President Obama Just Offered Two Bad Ideas for Fighting Gun Violence

From Slate via H/t AT Instapundit: First, the LA Times reject's Obama's gun-ban plan, now it's Slate:

Although well-meaning—supporters genuinely want to keep military-style weapons “off the streets” and guns out of the hands of suspected threats—both measures are wrongheaded.

There’s no doubt assault weapons—there’s no official definition for the term, which makes identifying them for prohibition difficult, if not impossible—are scary to many Americans, especially with their presence in high-profile shootings like the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, or the theater killings in Aurora, Colorado. But out of 73 mass killers from 1982 to 2015, just 25 used rifles of any kind, including military-style weapons. Most used revolvers, shotguns, and semi-automatic handguns. Which gets to a related point: We might feel safer if we ban “assault weapons,” but we won’t be safer. Of the 43,000 Americans killed with guns since 2010, just a fraction—3.5 percent—were killed with rifles.

The vast majority of gun murder victims are killed with handguns. But a handgun ban isn’t on the table, and for good reason—with its opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court stated an individual right to gun ownership. And under Heller, handguns are weapons in “common use” for “traditionally lawful purposes” like defending a home. A ban would be unconstitutional.