Do you support banning semi-autos? Yes or no.

[Lee-Lee]

164. No- because policy should be based on facts not emotions

Sweeping bans of a whole class of any item or behavior need to be based on a clear scientific or statistical basis and supported by facts that justify it.

That means showing that those items are highly likely to cause harm, or to demonstrate that proportional to the amount of impact on people who are not criminals that the amount of harm reduced is worth the imapact.

And lastly, that the amount of money and effort spent on enforcing compliance with such a law really is the most impactful way to reduce violence.

The idea of a semi-auto ban fails on all those standards.

The likelihood that any individual semi-auto firearm will be used in a crime is very, very, very tiny. So the impact will be largely felt by law abiding people who have done no wrong and will do no wrong just to hope to reduce crime by a small portion of the population.

On top of that, it would be insanely expensive to implement. There is no record of who has what, andthere would be massive non-compliance. Just look at the rate of non-compliance with just registration in NY and CT. And that would end up being and insanely expensive program to implement when it's all factored in. You would end up with a decades long huge federal police action on a scale larger than the "war on drugs".

If you really want to reduce gun violence all the money and manpower that would take would be better spent on targeted programs on the people likely to commit gun violence, or any violence, or to be victims and focused on them.

So spend that money you would allocate for the massive law enforcement operation and massive increase in police agencies and focus it where it will have more impact. Most gun deaths are suicides, so start with increased access and outreach to those most at risk to suicide and use money to fund that and better mental health access. Past that the vast majority of gun deaths are gang or drug related between urban males between 16-24. We know that population is most at risk of commuting or being victims of violence (gun or otherwise) and targeted programs to reduce the factors that cause this and teach them better conflict resolution skills would yield far more results dollar per dollar than any ban. The third category are women harmed by an abusive spouse. A semi auto ban won't age g this number at all, but more money spent on enforcement of domestic violence laws, intervention programs and other programs proven to reduce domestic violence would be money far better spent.

The pot of money is finite. So policies should be focused on what will work best, not what sounds best because it's a simplistic answer. If you want to prioritize massive spending on a huge increase in the number of police officers to enforce a law confiscating hundreds of millions of guns from people who don't want to give them up instead of the solutions I listed above then you don't. Really want to reduce violence, you just want to focus on guns.