Assault Weapons Ban Information

[rushmc 23]

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Just an update for everyone keeping score:

121 days, or exactly 4 months until the AWB expires.

They are going to try and revive it....

This came to me in my NRA-ILA alert.

(Great Thread!!!)



With only two months to go before the September 13th expiration of the 1994 Clinton gun ban, anti-gun activists across the nation are now making a new push to re-enact this ineffective legislation. But now time is running out. Congress is only in session fourteen more days before the sunset, and because time is short, anti-gunners will be redoubling their efforts to extend the ban.



Originally enacted in 1994, the Clinton crime bill banned gun ownership by law-abiding citizens as the solution to violent crime. But anti-gun politicians were only able to pass the portion of the law banning military-style semi-automatic firearms after agreeing to “sunset” the ban in a decade.



Despite not being able to offer even a shred of evidence over ten years that the Clinton gun ban has reduced crime, Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE) is sponsoring H.R. 3831 to extend this failed and discredited policy for another decade. To date, only a handful of congressmen are cosponsoring this bill to continue this misguided and useless policy.



Even one extremist gun ban group, the Violence Policy Center, has admitted that continuing the ban will not “make one whit of difference one way or another . . . if it doesn't pass, it doesn't pass.”(National Public Radio, 3/11/2004)



Since the gun banners are trying now to persuade Members of Congress to support and cosponsor H.R. 3831, we ask you to write, fax, e-mail, and call Congressman Jim Leach this week urging him to publicly oppose H.R. 3831 and instead to support legislation that will actually remove violent criminals from America’s streets. Please urge your family, friends and fellow hunters and shooters to do the same. Help dismantle part of the anti-gun Clinton legacy by acting today.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[mnealtx 0]

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They'll never try to ban your hunting rifle...


...they'd call it a sniper rifle first.

TFL / THR much?

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Kennedy 0]

TFL = Too F-ing Late?

THR = ???

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[Kennedy 0]

Just an update -

There are several bills in the House and Senate that seek to reauthorize the AWB, either keeping it the same for another ten years, making it permanent, or expanding it.

We are probably not going to see it, as the House of Representatives is very unlikely to even bring the ban to the floor, let alone pass it. I haven't heard what happened to the bill Feinstein forced into the Senate floor calendar.

A few of the bills are S. 2109, S. 2498, S. 1431, S. 1043, H.R. 2038, and H.R. 143, as well as a number of others. in the H.R. 3000 range

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[peacefuljeffrey 0]

These bills' sponsors are just fuckin' SICK. How else can you explain this obsessive push to pass abjectly useless legislation that does not have popular support, does not have evidence that it works, and does not even do what it says?! It's like they're pathological about this! How many times does a reasonable person try the same failed ploy and keep trying it?!

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[kelpdiver 2]

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These bills' sponsors are just fuckin' SICK. How else can you explain this obsessive push to pass abjectly useless legislation that does not have popular support, does not have evidence that it works, and does not even do what it says?! It's like they're pathological about this! How many times does a reasonable person try the same failed ploy and keep trying it?!

-

They're committed. What do you think happens if the ban goes away and nothing happens? The AW Ban is one of the pillars of their gun control platform and if it is shown to be a fraud, it all tumbles down. You can't incrementally disarm the public if the most 'evil looking' ones aren't causing trouble. It's bad enough that none of the CCW states have shown a surge in bar room brawls and freeway shootouts.

A San Francisco cop was killed a couple months ago by a guy with an AK47. Not sure if it was a semi, or a full, but in any matter it has been used as justification for the continuance, even though it's been illegal to acquire for 10 years now, and that fact could have contributed to the punk deciding to use it.

That all aside, Bush isn't helping the situation when saying he supports a continuance. And if you polled the public, you probably would get 60% approval for such a step.

[rushmc 23]

More data on weapons and crime in general


http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?ID=128

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Kennedy 0]

As much as I realize those factsheets are good sources of information, I almost try to avoid them, especially references to them to people who aren't actively pro-gun.

Just the mention of the NRA throws some people into conniption fits because they really don't know anything they haven't heard from Dan Rather or Jay Leno. Kinda sick, but it's what we have to deal with.

They are well written, but are simply rejected due to their authors. Demented logic, but without matching sources, referencing them can damage an argument just as much as help it.

clicky

witty subliminal message
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[Kennedy 0]

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How many times does a reasonable person try the same failed ploy and keep trying it?!

