I was reading the news, and I thought it was perhaps time for an update on the mass hysteria, murder, theft, and general panic in the streets that the sunset of the Assault Weapons Ban was going to cause. I thought perhaps that I hadn’t noticed only because I was in a small out of the way town. I thought perhaps the press was keeping quiet about the total carnage that was being inflicted by those ugly black guns to keep the panic down in cities. I thought that there would be a massive run on purchases and usage by criminals because we all know that a bayonet is an essential part of the criminal repertoire. I thought for certain that with the proliferation of high capacity magazines we would be engaged daily in long, prolonged shootouts.
Now THIS is funny. The term “assault weapon” was created by the gun control lobby, was defined by them, and because it didn’t have the effect they were hoping for they claim that the weapons weren’t really banned. In some respects they are right: for instance, they got all the ugly black guns, but ignored the fact that a .223 Remington is an M-16 no matter what it looks like. The whole law was style over substance, and they wonder why it didn’t have any effect? It didn’t have any effect for one reason and one reason only: they didn’t scare the public enough.
They tried. They surely tried. As the sunset approached there was doom and gloom all over the place. The failure of the evil to materialize will hopefully act as a wakeup call for the next time this is tried. Simply put: feel-good measures do not work. Better luck next time, I guess.
Sadly “anti’s” rarely learn and I feel quite sure that the next “feel good measure” is already in the pipeline (look at the furor over the .50 in California, like a criminal would spend that kind of money, sheesh!). I told folks for years that the “ugly gun ban” had almost no affect (other than raising prices), Nobody cared as the ban played well on tv.
Another knee-jerk law that was done purely for political grand-standing purposes (although I am having difficulty thinking of any that aren’t these days). The shooting at 101 California was the moment of opportunity for the anti-gun lobby to eat away at the 2nd Amendment.
The definition of assault weapons was purely cosmetic. Take two equivalent rifles except that one has a fancy scope. The scope makes the rifle an “Assault Weapon” because it looks more scary.
Personally, I think a sawed off shotgun is scarier than a fancy rifle.
I do not think that is true. Hasn’t the military been using the term for aeons? Here’s a description of a Shoulder-Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon (SMAW) deployed in 1984. I bet a little digging would turn up the term in sources as far back as WWII.
Yes, I’ve always wanted a full-auto shotgun with which to defend my home, and go duck hunting.
All I can say is that y’all have been lucky so far!
Just last night a guy kicked in my door and hosed me and the wife and the kitty down with an AK-47.
Fortunately, you just can’t aim them fully automatic weapons… all his rounds ended up in the ceiling, and he was most apologetic before he left. Now I gotta re-paint! :smack:
Basically, anti-gun people could not ban ‘assault rifles’ because A) The firearms they were trying to get rid of are not, by definition, ‘assault rifles’; and B) Assault rifles have been strictly controlled for many decades. So they needed another term.
It may be that the military has a weapon that is termed an assault weapon, but here is what is seen as the conventional definition:
It has, in this context, always been a political appellation. An assault rifle is included within that definition, but the definition is intentionally broad so as to encompass as many weapons as possible under the blanket of fear. What better way to make people go along with stuff than to make them scared of it? People think “assault weapon” and they think of full-auto stuff like in the movies, not knowing that weapons like that have been severely controlled since 1934.
Strictly speaking, ‘arms’ can cover a lot of things; but there need to be some restrictions in a society. Where I draw the line is here: If an arm must be pointed at a target in order to hit it directly, then I think it should be protected by the Second Amendment. Rifles and shotguns fall into this category. If an arm does not have to be aimed at, and hit, the target directly, then it should not be protected. Examples of the latter would be anything that explodes such as grenades, mines, nuclear weapons, etc.; or other such weapons as chemical or biological agents.
Incidentally, you can own a tank. I believe you can, even in England. But you cannot own a working canon.
One thing that really got up my nose was the ban on selling Bell AH-1 Cobra helicopters to civilians. The helicopter itself is just an aircraft. Without its weapons, it’s just an expensive thing to fly around in. But it looks scary. It makes no difference that without weapons it’s about as offensive as a Cessna or a JetRanger; if it looks scary, then it can be banned for political capital. (Cobras already in the civilian inventory may still be owned and sold.)
So basically, what we have here is an ineffective law that the pro-gun lobby fought against tooth-and-nail, bitched about constantly during its run, and whose demise is celebrated as a victory for the Second Amendment, right?
Now, if this law was so damned ineffective and did nothing whatsoever to threaten and/or challange the 2nd Amendment, what was all the bitching and fighting and lobbying by the NRA and their ilk all about?
Interestingly, you CAN own a grenade (and a silencer), but you have to register it and pay the tax stamp on it. Neither, to the best of my knowledge, have EVER been used in the commission of a crime. Grenades are far too expensive to ever pose a real threat to the populace.
The Brady Campaign still considered it effective, as did Sen. Feinstein. And it did challenge the Second Amendment as it was seen as the first step. Among other things, they tried to ban “armor piercing” ammunition, which encompasses virtually all centerfire ammunition.
Nobody thought that this would be allowed to lapse when it was passed. All that was seen was more legislation on the horizon. That’s why it was fought tooth and nail. It’s no different from when the ACLU takes up a First Amendment case on the grounds that it’s a limitation on speech.
Slippery slope. When an ineffective law doesn’t work, the anti-Second Amendment people want to pass more restrictive laws. In the case of the AWB, the only people affected were the law-abiding people who were not part of the problem in the first place.
True. But you also have to live in a state that allows it.
Those “fearmongers” you speak of would include GWB, you know. He said he would sign the ban again if it got to his desk. So don’t forget to include him while you’re burning down strawman.
And congratulations on regaining access to to more powerful phallic substitutes. I hope you can finally feel like a man now.
You can try. I wish you luck. As a member of the “well regulated militia”, i.e. the National Guard, I have more right than most of you according to the antis because I fulfill the antis’ definition of what the Second Amendment should mean. And to top it off I’m legally certified on the M-9 and the M-16, having had a safety course and a qualification string.
