gun ban

During the Christmas of 1914, some French, British, and German soldiers along World War I’s Western Front informally ceased hostilities in order to celebrate the holiday. The truce offered the combatants a brief moment to celebrate their shared humanity amidst the otherwise ghastly conflict.

No such luck for Americans weary of the United States’ all-consuming culture war. For anti-gun zealots, the Christmas season offers fresh opportunities to mold the next generation of obedient statists.

On Wednesday, Oregon’s Supreme Court refused to approve Initiative Petition 43 - a state ballot proposal for an assault weapon and high-capacity magazine ban - due to the initiative’s repeated use of vague and misleading language and outright false claims to describe the proposed law to voters. Furthermore, the court directed Oregon’s attorney general to revise the language of the initiative to comply with state laws requiring Oregonians to be accurately informed about the law’s key provisions at the ballot box.

Zero hour was approaching for the law-abiding gun owners of Deerfield, Illinois. The village had banned the ownership of so-called assault weapons, which in reality meant AR-15 rifles and any other firearm that carried a detachable magazine capable of holding ten or more rounds. That’s how Deerfield defined a so-called assault weapon.