It's really, really dead.
Congress is still in session. Our liberties are still not safe.
It's really, really dead.
Yes, it is. As I write this it is 5:51 PM EST on 9/10. The House is not in session today, and won't be until Monday, 9/13. The ban is REPEALED 10 years after it was enacted, which was on 9/13/94. Thus, the ban is repealed at the beginning of the day on 9/13/04, i.e. at 12:00:00 AM EST on Monday, 9/13/04. Unless the Senate passes a renewed AWB over the weekend and sends it to the House, then the House passes it over the weekend, with no amendments, and the approved bill is sent to the White House and signed before midnight on Sunday night, THEN THE AWB IS F'ING DEAD!!!!
I am sure that millions of normal capacity magazines will be sold in the next several weeks, as will tens of thousands of guns without the cosmetic handicaps of the last 10 years. Folding stocks and flash suppressors will be attached to what are, for the next 2 days and about 6 hours, called "post-ban" rifles. In short, gun owners are going to ensure that there is no way that any future ban will be in the least bit effective.
Of course, we shall all have to remain vigilant to avoid a new AWB in the future. The first thing to do is to make sure that Kerry remains a Massachusetts Senator after January 20, which requires that we get up off of our duffs and vote for Bush. Now that the AWB is dead, I'll have far less trouble doing that.
I'm going to have a few beers late Sunday night (11 PM my time), to celebrate a victory against tyranny. Later I'll celebrate by exercising another of my Constitutional rights, buying normal capacity mags - LOTS of them. I will, however, wait until the initial buying binge is over so that the prices can come down a bit more.