Democrats want to ban veterans from having certain guns because they might have PTSD?

So if the background checks for mental illness are passed would Feinstein they all retired military veterans to own these guns?  I suspect not.  

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: If I understand this, this adds an exemption of retired military. As I understand our bill, no issue has arose in this regard during the 10 years the expired ban was in effect and what we did in the other bill was exempt possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States. So that included active military.  

The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this. . . .

Newest piece in the WSJ: "The Facts About Assault Weapons and Crime"

Correction noted here.

My piece starts this way:

Warning about "weapons designed for the theater of war," President Obama on Wednesday called for immediate action on a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He said that "more of our fellow Americans might still be alive" if the original assault weapons ban, passed in 1994, had not expired in 2004. Last month, in the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) promised to introduce an updated version of the ban. She too warned of the threat posed by "military weapons." 

After the nightmare of Newtown, their concern is understandable. Yet despite being at the center of the gun-control debate for decades, neither President Obama nor Ms. Feinstein (the author of the 1994 legislation) seems to understand the leading research on the effects of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. In addition, they continue to mislabel the weapons they seek to ban. . . .

Copies of the studies discussed are here and here.  Feinstein's website is here.

On the most read list:

The WSJ published two letters on my op-ed.

Many thanks to John R. Lott Jr. ("The Facts About Assault Weapons and Crime," op-ed, Jan. 18). The arbitrary designation of "assault weapon" masks true capabilities and limitations among disparate weapons. As a former Marine, I learned the hard way which guns were most dangerous while battling the Taliban in Afghanistan. Insurgents with assault weapons such as AK-47s were easily dealt with, while the most dangerous rifle encountered was the British-made Lee-Enfield caliber .303 that could fire accurately from more than six-hundred meters away. They were traditional, wood-stocked, hunting-style rifles, bolt action, and many over a hundred years old.
Daniel Barbeau
Irvine, Calif.
 
Another day, another opinion article bemoaning the likely ineffectiveness of proposed gun legislation. John Lott bases his argument on the fact that the previous Federal Assault Weapons Ban barely affected the murder rate. Of course it didn't, for two reasons. Most murders are committed using handguns, and it wasn't a ban on the weapons, it simply banned the sale of new ones. The Australians understood this, which is why, after their own horrific mass killing, they not only banned the sale of these weapons, they also banned ownership, and financed a buyback program. And the result—no new mass killings in 17 years—has been what they hoped for.
Most of your contributors decry the proposed legislation without proposing an alternative. To his credit, Mr. Lott has an alternative, and it is chilling: citizens armed with semiautomatic weapons literally everywhere. I have been to countries where there are armed guards at every building, and I have been to ones where even the police don't normally carry weapons. I know where I feel safer.
Martin Herrington
Cincinnati

Dianne Feinstein claiming that she would never want to take people's guns away, but video from 1995 shows otherwise

Dianne Feinstein on wanting to ban guns

When discussing the federal assault weapons ban, Senator Dianne Feinstein said on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, February 5, 1995: "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here."

The Gun Control Debate on Sunday Morning Talk Shows

From the Hill newspaper:

President Obama on Sunday said he would make gun control a priority in his new term, pledging to put his “full weight” behind passing new restrictions on firearms in 2013. 

“I'm going to be putting forward a package and I'm going to be putting my full weight behind it,” said Obama in an interview aired on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I'm going to be making an argument to the American people about why this is important and why we have to do everything we can to make sure that something like what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary does not happen again.” . . .

From the LA Times:

. . . . Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) clashed sharply over Feinstein’s proposal to ban military-style assault weapons.“The question comes, what do we do about the growing sophistication of military weapons on the streets of our cities?” Feinstein said. . . .
Feinstein has proposed a prohibition on the type of semi-automatic rifles used in the Newtown shooting and other recent mass killings, adding that her bill would be much tougher than the loophole-ridden assault weapons ban in place from 1994-2004. Assault rifles already in circulation would remain legal, but the owners would have to register them and become licensed. Her bill also would ban high-capacity magazines.
Limiting guns is precisely the wrong answer, Graham responded.
Crime is at record lows in part because guns are more widespread than ever, he said. He endorsed the proposal by the National Rifle Assn. to put armed guards in every school. He said he owns an AR-15, the type of semi-automatic rifled used by Adam Lanza in the Newtown school shooting.
“What she is proposing is a massive intervention,” Graham said. “Gun sales are up, and crime is down.  You’re not going to be able to stop mass murderers with no criminal record just by taking my AR-15 and making me pay $200 and get my fingerprints and say I can’t buy another one.
"The best solution to protect children is to have somebody there to stop the shooter, not get everybody’s gun in the country." . . .

Howard Kurtz notes how differently David Gregory interviewed Wayne LaPierre and Obama.

He pressed Barack Obama on a few points in the president’s appearance this morning, designed to seize control of the media narrative one day before the fiscal cliff deadline. But this was not the armed-and-dangerous Gregory we saw last week when he faced down NRA chief Wayne LaPierre. . . .
Asking about Obama’s line that the Republicans don’t like saying yes to him, the host asked: “What is it about you, Mr. President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?” (No soul-searching followed as Obama gave a programmatic answer.) Once he had exhausted his cliff questions, Gregory moved on to second-term priorities, bringing up guns: “You know how hard this is. Do you have the stomach for the political fight for new gun control laws.”
There were also questions on Benghazi and the nomination for secretary of State, with Gregory asking: “Do you feel like you let your friend Susan Rice hang out there to dry a little bit?” . . . 

UPDATE: Claim is that Feinstein's gun control bill will be introduced on January 22nd. From Feinstein's website on January 5th. Links to highlighted material here and here.