I was talking with a buddy today, and he mentioned the expiration of the “Assault Weapons Ban”, and asked me what I thought about it (he, knowing I have “assault weapons”) [sub]you note the quotations?[/sub].
As I explained to him, I’m a positive believer that the term “assault weapon” was a term picked up by the media as a demonizing term to apply to scary looking weapons, and it has no concrete definition or meaning, except to those that need a label to apply to a particular firearm. “Shotgun”, “rifle”, “pistol”, “revolver”, all have definitive meanings, but I’m rather offended by the term “assault weapon”. Just because I have a rifle that looks like a military weapon doesn’t mean it is, or it will be used as such. Any weapon used in an assault (ranging the spectrum from simple assault and battery with a baseball bat through robbing a bank in North Hollywood with fully automatic rifles) becomes an “assault weapon”, but by nature, it is not inherent in the make or model of a particular firearm.
After the term came into use, the legislatures of different states picked up on the particular term and began banning certain models of firearms because they were “assault weapons”. They based legislature on a flimsy catch phrase, with such a broad meaning as to be without a solid scope or definition. And that, my friends, is bad government.
But those are my two cents . . . Bring your pocket change. I’ll happily listen.
I thought the term “assault weapon” was first used by the Israelis to describe the uzi when they put it on the market. I’ve tried to find an etimology for the term, but no luck.
I have found deals upon deals upon deals from people who didn’t know what they had, and I bought 'em cheap. Then, I turned 'em around and sold 'em to good friends and colleagues I knew would use them for $10 a pop.
No magic location at all. I bought a handful in North Dakota, Arizona, and Montana.
Tripler
I’ll keep my eyes open for you. Shoot me an e-mail.
A real Uzi is a submachine gun. Civilian Uzis in the U.S. were semiautomatic carbines.
“Uzi” is a term that’s bandied about a lot by people who know nothing about them. (Not saying that’s you, mangeorge; just people in general.) That, and “AK-47”. People use those as generic terms. It’s like calling all light aircraft “Piper Cubs” (or, more likely, “pipercubs”) or “Cessnas”.
Personally, I think the furor over “assault weapons” stems from Miami Vice. I don’t remember any bad press about them until that TV show depicted them as the “weapon of choice” of drug dealers.
I’m rather offended by the term “weapon”. IMO, a firearm is not a weapon unless it is used, or intended by the individual possessing it, as a weapon. My firearms are just “firearms”; not “weapons”.
I was watching FOX news tonight, and I’m shown a poster of Osama with an AK-47. The caption is something like “The terrorists of 9/11 can’t wait for 9/13.”
I says to meself, “Something like this can only come from one place!” So’s I type in the letters and wal-lah! Thar she blows!
In the same newscast, I hear about John Kerry (or his campaign, which I hardly distinguish one from the other) accusing George Bush and/or his campaign of selling FEAR to get votes.
This from a man who gets an F from the NRA, but an A+ from Sarah Brady? And never met a gun control law he was willing to vote “NO” on?
Yes, it’s the military submachine gun I’m referring to. It was quite the deal at the time (still is, I guess), and many militaries (and wannabees) lusted for them. I seem to remember seeing them put forth as the “Ultimate Assault Weapon”, or something like that. The US bought a passle, I’m sure. The secret service, for example. Miami Vice. What a show. Broke some new ground, soundtrack wise.
mangeorge: the Uzi was developed by Usiel Gal, and manufactured by Israeli Military Industries. You might also be interested to know that the “K” in AK-47 stands for Kalishnikov (Mikhail), its inventor.
Tripler:now ya tell me. Sheesh! :dubious: If I bought another magazine, I’d have to break down and buy a bigger gun safe.
I currently have enough loaded magazines to keep the local PD at bay for several hours :eek:. I don’t really feel the need for any more.
Ok gents, ok! :eek:
I’m just trying to remember for sure where I first heard the term “assault weapon”. Maybe it was “assault rifle”, but that wouldn’t be technically correct, would it? The actual gun dates way back to the 50’s, and I’m pretty sure I heard the term before there was a large anti-gun movement.
Bullshit, my friends, is bullshit. Unless it’s cowshit. Or steershit.
More trivia: The AK-47 was superceded by a modernized version featuring a stamped receiver that was cheaper to make and lighter to carry. The AKM was the Avtomat Kalashnikova Modernizerovanyi. (At least, as nearly as I can spell it.)
The “AR” rifles (AR-10, AR-15, AR-18, e.g.) were created by Eugene Stoner. I thought it amusing that the SDMB had posters named Kalashnikov and Eugene Stoner.
I don’t consider that as relevant. The cop used a machine gun he had signed out through his department (IIRC), which isn’t affected by the machine gun ban. Cops can still do that. So it’s not a case of private/civilian machine gun ownership.
For clarity’s sake, an “assault rifle” is a real military term with a universally accepted definition. “Assault weapons” do not include assault rifles - but they’re meant to sound like they do.
I’ll bet some legislators are pretty unhappy they went ahead and allowed the amendment of the sunset clause to be added to the bill to get the general support it needed to send the whole thing on through…ah, that crazy Congress of 1993-94. Maybe sunset clauses are a good thing for some other laws as well, so the People (meaning used loosely, it’s actually the Congress) can see if there is enough effectiveness and/or support for renewing the legislation after they’ve tried it out for a while.
Kerry’s not getting a single vote trying to demonize Bush (somehow) for not forcing the issue of renewal, nor is he losing Bush a single vote. Gun control is an issue so dramatically polarized that I doubt his harping over it will do anything whatsoever other than make him sound, well, rather shrill and silly, from what I heard on NPR this night.
Any weapon that fires more than one shot with a single pull of the trigger is legally defined as a machine gun and as has been earlier noted is irrelevant to the AWB.
FWIW new machine guns have been effectively banned since 1986 when the so-called gun owner’s protection act forbade the registration of any new machine guns for civilian ownership. You can still own a machine gun if you jump through all the legal hoops but only one that was already registered before that date. This has really only served to dramatically inflate the price of registered machine guns so even cheap bullet hoses like the MAC are well over $2,000.
Also FWIW there is organized machine gun competition in Phoenix. Rio Salado holds a submachinegun match four times a year and we get 35-40 shooters. I shoot a friend’s H&K MP5k-PDW since he’s busy with his Sten, Uzi and Carl Gustav.
Even in your thread, there’s a lot of people that mention that the term “assault weapon” has no definite meaning, but was bandied about by the anti-gunners. I knew it was first introduced to the lexicon back around WWII.
I don’t think there is a definite origin. Kinda like the term “cool”. Like, “mangeorge, yer pretty cool. . .” We all know what it means, but define it specifically.
Tripler
But that’s not to detract from the truth. Yer definitely cool.
An interesting question. Does anyone know what the gun control laws were like in Germany in the early 1930’s, out of curiosity?
In any case, for me (and this is an issue that I don’t have a fully formed opinion on) that side of things definitely weighs in pro-gun. As in, if the only thing guns could ever be used for would be to repel nazis, then heck yeah, we should all have guns. The question is whether the benefit to society of that potential repelling (and, of course, even when the Jews did have guns, it only slowed the nazis down, it didn’t stop them (see Warsaw)) balances out the detriment to society of having that number of extra guns floating around.
And of course this thread has only focussed on banning vs. non-banning, which (imho) pretty clearly violates the 2nd amendment, as opposed to the far more interesting issues of registration, background checks, etc.