There's a word for that - it's "Psychotic"

performing the same action repeatedly and expecting differing results

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[mnealtx 0]

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TFL = Too F-ing Late?

THR = ???

Thought maaaybe you were a poster from a couple of RKBA boards that I hang out at - Sorry!! The wording in your post is almost exactly the same as the wording in a poster by Oleg Volk, who does a LOT of photography/poster work that is RKBA related. Oleg's personal site is www.a-human-right.com

The two sites I mentioned in the last post:
www.thehighroad.org
www.thefiringline.com

Great sites for info on RKBA.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[Kennedy 0]

I'd seen the High Road in the past, but couldn't for the life of me remember the name. It's bookmarked now. The Firing Line is a new one to me, but that's in the favorites folder as well. Thanks.

Some of the early posts in the thread are quotes from various websites, noted as such. After that, it's all mine.

I've seen http://www.a-human-right.com before, and I am simply awed at the quality and quantity of his work. My single favorite from his site is the attachment below, followed by two close seconds.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[rushmc 23]

You have a point but I feel the same way when
the Brady Bunch or VPC (or what ever they are) put out fact sheets. The difference is theirs is based on emotion and more saddly, an agenda. The NRA at least uses data and studies.

Either way your point is well taken.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[Kennedy 0]

That's a completely different issue. VPC and Brady have had their studies shown to be false and misleading

(eg - using gun trace data and claiming it shows gun crime trends
...the BATFE issued press releases stating this was not true)
(eg - claiming every officer injured by semi-automatic rifle was shot by an "assault weapon" ...showing just how useless that term really is)

The NRA has had no such duplicity shown on their part. They are wrongly viewed as unreliable. VPC deserves every bad reputation they have, and more.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[Kennedy 0]

It's just under two months to the expiration now, with about three weeks working time in Congress, and we're looking more and more like it's really going to disappear.

But these articles just wont go away.

Another Example of Idiocy in the Press

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This being campaign season, there is more posing in Congress than at a Mr. Olympia contest. Exhibit A: The spectacle of senators prattling about whether to amend the Constitution to prevent gay marriages. Everyone knew that the proposed amendment had no chance of getting the two-thirds support necessary to pass, but Republican leaders staged the debate anyway. They wanted to score campaign points with the religious right.

Strangely enough, the GOP potentates in the House used precisely the opposite reasoning to deny Democrats a debate on extending the assault weapons ban. That ban, enacted in 1994, expires on Sept. 13. Yet Majority Leader Tom DeLay insisted that because a majority of votes to pass the extension was nowhere in sight, there was no point in debating a bill. Thus, the Republicans denied the Democrats a chance to score points with the anti-gun left.

What, people suddenly don't know where their representatives stand on gun rights? Funny, we just had a slew of votes that demonstrate on which side of the fence your senators fall, if you pay any attention or care in the slightest.

There is a difference between these two issues, however. If two gays marry, no one is harmed. If the assault weapons ban, weak as it is, expires, it will become at least marginally easier for mentally ill people or criminals to get their hands on the kind of semi-automatic firearms that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used to wreak havoc at Columbine High School.

Not even close
(A) It's still illegal for a dealer to sell to anyone mentally incompetent
(B) It's still illegal for a person to use a straw buyer (Columbine)
(C) There firearms are still just semi-automatics; one squeeze of the trigger = one fired bullet

The National Rifle Association and other enemies of firearms regulation claim that the existing assault weapons ban is ineffectual and senseless because it only outlaws cosmetic features of certain guns whose action is identical to that of legal hunting rifles. They are largely right.

Well, it's big of you to admit that the anti-gun lobby's crown jewel is ineffective.

The ban outlaws 19 specific guns, plus certain combinations of military-style features, such as folding stocks and detachable magazines. It exempts 670 hunting firearms. But the ban is not more effective because the NRA and its allies have worked hard to make sure that it isn't, and manufacturers can skirt it.

NRA worked to make sure it didn't infringe on any more rights than it does. It's not skirting a law when you comply with it. Is driving 59 in a 60 skirting the law, or complying with it?

The goal should be to create a new law that not only extends the current ban but strengthens it to accomplish the original intent, which is to ban military-style, semi-automatic weapons that fire many rounds in quick succession.

So now we're back to banning guns because they look scary.
ANd let's not forget, these firearms don't shoot any faster than any other semi-automatic.

No hunter needs that kind of killing power, unless the quarry is other human beings.

