Posted on 01/16/2013 8:07:06 AM PST by forty_years
... For the purpose of this article, we'll focus on AR-15s since it is what CBS calls "the most popular rifle in America" and one often designated an "assault" rifle. An AR-15 is the civilian equivalent to the military's M-16. So what's the difference?
Kelly Alwood, a firearms trainer and consultant, told TheBlaze the only difference is that one [the military AR-15] is fully automatic and the other is semi-automatic [the civilian AR-15]. It's a small yet simultaneously big distinction. Firearms for use by the military are able to shoot continuously with one pull of the trigger, machine-gun style. Civilian firearms, on the other hand, only allow one shot per trigger pull.
... [Calling the civilian AR-15 an "assault rifle" is] "a way to demonize something for a political agenda and misconstrue [the guns] and the public on the Second Amendment," Alwood said.
TheBlaze, Jan. 11, 2013 (emphasis added)
There's really no difference between the hyperbolic-named "assault rifle" and a hunting rifle, so all this talk of banning "assault weapons" is just another ruse and scare-tactic meant to disarm Americans -- to destroy the Second Amendment to our hallowed Constitution. The current gun control push will punish law-abiding Americans the most, as street thugs, Mexican cartels, and crazies will always be able to find automatic or other deadly weapons on the black market. Our Founding Fathers knew all about what it means to be the underdog trying to fight off the tyranny of King George, leader of Britain, whose "forces were the best trained, most well equipped military in the world." According to the New York Times (yes, the NYT):
... While semiautomatic rifles were used in several recent mass shootings, including those in Newtown and in Aurora, Colo., where 12 people were killed at a movie theater in July, a vast majority of gun murders in the United States are committed with handguns.
In 2011, 6,220 people were killed by handguns, and 323 by rifles, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. ...
It is a fact that law-abiding civilians don't go on shooting rampages. It is a fact that shooting rampages, while sensational, are just a tiny fraction of the causes of deaths in American society. Criminals mostly use handguns when using guns, and domestic disputes often involve things like crowbars, baseball bats, knives -- almost anything can be made into a deadly weapon. Semi-automatic weapons have a place in a free society.
For practical purposes, civilian AK-47s and AR-15s are used by gun enthusiasts for hunting, target shooting, collecting, and for self-protection. For philosophical reasons, "the Founding Fathers drafted the Second Amendment with protection of the citizens and their freedoms in mind." Again, TheBlaze:
... "We need these rifles because the government has them," Alwood explained.
He stopped there to say he realizes this is where gun enthusiasts and riflemen are made out to seem like anti-government "whack jobs" by the media, but that's just not true.
"I don't want people to think of me as anti-government. Most gun owners are not anti-government," Alwood said. ...
"[Without the Second Amendment] there is no way to resist the government, voiding all other amendments," Alwood said. "Why should [the government] continue to give you your freedom of speech if there is no one to stop them[?] It's the only safeguard we have to protect us from a tyrannical government. ... Look at all countries in trouble with dictators, they have absolute gun bans."
The conservative publication Townhall recently called out two countries with a similar sentiment to this in mind:
Neither the Venezuelan nor Chinese governments have particularly good track records when it comes to human rights. By maintaining a government monopoly on guns, both can ensure that further abuses are carried out with less protests from the citizenry. Overall, it is sad to see two dictatorial governments making it easier to abuse their citizens as they please while also squelching the possibility for resistance. ...
Are Obama and all his anti-gun buddies saying that Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, James Madison, Noah Webster, and Patrick Henry didn't know what they were doing when they all supported the right to bear arms? Looking at Obama's proposals, one can only conclude that he disdains these great mens' beliefs.
Finally, let's turn to the U.S. government itself to dispel the myth that "assault weapons" have anything to do with "assault" or military use:
... As the United States Defense Department's Defense Intelligence Agency book Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide explains, "assault rifles" are "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges."[21] In other words, assault rifles are battlefield rifles which can fire automatically.[22]
Weapons capable of fully automatic fire, including assault rifles, have been regulated heavily in the United States since the National Firearms Act of 1934.[23] Taking possession of such weapons requires paying a $200 federal transfer tax and submitting to an FBI background check, including ten-print fingerprints.[24]
Many civilians have purchased semiautomatic-only rifles that look like military assault rifles. These civilian rifles are, unlike actual assault rifles, incapable of automatic fire...
There's one last piece of disinformation to clear up: that you can make a semi-automatic into an automatic by snapping your fingers (or clicking your heels twice):
... modifying a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic one is not only highly illegal with extreme penalties but also no easy feat. ...
Otherwise we'd call it the Assault Department (which everyone knows is the BATFE).
Not exactly a difficult thing to do, esp. with an AK47 with a stamped receiver. The problem is that even possessing a conversion kit is a Federal felony. That won't stop someone intent on doing harm, but food for thought.
I like the term I read on another thread: Sport Utility Rifle.
They are called assault rifles because they are used to assault the 2nd Amendment.
Primary Perpetrator Perforator.
I thought they did away with full rock & roll on the M-16 ? replaced with 3 round bursts ....has that changed ?
“Semi-automatic weapons have a place in a free society.”
The ANSWER to this whole issue, is in the LAST THREE WORDS of this sentence, and not the first three.
Logic and facts are irrelevant, but understanding of the actions of the Left can always be summed up in David Horowitz’s recollection of a 60s radical instructing the ranks under him:
“The issue is never the real issue - the real issue is always The Revolution. The cause is never the real cause - the real cause is always the acquisition of power.”
I heard a police officer from a small town say that he had investigated a murder committed with a package of frozen squirrels. He didn't mention whether the act took place inside a long, rectangular, aluminum manufactured home, but I'd probably bet that was the case.
Trailers have vinyl siding now ... try to keep up.
Excellent point!
I have now repeated that little anecdote a half-dozen times since I first read your comment, along with the mantra that, if it saves even one life, we must ban frozen squirrels ;-)
Thanks for sharing! Even my 9-year old understands the problem of "gun control" when placed along side the frozen squirrel debate!
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