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The Need for Semi-Automatic "Assault" Weapons
Townhall.com ^ | January 10, 2013 | Katie Pavlich

Posted on 01/10/2013 3:11:02 AM PST by Kaslin

By now, we’ve heard the argument about semi-automatic "assault" rifles: nobody needs one. we’ve heard the only reason why someone would obtain this kind of weapon is so they can kill people, which is far from the truth. We’ve also heard the argument from both the Left and the Right that a pistol is how someone protects their home.

"I really don’t know why people need assault weapons. I’m not a hunter but I understand people who want to hunt," Republican Rep. Peter King said on Morning Joe earlier this week. "I understand people who live in rough neighborhoods or have a small business and want to maintain a pistol to protect themselves as long as they’re properly vetted and licensed. But an assault weapon? "

While the use of pistols in the home are helpful, they’re not the best weapon to use when it comes to protecting property. This is why people need a semi-automatic rifle which yes, can come in the form of an AR-15.

Let’s go back in history for a moment. While everyday life in America compared to the rest of the world is pretty darn easy and relatively safe, the reality is things can change overnight, regardless of whether you live in a decent neighborhood. Take for example the Los Angeles riots in 1992, when business owners were forced to defend their property from angry mobs causing severe chaos: $1 billion in property damage, 50 dead, 4,000 injured, 3,000 fires set and 1,100 buildings damaged. In this case, a handheld pistol was in no way sufficient, but semi-automatic rifles were.

Business owners in LA’s Koreatown knew what was coming their way, so they armed themselves with shotguns and semi-automatic rifles in order to defend their property. They stood on their rooftops as they watched black smoke pour down the street. The cops weren't there to help them.

“One of our security guards was killed,” Kee Whan Ha told NPR in April 2012, 20 years after the riots took place. "I didn't see any police patrol car whatsoever. It's a wide open area. It was like the Wild West in the old days, there was nothing there, we were the only ones left."

Business owner Richard Rhee felt the same way and told the Los Angeles Times, "Burn this down after 33 years?... They don't know how hard I've worked. This is my market and I'm going to protect it."

“Assault weapons” saved Koreatown and it’s fair to say the people holding them saved the lives of many that day.

Then of course, there was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. New Orleans became a place of complete anarchy in a matter of hours. In addition to property owners being forced to stave off mobs of people roaming for food, water and shelter to survive as the government failed to provide emergency services, they had to protect themselves against dangerous looters. But not only were New Orleans residents forced to defend themselves against immediate threats to their person and property, residents also had to protect themselves from the government.

As the water started to recede, leaving New Orleans a chaotic wasteland, police officers began going door to door confiscating weapons. Who did they take them from? Mostly poor black residents in New Orleans' 9th Ward.

The New York Times reported in September 2005, “No civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns or other firearms.” The paper pointed out that rich residents and business were allowed to hire hundreds of security guards with firearms to protect them. Sadly, the poor in New Orleans didn’t have the same luxury.

Superintendent of police at the time P. Edwin Compass III said, “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons.”

What happened days before weapons confiscation was tyranny of the worst kind. Henry Glover, a 31-year-old black man was shot and killed by New Orlean’s police officers. They also burned his body.

A New Orleans police officer was laughing after he burned the body of a man who had been gunned down by police in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, a fellow officer testified Thursday.

The testimony came during the trial of officer Greg McRae and Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann, who are charged with burning the body of 31-year-old Henry Glover in a car after he was shot and killed by a different officer outside a strip mall on Sept. 2, 2005. Three other current and former officers also are charged in Glover's death.

A former officer, David Warren, is charged with shooting Glover. Prosecutors say Glover wasn't armed and didn't pose a threat to Warren.

Scheuermann and McRae are accused of beating people who drove Glover to a makeshift police headquarters in search of help. The three men were handcuffed when the officers drove off with the car containing Glover's body.

Former Lt. Robert Italiano and Lt. Travis McCabe are accused of falsifying a report to make it appear Glover's shooting was justified.