(A) Not only hunters use firearms.
(B) These firearms tend to use much weaker cartridges than a hunter would use. It is apparently much easier to bring down a person than a deer or hog.

Admittedly, at this point in the congressional calendar, even a successful vote to extend the ban in the House would be only symbolic, because the Senate rejected an extension in March, and it is unlikely to take up the issue again this session.

Symbolic because there aren't near enough votes? And the Senate is unlikely because there isn't near enough support to get it through on it's own?

Meanwhile, the president, who said during his first campaign that he supported extending the current law, has remained quiet throughout the debate.

That, too, is a powerful symbol, and a pose that matters.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[Kennedy 0]

I just had to share this:

"These guns have no real purpose other than to kill people"

Tell that to Ms Samantha Cooper.

http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=14653

Family interaction, teamwork, conentration, discipline, competition against the self....

"nah, can't be! It's all NRA LIES!!!"

(now I'm not going to post anymore unless someone else does, since the last three are all me)

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[Kennedy 0]

OK, so I said I wouldn't post, but I just had to do a little happy dance because there is only a month left. A month and a day from now and for the first time in a long time, just a bit of liberty will be restored.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Huah!!

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[PhillyKev 0]

How many times do I have to tell you? Shhhhhhhh, don't remind them.

[Kennedy 0]

The bastards against it sunsetting (politicians, not a personal attack) already know. Just check the ridiculous editorials coming out.

It's obvious they either don't know their asshole from their elbow, or they feel just fine about lying to the public (polliticians and editors).

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[Kennedy 0]

Oh this one was too good to pass up. I just have to share this one.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-12-2004/0002230692&EDATE=

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Tomorrow, there will only be 30 days until the assault weapons ban expires, and our nation will face a new era of criminal and terrorist attacks with assault weapons unless President Bush keeps his campaign promise and gets the law renewed. And some Americans are simply drooling at the notion of deadlier guns.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence today sent the following letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives about ArmaLite, Inc., a company contemptibly catering to those who are desperate for extraordinary firepower....

a great distortion of facts follows

This is the best the gun banners can come up with?

I feel a bit better if that's the case.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[PhillyKev 0]

I know I'm drooling over full cap mags for $15.

One point of error in their claim, though, is that they're not any more deadly than 2 limited cap mags that I can get now for $20.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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I know I'm drooling over full cap mags for $15.

One point of error in their claim, though, is that they're not any more deadly than 2 limited cap mags that I can get now for $20.

Keep supporting those democrats, Kev.

Get enough of 'em in power and they may start doing house-to-house searches to round up those $15 full-caps you plan on buying.

After all, if no one opposes their lying treachery when they call these things deadly and imply that they're so much worse than 10-rounders, or that "assault weapons" are so much more deadly than non-assault-weapons, what do you think we'd be in for? How do you think you can vote for liberals yet keep your right to own these things? THE PEOPLE YOU VOTE FOR ARE THE VERY ONES WHO MADE YOU HAVE TO WAIT TEN YEARS FOR WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR RIGHT ALL ALONG.

How can there be any confusion about this?

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[Kennedy 0]

Oh boy, this is the kind of editorial I like to see.

Is it factual? logical? coherrent?

Not in the slightest. It will, however, be fun to pull it out in November and ask if things have suddenly changed since mid September.

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Durbin blasts assault weapons
GUN LAWS: Democratic senator calls on Bush, Republicans to renew weapons ban
BY ANDREA JAMES


U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin called on President Bush and congressional Republicans Wednesday to renew the assault weapons ban set to expire Sept. 13.

Funny, I haven't seen that many democrats falling all over themselves to renew it. Sen. Kerry is strangely silent on the issue.

Passed in 1994, the law prohibits the manufacture and importation of 19 types of guns, and weapons that have two or more "military" characteristics, such as a bayonet lug, grenade launcher or flash suppressor.

Yep, cosmetic features. Glad you finally got that one right.

It also bans guns with magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

No, it bans new magaziens from being made, not the old magazines, or guns that hold them. A gun that accepts detachable magazines can hold a magazine of any size, generally.

"On Sept. 13, when assault weapons return to the streets of America, there'll be more danger and more death, more bloodshed and more tears shed," Durbin said at the James R. Jordan Boys and Girls Club at 2102 W. Monroe St. in Chicago.

"Blood will run in the streets..." It'll be fun to ask why it hasn't happened once the law's been gone for a while.

In 1995, assault weapons accounted for 3.5 percent of guns used in crimes.

