Semi-automatic is semi-automatic any way you slice it. They are going after weapons that “look like the real thing” because, for instance, you can affix a bayonet (a fucking bayonet!) to it. And it completely ignores super-powerful bolt-action hunting rifles that can blow a grapefruit-sized hole in a man or animal at 900 yards.
I understand banning fully automatic weapons…civilians don’t need them, and this isn’t even taking into account their innacuracy, let alone their preferred usage as a drive-by weapon.
Wow, I’ve been looking and that’s the first concrete anti-gun position I’ve seen Obama take during this election. Ten or fifteen years ago the surveys he filled out were vehemently anti-gun, but in this election he seems to skirt the issue.
I keep hearing people (mostly on this board) say, “the Democrats have abandoned the issue of gun control because it’s a loser issue.”
If that’s true, WHY are they trying to renew the AWB? If they really abandoned the issue, why is it in their platform at all?
Why did Joe Biden, after the Virginia Tech incident in which the only weapons used were handguns, say “we should never have let the assault weapons ban expire”?
They can’t abandon it any more than the Republicans can abandon the Religious Right. They’re stuck with it. That doesn’t mean that they can or will act on it, and it doesn’t mean that they will be successful even if they do. They remember the pounding they took in 1994 after the AWB was passed, they remember how the law sunsetted and nothing happened, and they know that of all the things they could be working on, this is not it.
I’m not worried. Not in the least. I may ultimately regret that conclusion, but I’m not holding my breath until I do.
I’m probably just too young to remember this but what “pounding” did the Dems take in 1994? Clinton got re-elected! How is that a “pounding?”
Anyway I am not convinced that gun rights are safe because of, as control-z said, the number of very anti-gun pols in high positions especially Biden himself if he becomes VP and I think he probably will. If the AWB was thought to be such a loser issue Biden wouldn’t have been bringing it up as recently as last year. I think the Dems’ anti gun agenda has been hindered by this Bush presidency and I wouldn’t be surprised if they resurrected the issue once they get in charge again. If these financial problems persist into the beginning of Obama’s administration especially (and with financial problems will probably come higher crime,) he might pass some anti-gun stuff as a feel-good measure. Easy stuff like magazine capacity bans and taxes on ammunition. I mean, who needs 30 rounds? Just a common sense restriction, right-o?
In my opinion the Democrats and Obama understand to stay far away from the second amendment. It is a loser for them and they know it. If Obama feels the need to go after gun rights watch the Democrats scurry for cover in congress if it would come up for a vote. The Brady bill was a disaster for them, I’m pretty sure that they don’t want to revisit that issue any time soon.
Obama is, for better or worse, really good at spin. Whenever he’s brought up a gun control issue, it’s always been padded in that lets people pick out the bits that they’re interested in. The pro-gun-rights crowd sees him mention that he supports the second as an individual right, and they’re put at ease. The pro-gun-control crowd sees the follow-up of common-sense gun laws, and they see their cause in Obama’s words. The end result is that unless you’re reading his words with a heavy dose of paranoia, it’s all too easy to get deceived by the bits that fit your own view.
Out of all the Obama gun-related stuff I’ve seen, his support of the Vitter Amendment (preventing the confiscation of legally owned firearms just because there’s a natural disaster) is the only concrete pro-gun-rights thing I’ve seen from him. Biden also voted for the amendment. Only 16 senators voted against it, and they seem to mainly be the standard anti-gun-rights crowd (Feinstein, Boxer, Schumer, and so forth).
You’d think so, but they seem incapable of avoiding that mistake. Even if they’re smart enough to avoid direct legislation, Obama’s views are out there, and he’ll be in a position to more subtly affect gun-related policy via appointments and executive orders.
And for the sake of balance, it’s worth pointing out that the Republicans can’t seem to let the abortion issue rest the way it is.
In both cases, it’s an issue important to the core supporters that only serves to alienate the middle ground.
As Larry Borgia said, a lot of things caused the turnover, but there was a massive blitz leading up to the passage of the AWB and following its passage from gun groups, particularly the NRA. It has been asserted (and is arguable) that the AWB was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back and the turnover was in large part a result of that.
Now, while it is arguable, it is also not something that I think the Democrats want to confirm first-hand. They found out in 1994 that gun control was a loser, and the only people beating that particular drum are the people that never stop beating that drum: McCarthy, Schumer, Feinstein, Kennedy, Boxer, Lautenberg, you know who they are. Even with the majority the Democrats have now they can’t get McCarthy’s annual bill out of committee.
I’m going to have to plead some ignorance on the issue especially because I wasn’t really following politics when my age was in the single digits, but I can’t see the AWB being a straw that broke the camel’s back simply because I don’t think it’s an issue that a lot of people even care about at all. The majority of Americans don’t know what an “assault weapon” is, and they think that a clip and a magazine are the same thing. How could the banning of “assault weapons” be something that a significant number of people really got up in arms about, enough to cost Democrats the Congress?
I pretty firmly subscribe to the notion that history repeats itself and if something happened then, it could also happen now.
I doubt they’ll renew the AWB under Obama (even though I did just buy an evil, evil black assault weapon, in case I never get another chance.) I think if any gun restrictions are going to take place in the following years, they’ll probably be more underhanded and less high-profile. Ammunition taxes, magazine capacity restrictions, stuff like that.
As discussed previously, the issue of guns for the democrats is eerily paralleled by the abortion issue for the republicans. Both are issues important to a key demographic in their base but both are big losers in the larger electorate.
To wit:
City centers tend towards being staunchly anti-gun. The country as a whole is not. The democrats must keep the city centers to win elections at the national level.
The religious right tends to have a core group that is vehemently anti-abortion. The country as a whole is uncomfortable with abortion but doesn’t want it to go away. The republicans must keep that core group to win elections at the national level.
And thus we get insincerity on both sides. And sops thrown to both groups in terms of fringe legislation and ideas tossed out there by the fringe groups that might get lip service but no REAL support by the core of each party unless there’s an indication through polling that the country as a whole has chosen sides on the issue.
