Refuting Joe Cotchett’s Talking Points on NBC Bay Area Interview
On June 17th, NBC News Bay Area featured Brian Wang, owner of Monarch Defense and co-host of our 7/31 community event, in a debate against Joe Cochett of the Sam Licardo Administration in response to recently passed gun control measures. Brian Wang provided some excellent points and rebuttals, but only so much information can be discussed in the limited format. AAPI GO strongly condemns these measures so we have provided a written response which expands on the seven main points made by Mr. Cotchett below:
Written Response to Joe Cotchett’s Talking Points on NBC Bay Area Interview
The Founding Fathers had no concept of advanced weaponry at the time of writing the Bill of Rights.
This is historically ignorant. While AR15s did not exist at the time of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the Founding Fathers -- specifically James Madison, the author of the Second Amendment -- were well aware of the existence of repeating firearms (mainly rifles and some handguns). While uncommon and expensive, repeating rifles absolutely existed during the time of writing the Second Amendment with the earliest forms predating it by a few centuries. Only a decade after its ratification, Madison would pass legislation to promote gun technology innovation towards mass production and the implementation of repeat-fire capabilities.
AR15s are “Assault Rifles”.
AR stands for the ArmaLite Rifle, not Assault Rifle; ArmaLite being the name of the company. There is no real technical nor consistent definition of what an Assault Rifle is.
Kids are ordering “Ghost Guns” online and assembling them in their basement.
“Ghost Guns” are also a made-up term to describe a partially completed/assembled lower receiver of a firearm that can be bought and assembled without a traceable serial number. In California, you need to apply for a serial number before even buying lowers, and all purchases must go through an FFL and background check process. Additionally, it takes specific technical knowledge, skill, and equipment to assemble these parts into a functional firearm. There is no existing evidence indicating that “Ghost Guns” are used to commit crimes to a statistically significant degree.
A firearm bought in a store with the serial number scratched off becomes just as untraceable as a “Ghost Gun”. Additionally, even if a firearm turns up on a crime scene and has a serial number, it can only give law enforcement insight on who was the original legal purchaser of that gun. There is no record of how many times that gun may have changed hands via a private transaction, lost and subsequently recovered by someone else, or stolen before the crime was committed. Thus, a serial number provides limited and inconclusive evidence on who the person was that used it to commit the crime.
Lastly, while almost anyone can purchase an 80% lower, it is already a crime for minors (state laws may slightly differ on age) to assemble those 80% lowers into a functional firearm.
Source:
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-18-440.pdf
AR15s are the same as M16s.
M16s are military-issued combat rifles with fully-automatic firing capabilities, and are illegal for most citizens to possess unless certain highly stringent requirements are met. AR15s are semi-automatic-firing-only sporting/utility rifles, legal to most adult citizens unless they fail the background check.
Ethnicity has nothing to do with gun control.
While politicians may not be outwardly targeting minorities or certain ethnicities with their gun control legislation, it inherently does affect those people. On top of that, gun control legislation that imposes fees, taxes, and other financial restrictions negatively affects lower income citizens (which many happen to be minorities) and restricts them from exercising their Second Amendment rights. Thus, gun control unproportionally affects the less well-off compared to the wealthy.
Furthermore, gun control tends to be the most prevalent in high-crime urban areas with significant minority populations (see California, New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., etc.). These law-abiding citizens, who are essentially disarmed, are now at the mercy of criminals who have no regard for the law and will illegally possess and use firearms. Now the residents have no choice but to either arm themselves illegally for self protection, or potentially become victims.
Lastly, gun control does indeed have a racist history. We don’t have to look very far back to see modern-day regulations stemming from the desire to disarm the Black Panthers during the civil rights movement. A little further back and we see race-based restrictions on free blacks in the post-Civil War era with the KKK being enforcers of those regulations. And obviously before that, slaves were not able to own firearms.
Source:
https://foac-pac.org/uploads/Tahmassebi-Gun%20Control%20%26%20Racism.pdf
https://theacru.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Truth-About-Gun-Control.pdf
Gun control will stop criminals from getting their hands on guns and committing crime.
Restricting gun ownership for law abiding citizens only hurts them, not criminals. There are numerous examples of states with strict gun control laws with little to no effect on gun violence statistics (again, see California, New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., etc.). Even countries with the strictest laws still routinely have mass shootings (e.g. Russia). In countries where firearms are outright banned, crimes with other weapons skyrockets as criminals will only find other means to commit them (e.g. China and the UK with knives and blunt objects).
Per Journalist Stephen Gutowski of the Reload, “ATF trace data indicates it often takes years or decades for a gun to be used in a crime after it’s sold. In 2019, the agency reported it took an average of 8.29 years between when a traced gun was sold at a store and when it was used in a crime.” Also mentioned in the article and in other studies, like the UC Davis study using CDC data, even with gun sales and ownership dramatically increasing over the past three decades, gun homicides have dropped and stagnated.
Additionally, surveys of those who’ve committed gun crimes indicate they aren’t getting their guns through legal purchases from gun retailers. Instead, they rely on family, friends, and illegal means for obtaining their guns. A 2016 study done by the University of Chicago found less than 1 percent of the criminals surveyed reported legally buying a gun from a store.”
Source:
https://thereload.com/analysis-gun-sales-probably-arent-driving-the-murder-spike-member-exclusive/
https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/facts.html
https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/fuo.pdf
There is no difference between owning a car and owning a gun.
There are some similarities but many differences. The main difference is that owning a car is not a right, it is a privilege. We do not have an amendment or a clause in the Constitution that gives us the right to own a car; we do however have one for owning a gun.
If owning a car is the same as owning a gun, why are the age restrictions different? Should everyone be able to own a gun at the age of 16? When someone kills people with an automobile, why are there not calls for restrictions on car ownership? Cars kill more people than guns do. Car ownership is normalized, why is gun ownership not normalized? You need a background check to obtain a driver’s license just like when you apply for a concealed carry license or license to carry, but you don’t need a background check to buy a car unlike with a gun where that is a requirement. Lastly, if owning a car is the same as owning a gun, why do we need to impose audio and video recording requirements for gun stores? We don’t require the DMV or car dealerships to implement the same kind of recordkeeping for every transaction.
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