For as long as they keep the pic up, here's the rifle.
Posted on 12/07/2007 6:03:10 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Iowans should press presidential candidates for their views on assault weapons in light of Wednesday's shopping-mall massacre in Omaha, a national gun-control advocate said Thursday.
Most Democratic candidates support reinstating a federal assault-weapons ban that expired in 2004.
Most Republican candidates oppose reinstating the ban, saying it was ineffective.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Thursday that the 30-round ammunition clips Robert Hawkins reportedly used in Wednesday's shootings in Omaha would have been illegal to purchase under the assault-weapons ban.
Helmke said it was not clear whether the gun itself, described as an AK-47-style assault rifle, would have been covered by the ban. But it should be illegal, he said.
"If this is something that can take a 30-round clip and fire them off quickly, it should be banned. This is a weapon of mass murder," he said.
Hawkins used the rifle to kill eight people and wound five before killing himself, police said. He reportedly stole the gun from his stepfather.
The assault-weapons ban was passed in 1994 and allowed to lapse a decade later. It covered purchases of specific models of guns and certain accessories, including clips that held more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
Helmke said Iowans should demand responses from the presidential candidates campaigning before the caucuses. He said they should ask why Americans are allowed to buy guns designed for the military.
"Basically, should the public be able to get the types of guns we use in Iraq?" he said.
State Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, who is a board member of the National Rifle Association, urged people not to rush to judgment while police investigate the Omaha shootings.
Baudler said every time such a tragedy happens, NRA supporters expect to hear calls to toughen gun-control laws.
But he contended that if the killers didn't have guns, they would use another type of weapon.
"When you have a lunatic that's bent on becoming famous and wants to be remembered, you're going to have problems, whether it's a gasoline bomb or any type of device. ... It comes back to the lunatic," he said.
Baudler added that the 30-round clips reportedly used in Omaha take less than two seconds to replace, so a smaller-capacity clip would not have slowed the shooter very much on Wednesday.
Earlier this fall, The Des Moines Register surveyed presidential candidates about their stances on gun control.
Democrats Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Barack Obama said they would support reinstating the assault-weapons ban.
Democrat Bill Richardson and Republicans Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, Tom Tancredo and Fred Thompson said they would not support reinstating the ban.
Several of them said they opposed the ban because they thought it was ineffective.
Republican Rudy Giuliani's campaign declined to specifically answer the question, but Giuliani supported the ban when it was enacted in 1994.
Helmke, the gun-control advocate, said the Republican candidates appear to have more differences over the issue than their Democratic counterparts.
Although they do not talk much about it as candidates, he said, Romney and Giuliani were relatively supportive of gun control in their previous jobs as governor of Massachusetts and mayor of New York City. McCain also has been relatively moderate on some gun-control issues, Helmke added.
He said it was not clear whether other restrictions, such as bans on sales of guns to mentally ill people, would have affected the outcome of Wednesday's shooting.
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Reporter Tony Leys can be reached at (515) 284-8449 or tleys@dmreg.com
I guess my Model 1911 .45 pistol is also in need of banning, you libtards? After all, it was initially designed for the military.../dripping sarcasm
I realize it did not. My point is that anti-gun forces say that it did, yet they also say that we’re not “allowed” to have militia weapons.
They want it both ways.
Semi-automatics are NOT military weapons. Stupid liberals can’t seem to differentiate between a semi and and automatic. The latter has been banned in the civilian market in this country since 1934.
For what it's worth, I knew one of the women who was killed. Had Thanksgiving dinner with her last year. This is utter insanity. If Omaha, Nebraska isn't safe, no place is.
It WAS an SKS. And he DIDN’T switch out mags. See this thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1936616/posts
If one wanted to have a bunch of soldiers march into an area and capture it, a musket was a far superior weapon to a rifle. While a musket could not be aimed accurately at an individual target the way a rifle could, a row of muskets firing simultaneously could do great damage to anything or anyone in front of it.
The problem for the British was that even though their soldiers could go anywhere they wanted, and the colonists didn't have the power to stop them, such ability wasn't of sufficient military use to justify the cost. If the British had simply sought to drive out the colonists from anyplace they captured, they could probably have cleared out the colonies so that new people could move in; the colonists' rifles would not have been able to stop that. On the other hand, the British were trying to put down a rebellion without displacing loyal subjects. That was a much greater challenge, and one the British could not meet.
Steve Zweig
North Side HS ‘67”
It is always nice to have a little personal insight into the opposition.
Please tell us more, or if you do not feel comfortable with a post to all, a private post would be appreciated.
If you revisit that thread, you'll see they are now saying it was an AK-47. (Meaning of course an AK-47 semi-auto clone)
No, I was going by the configuration of the front sight and the profile of the gas tube and receiver.
For as long as they keep the pic up, here's the rifle.
I'm not away of any military in the world that issues semiautomatic versions of select fire intermediate power weapons. They issue the select fire versions. They may *use* them in semiautomatic mode, but they issue the select fire weapons.
Not to mention that he could have done just as much damage with a Mini-30, firing the same cartridge, or for that matter, a 30-30 lever action rifle, although it would have taken him a minuscule and unimportant in the situation amount of time to reload.
Semi-autos are OK for that, but bolt actions firing a full power cartridge are really better. Especially inexpensive mil surplus throw aways. Although in some scenarios one of these, or it's bolt action cousins, would be just the thing for tyrannicide.
That takes coordination, it was done by commands, relayed from the officers through the "sergeants". So the riflemen would pick off the officers and the sergeants while still out of musket range, turning the precise formations into a disorganized mob, which would either retreat or be picked off in turn. The only real advantage the musket had was rate of fire. Until the invention of the Mine ball that is. Even then it took lots of dead troops, even as late as the Civil War, for the Powers That Be to figure out that musket tactics weren't going to cut it anymore. Similar effect occurred with the invention of the Machine Gun.
The sight appears too tall for an SKS, and the gas tube and receiver profiles are very AK like to my eye. Looks like it might even have a vertical foregrip by the position of his left hand.
***If one wanted to have a bunch of soldiers march into an area and capture it, a musket was a far superior weapon to a rifle***
True, only because the rifle was slower to load and did not have a bayonet. The Brown Bess was idiot proof but you still could not hit a person at 100 yards if you aimed at him. That is why British soldiers were NOT taught to aim, but just to point and shoot.
The rifle won the battle of King’s Mountain.
The British officers were very afraid of the Rifle as the colonists had a nasty habit of picking off officers. One officer wrote home that any officers going to fight in the colonies should make a will as he would probably end up shot.
If only there had been a law against stealing, this bloodshed might have been avoided.
Yeah, I don’t know what that is exactly. I’m guessing you’re right about the stock photo - that doesn’t look much like it. Somebody in the property room knows, though.
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