Shannon Watts Backs Rhode Island Gun Grabbers Reach For Assault Weapon Ban

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

There’s nothing an anti-gunner likes more than a good gun ban. After all, it’s their endgame. Despite all their rhetoric about how they’re not really coming for our guns, it’ll be one gun law after another until there aren’t any more guns.

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As such, I really think banning types of guns satiates a need they have on a subconscious level.

Which is probably why the anti-gun zealots in Rhode Island are making a play for an assault weapon ban.

The national founder of a gun control advocacy group was in Rhode Island Wednesday as part of a continued push to pass a ban on assault-style rifles like the AR-15, which are banned in Massachusetts and Connecticut but remain legal in Rhode Island and on the federal level.

Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo and Attorney General Peter Neronha are pushing for three bills this year: an assault weapons ban, a limit on the number of rounds that a magazine can hold, and a bill to ban most guns within 300 feet of a school.

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, flew in from Colorado to attend an advocacy day for the bills. She founded the group, recognizable by their red T-shirts, after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

“Many of our volunteers are gun owners, they’re married to gun owners,” Watts said in an interview with Eyewitness News. This is in no way about undermining the Second Amendment. This is just about restoring the responsibilities that go along with gun rights.

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However, Watts is wrong.

For example, banning guns within 300 feet of schools–100 yards–would have a major impact on people lawfully carrying firearms.

Without reading the bills just yet, I’m going to assume that the exceptions to those 100 yards are for people who live that close to a school. After all, schools are often built in neighborhoods. That means without the exception, those who live there would suddenly have to either move or get rid of their guns.

That’s a problem.

Another problem is that distance is going to affect people trying to go about their daily lives. Stop at a convenience store to get some gas and a drink? Congratulations, you’re now a felon. There’s a school just 75 yards away you didn’t know about.

Watts talks about “restoring responsibilities that go along with gun rights,” but I have yet to see anything other than restrictions from her and her crowd. Nothing but new rules that inhibit when and where people can carry a gun.

There’s been nothing from them about firearms education or working with gun groups to find ways to encourage more responsible behavior.

You know who does, though?

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The National Rifle Association.

That’s right, the very group Shannon despises and derides at every opportunity is also one of the leading voices in firearm education and in encouraging gun owners to act responsibly. If Shannon really wanted that, she should have considered joining the NRA.

The other two measures being talked about, however, give the lie to Watts and her claims. What does banning a category of firearms have to do with instilling responsibility? Magazine restrictions?

Shannon, you need to knock it off. No one believes you. More than that, we’d respect you more if you didn’t pretend you were anything other than what you are, a shrill harpy dedicated to destroying the Second Amendment and our right to keep and bear arms.

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