Posted on 09/15/2014 6:23:18 AM PDT by marktwain
Twenty years after the since-expired assault weapons ban passed Congress, Washington’s leading liberal think says it’s no longer an idea worth pursuing.
The Center for American Progress is waving a white flag on banning assault weapons in a study out Friday titled “Assault Weapons Revisited.” CAP authors Arkadi Gerney and Chelsea Parsons argue that gun control advocates focus their energies primarily on expanding background checks and firearms licensing laws instead of pushing to prohibit assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle.
“The answer is not that assault weapons aren’t dangerous and people having access to them is a good thing,” Mr. Gerney said in an interview this week. “There are other things that we can do to lessen the risks of assault weapons short of banning them. … When you’re making policy, it’s always a mix of what’s going to have a biggest positive impact and what is practical and politically possible.”
Banning assault weapons, which Congress did for a decade as part of the 1994 crime bill, was a centerpiece of the policy prescriptions President Barack Obama sought in the wake of the December 2012 school massacre at Newtown, Conn. Mr. Obama also sought to implement universal background checks for gun purchases, ban high-capacity ammunition magazines and restrict on gun trafficking. Only background checks received a serious hearing in Congress – only 40 senators voted for an assault weapons ban. Background checks fell five votes short.
The 1994 assault weapons ban expired in 2004 when Congress did not reauthorize it. Mr. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, when they addressed the issue, spoke passionately about the need to ban the sort of weapon used during the Newtown shooting.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Why ban them when you can achieve the same goal by regulating them out of existence?
What they want and what they can get, are two very different things.
What they want and what they are going to get, are two very different things.
People have learned that the term “Assault Rifle” is just another meaningless term created by liberals to scare the low-info crowd and keep them marching in the right direction.
Now the gun-grabbers will have to make up a new scary sounding label.
Whatever they are—with all the Mehhicccans, drug gangs and Muzzies coming over the walls, we’re gonna need them.
I don't think they have learned that all. I think that gun owners have finally learned that we have to push back to the degree that we actually make them fear us.
Now the gun-grabbers will have to make up a new scary sounding label.
Yep. They're feverishly working on it now, while praying to their pagan gods for dead children.
These stories of the socialist media surrendering makes me highly suspicious, IMO they would only do so as a cover for a more devious agenda.
Sometimes I think its a sin, when I feel like I’m winning when I’m losing again. G. Lightfoot
trust me, the anti firearms folks won’t quit until we are all disarmed or they are all dead
‘Assault rifle’ is a very specific thing, and one whose costs put them well out of reach of most Americans. ‘Assault weapon’ on the other hand is a nebulous concept that means whatever a politician wants it to mean.
As a Ute, I was the proud owner of an Iver-Johnson semi-auto .22, ($19.95) complete with Birch stock, that was awesomely capable of spraying 15 or so shots within a three foot circle at 50 yards as fast as my grubby little trigger finger could squeeze the trigger and the other fingers wiped the continual spray of Three-in-One from my eyes. (Of course, I still have it!)
Nowadays, that same rifle would be tricked out with an AR-15 look-alike plastic stock, a pistol grip, a Picatinny Rail, a laser sight and scope, probably even a bi-pod, and maybe a curving magazine, instead of that rusty tube thing.
Voilà! An Assault Weapon!
I am always suspicious of such announcements, because it suggests they are either about to open a new “front” of attack, or they are soliciting more contributions from their deep pockets backers.
Precisely. They still want to ban all weapons held by free peoples. This is just a decision to try a different tactic, as the last one failed to frighten people into surrendering their rights.
I thought the NAZIs made it up in WW2 when they gave their new rifle the name Sturgewehr (Assault Rifle) 44 for propaganda purposes and because it sounded cool.
“Not sure we are winning. The anti-gunners are changing their focus to gun license(s) and universal back-round checks.”
and access to ammunition.
In brief, instead of outright bans, the death of a thousand cuts.
IMHO the most effective 'push back' would be some of the biggest gun-grabbers left hanging from lamp posts.
“These stories of the socialist media surrendering makes me highly suspicious, IMO they would only do so as a cover for a more devious agenda.”
Regulation, registration, confiscation. They haven’t given up just changed strategy.
Oh, I beg to differ -
they don’t want ALL to be disarmed.
They actually don’t want criminals disarmed at all.
They just want anyone that would oppose them to be disarmed.
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