In many states, the anti-gun groups seem to lose their minds at the mere suggestion the state might repeal a gun control law. That's true even if the law in question is just a mirror of federal law.
They want all the gun control laws, regardless of whether they're useful.
And, to be fair, these mirror laws can be, from a prosecution perspective. Local prosecutors can't prosecute people for violating federal law. They need a state law that mirrors it so they can prosecute, which is why these laws exist.
But the truth is that they're still a replication of existing law, so the fact that South Dakota sought to repeal their own restrictions on suppressors isn't shocking.
The amount of opposition, though, is.
A South Dakota Senate committee unanimously voted Thursday to advance legislation that removes silencers from the state’s definition of a controlled weapon.
Unregistered possession of a controlled weapon is a felony, which could result in two years of jail time.
“State regulation is unnecessary,” said Sen. Casey Crabtree, a Republican from Madison who introduced the legislation and is seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. House. “Gun suppressors are not weapons. They are simply hearing protection.”
A suppressor quiets the reports from gunfire, and supporters of deregulation say it’s a hearing protection measure for hunters and people in the surrounding area. Opponents of deregulation, including the national organization Everytown for Gun Safety, say silencers make it harder for bystanders or law enforcement to identify and react quickly to gunshots.
Nobody testified against the bill Thursday.
No one voted against it.
None.
Granted, they've also only got five Democrats in the House, but I'd have expected at least one of them to vote against it, even if it was a useless vote, but they didn't, and that's still surprising.
The fact that there's already a federal law on the topic may have helped pave the way for those Democrats to decide not to oppose the measure outright, but considering that could change in the very near future, a fight wouldn't have surprised me.
Crabtree's comments, while accurate, aren't likely to have convinced many on the anti-gun side that maybe suppressors aren't a terrible thing. Then again, the people on that side of things will likely engage in rock control if given enough time and enough rope, so we shouldn't be shocked by that.
I'm also surprised that no one even bothered to testify.
On the gun rights side of things, people testify even in states like California and New York, where we all know that the odds of the pro-gun argument holding sway are about as good as Sydney Sweeney coming to the house via unicorn to confess her undying love for me, while my wife watches with approval. It's just not happening, and we still at least try to put up a fight.
Anti-gunners didn't even try.
Yes, I find that interesting. It's not that they don't have the resources, and it's not that they're somehow better about marshalling those resources. Testimony can be delivered by volunteers from that state, after all, and it wouldn't cost the organization a thing.
While South Dakota is a low-population state, there are still bound to be some anti-gunners in there somewhere who could have testified, and they didn't.
Why?
Don't get me wrong, I'll take the wins wherever they come from, but it makes me wonder about how much the anti-gunners actually believe their own claims of how even gun owners oppose things like repeals of suppressor restrictions.
If they know it's untrue, that means they're outright lying, which surprises none of us, of course, but it's still worth mentioning.
Yeah, the vote won't change much in South Dakota, but it does suggest a lot about the state of the gun debate going forward.
