to me.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Democrats in Congress and in blue states introduce bills requiring every firearm be serilalized, even those that were manufactured before serial numbers were required by the Gun Control Act of 1968. I don't think that legislation would get far on Capitol Hill, but in California, New York, and New Jersey, I suspect the gun control lobby will find plenty of lawmakers who are receptive to the idea of "doing something" about older firearms... even the hunting rifles they're repeatedly assured us are acceptable to them.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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