"The NRA's fantasy is that extending this particular ban would lead to bans on other guns -- "The Boogeyman will getcha" argument."
Isn't this the same reasoning that leads NOW to resist any attempt to limit any kind of abortion-even partial birth?
It's a failed argument in terms of the AWB, in any case. If you think the second amendment is either anachronistic or defends our right to pursue hobbies, then why should we support the free ownership of repeating arms of any kind? Bambi will be in all that much less trouble. And think, no more schoolyard mass killings with banana clip fed machines of death!
However, the second amendment is all about offering the Constitution a reset button. If all else fails, or if the country can't be defended by its conventional forces, the American people will always be well armed in order to defend themselves and their rights.
The founding fathers would have seen the 1934 firearms act as an infringement of our sacred rights, and they would have cried treason then.
I cry treason now.