It was inevitable that someone would use the recent Dallas shooting as an excuse to push for more gun control.
President Obama renewed his push for gun control measures Friday as he condemned the “senseless murders” of five Dallas police officers in a coordinated sniper attack overnight. . . “We also know that when people are armed with powerful weapons, unfortunately it makes attacks like these more deadly and more tragic, and in the days ahead we’re going to have to consider those realities as well,” Obama said.
One doesn’t have to be a gun enthusiast to detect the flaw in President Obama’s argument.
The rifle used in the Dallas shooting is an SKS, the prototype of which was used by the Russian army during World War II. This author has found no evidence that the SKS is any more powerful than an ordinary modern-day hunting rifle. Indeed, the Russians replaced the SKS with the AK-47, leaving the SKS to be used primarily as a ceremonial rifle.
Unlike the Sig Saur MCX and the AR-15, the SKS doesn’t have a pistol grip and doesn’t have a stock that can be adjusted or folded away. The SKS was originally designed to be loaded one cartridge at a time or loaded with the use of a stripper clip, although the weapon can be altered so that a detachable magazine can be used.
Would more stringent background checks have stopped Johnson? Answer: No. Johnson was an honorably-discharged Army reservist, and he had no connection to terrorism. He could have acquired any legal firearm even if so-called “loopholes” had been closed.
Being that Johnson was a sniper firing from a distant location, it didn’t matter what capacity of detachable magazines that he used. The way that Johnson set up his crime made the details about his weapons irrelevant.
If anything, the Dallas shooting has provided ammunition to people who say that further restrictions on guns would not stop mass shootings either by terrorists or by lunatics.
So, perhaps it wouldn’t do any good to prevent further retail sales of the AR-15 or 30-round magazines. Even if one thought the opposite before, one can change one’s mind when additional data is presented, and Johnson has presented it.
To learn more about the features and operation of the SKS, watch the following video.
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