Michael Steele, former Maryland lieutenant governor and now head of the Republican National Committee, has also fallen for the mantra of gun prohibitionists. He has also alienated millions of gun owners – an important “base” voting bloc for Republicans – by stating, “What do you need an assault weapon for, if you’re going hunting? That’s overkill.” Steele exhibited a horrid ignorance of competition shooting, along with the increasing use of AR-15 type rifles for varmint hunting and predator control, especially in the West, by a new generation of shooters brought up with such rifles.But that's not the point, is it?
Isn't the point the Second Amendment?
How could this writer choose varmint hunting over the Second Amendment as his stated justification for the right of Americans to own "AR-15 type rifles"?
The more I hear about Steele, the more my decision to leave the GOP last year is reinforced. They STILL don’t get it....
In addition, Steele displayed his ignorance with the "overkill" remark. In fact, assault weapons represent "underkill" in a lot of cases. Even full-sized battle rifles sometimes don't get it done, as in the case of the Air Force enlisted man 50-some years ago who, bored to tears at his Alaskan outpost, decided to go bag himself a polar bear and drew an M-1 and several clips of mil-spec ball ammo.
He found the bear, and the search party found his rifle. In two pieces. They never found him, just a mess of pink snow and some empty clips.
People on this thread will correct me, but for polar bear, he probably needed something at least as stout as .338 Win. Mag., and preferably even more gun than that, maybe in the range of .375 H&H.
Oh and Michael Steele is a first order JACKA$$!