The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Susan Young is the Bangor Daily News opinion editor.
Ban assault weapons. It’s a seemingly simple and, after last month’s horrific shooting in Lewiston, increasingly popular idea. I support it, as does the Bangor Daily News editorial board. Maine 2nd District Rep. Jared Golden made headlines when he switched his position to support a ban on assault rifles after the horrific events in Lewiston, where he lives. He gained further attention for the unusual step, at least for a politician, of acknowledging he was wrong before in opposing a ban and asked for forgiveness for that stance.
But, how do you ban assault weapons? Simple, some would say. You just pass a law banning them.
What that law says, how it defines assault weapons, is critically important. And, that’s where the simple notion that politicians either support or oppose such a ban gets much more complicated.
While Golden was praised for his newfound support of an assault weapons ban (which 1st District Rep. Chellie Pingree has long supported), Maine’s senators have been criticized for their lack of support in recent years.
Part of the problem is that the situation isn’t that black and white. I and the BDN editorial board, and many others across the country, have fallen into the trap of characterizing the situation too simply: Either you support a ban or you don’t.
At the risk of sounding like apologists for Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King, their positions are actually not that different from Golden’s.
When Collins and King say they don’t support the most recent version of an assault weapons ban, many people tune out or turn angry at the senators. They stop listening when the senators say they want to focus on the capability, not the cosmetics, of the guns that will be banned.
It may sound like King and Collins are deflecting or getting too bogged down in details.
But, the details matter. How a law that would prohibit civilians from possessing what are essentially weapons of war is written is vitally important. Make it too specific and gun makers and gun owners will find a way around it. Make it too broad and it will be meaningless, and likely tossed out by a court.
The 1994 assault weapons ban is instructive here. While many hail it as a success, research shows that its impact on reducing gun violence was mixed, although some types of gun crimes were reduced. One reason for that is that the bill was very specific in what types of guns were banned, which allowed gunmakers and gun owners to work around the law.
King, Collins and others are working to avoid similar problems with new legislation.
Like Golden and Pingree, Collins and King want to get the most dangerous weapons off the market. But what is banned and how that language is written matters, a lot.
Say, lawmakers passed a law banning the AR-15, a gun of choice of many mass shooters. Gun makers could soon be making the same or a similar gun with a different name. That wouldn’t help much.
I realize I’m somewhat in the realm of fantasy here in thinking that Congress would pass any type of gun ban legislation. But, for the sake of this example (and for the sake of the grieving families in Lewiston and too many other communities across America), I have to hope that something can pass.
Rather than banning specific weapons that are easily recognizable or that are frequently in the headlines, it makes more sense to prohibit guns based on their capabilities, such as a rapid rate of fire, for example.
It also makes sense to ban high-capacity magazines. Even if some version of an assault weapons ban were to be enacted, thousands of these guns are already owned by Americans. They aren’t going to be taken away. So restricting the sale and purchase of the ammunition that is often used by mass shooters is a prudent step to curbing gun violence.
Saying yes to an assault weapons ban is the beginning, not the end, of the hard work of actually limiting the availability of these guns. That work should be a priority for Congress, and the Maine Legislature, before another massacre is added to the long list that Lewiston tragically joined last month.