By 2002, assault-weapon crimes declined to 1.2 percent of the total, according to Durbin.

Wrong. Those numbers are from ATF traces, not FBI crime statistics. The ATF has held news conferences specifically to state that gun traces are not representative of gun crime.

"Make no mistake about it, even with the current law, assault weapons are being used in crimes. Imagine what will happen if this ban is lifted and they are allowed to be sold across America," Durbin said.

Being used in crimes? Only with a gun banner's elastic definition of "assault weapons."

Gun control advocates want a stricter law because manufacturers have figured out ways to get around the law's guidelines, according to Tom Manard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.

Since when is complying with a law "figuring out a way around it?" Is driving below the speed limit 'figuring out a way around traffic tickets?'

"What we would like to see is that not only the current ban is kept in place but that any new ban would address the proliferation of copycat assault weapons so that we have a true comprehensive ban on military assault weapons," Manard said.

In other words, you want to ban all semi-automatic firearms. Just say so. You'll look the fool that you really are.

Gun rights advocates oppose the law, saying that it unfairly bans guns commonly used for hunting, self-defense and target shooting.

"They like to confuse semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms. They make the public think they're banning machine guns, when they're not," said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. "The whole thing is nutty. It's called politics."

Semi-automatic weapons are guns that fire one-shot per trigger pull, while fully automatic guns produce bursts of continuous gunfire. Fully automatic weapons have been illegal, except by special permit, since the 1934 National Firearms Act.

Both sides agree assault weapons account for a low percentage of crimes compared to handguns.

"Despite the fact that there may be some individuals that make limited use of these for some type of sport, by and large, the use of these weapons is for military and law enforcement purposes," Manard said. "They are not for civilian purposes."

Then why aren't they used by any law enforcement or military personnel? LEOs and soldiers use REAL assault weapons: select fire or full auto firearms, not the semi-autos covered by the 1994 Ban.

It is illegal to carry a gun in public in Illinois, and gun owners must obtain a Firearm Owner's Identification Card from the state police. Some communities, such as Morton Grove, have stricter ordinances that actually ban all firearms.

Which poster here was saying they'll never try to overwrite the second amendment, new amendment or no?

Why not mention that Chicago also restricts firearms heavily? Afraid to acknowledge that gun control has no appreciable effect on crime rates?

edit to add:
Even the gun banner's can't all agree what will happen

"If the existing assault weapons ban expires, I personally do not believe it will make one whit of difference one way or another . . . So if it doesn't pass, it doesn't pass." Tom Diaz, Senior Policy Analyst, for the gun ban group Violence Policy Center (VPC)

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[Kennedy 0]

This is the type of article I honestly -do- like to see in major papers.

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Kill the assault rifle ban? YES
By CHRIS W. COX

The 1994 semiautomatic or so-called assault weapons ban expires Sept. 13. The media drumbeat to reauthorize it has begun, and some politicians are dancing to the familiar tune.
Instead of merely reauthorizing the ban, however, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-L.I.) seeks to ban more guns and implement a national registration scheme. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the assault weapons ban sponsor, said on CBS' "60 Minutes," "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate for an outright ban, picking up every one of them - Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in - I would have done it." The gun control agenda has never been stated more honestly.

This new legislation is one step toward that agenda.

The assault weapon debate is ruled by emotion, not fact. That's why in the elections following enactment of the ban, gun owners went to the polls in great numbers and, for the first time in 134 years, unseated the speaker of the House. That's why President Bill Clinton told the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "The fight for the assault weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress." That's why in March 1996, 239 members of the House voted across party lines to repeal the Clinton gun ban.

The debate is not about so-called assault weapons. It's about banning guns. Anti-gun advocates claim, without credible evidence, these guns are the weapons of choice for criminals. It's a lie. A day after the gun ban was signed into law, a Washington Post editorial admitted, "Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a steppingstone to broader gun control."

The radical Violence Policy Center states: "The public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns vs. semiautomatic assault weapons - anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun - can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." Fully automatic machine guns were, of course, effectively banned in 1934.

As the drumbeats roll and attempts to dismantle the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans continue, the National Rifle Association will continue to fulfill its 133-year-old tradition of preserving freedom for law-abiding Americans.

Cox is executive director of National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[PhillyKev 0]

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Keep supporting those democrats, Kev.

Which democrats do I support, Jeff? Kerry...and who else/

Keep supporting those republicans and voting on a single issue and you're only insuring that you're going to need those guns to get back every other right.