When politicians and gun grabbers tell us we “don’t need” semi-automatic, "assault," or "military style" weapons, they don’t know what they’re talking about.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: assaultweapon; assaultweaponsban; banglist; guncontrol; guncontroldebate; hurricanekatrina; lariots; secondamendment
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To: Kaslin
I need a semi-auto with a high-capacity magazine, because I cannot acquire heavier weapons.

Answer to Statists who ask why I need high-cap mags, “In order to take out the team you send to take my rifle, and still have enough to come and get YOU.”

There is no lack of historical examples of what statists do to an unarmed opposition. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that American statists are any different in their intent or desires than other statists before them. After all, they are they ones that reject American exceptionalism, aren't they?

21 posted on 01/10/2013 4:56:50 AM PST by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: driftdiver

Consider Roosevelt’s executive order to have the US military toss Japanese US citizens into a concentration camp. Sounds pretty unconstitutional to me.


22 posted on 01/10/2013 5:09:56 AM PST by zagger
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To: taildragger
THe Sacramento Bee has a video linked to an article on the 20th anniversary of the riots - the footage may be in there. Here's a still shot (there are more online, try an image search for "Korean grocers Rodney King".

Mini-14 in foreground, possible AR-15 third from the right.


23 posted on 01/10/2013 5:12:45 AM PST by Charles Martel (Endeavor to persevere...)
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To: zagger

Sure does


24 posted on 01/10/2013 5:13:48 AM PST by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: SampleMan

When Odumbo give his “excutive order”, Congress needs to defund ANY efforts or attempts to take the guns from ANYONE. No re-writing of the Constitution and no going around the Constitution, it is and should remain the law of our country.

It is time for the REAL American people to stand up and take this country back from a tin-horn dictator wannabe.


25 posted on 01/10/2013 5:14:09 AM PST by DaveA37
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To: zagger
Consider Roosevelt’s executive order to have the US military toss Japanese US citizens into a concentration camp. Sounds pretty unconstitutional to me.

Yes, and the political left has howled about that injustice ever since. The use of what the public perceives as "wartime powers" will be tough to justify, but I expect they'll try it anyway.

26 posted on 01/10/2013 5:19:57 AM PST by Charles Martel (Endeavor to persevere...)
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To: Charles Martel; All
The video I remember may have been in black and white or grainy, with a single owner on the roof set back in the mall. From their they approached the parking lot ( if my memory is correct) but they didn't get close because of his warning fire at their feet if you will.

Again this was caught from above via media Helicopter....

27 posted on 01/10/2013 5:29:33 AM PST by taildragger (( Tighten the 5 point harness and brace for Impact Freepers, ya know it's coming..... ))
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To: Kaslin
Then there's Arizona, where the federal government facilitates the arming of the drug gangs.

What? You thought all those Fast and Furious guns went to Mexico? Some never made it, some have come back.

Nogales, AZ (NOT Nogales, Sonora)

Quijotoa Mountains, West of Tucson, AZ

Phoenix, AZ

28 posted on 01/10/2013 5:32:59 AM PST by InABunkerUnderSF (Because 2 terms with Jerry Brown as Governor was all I could take.)
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To: gotribe
Constitution says I don’t need a reason to own a gun.

Exactly. Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say these rights are protected based on a demonstrated need. Instead, it says these rights are protected. In fact if you read them they don't say what an individual may or may not do - they spell out what the government may not do.

So it is completely irrelevant whether I need my AR and 30 round magazines or not. What I absolutely need is the freedom to own them. With that freedom (and others in the BoR) we are free. Without that freedom we have tyranny. Not tyranny some day when the government does something they've promised never to do (until we were disarmed). But we will in fact have tyranny right here, right now, the moment we surrender the freedoms protected in the BoR.

We have 200+ years of patriots and good, decent Americans sacrificing, fighting, dying to protect our freedoms. Can we sit idly by and let those freedoms go based on the outright lies of the gun grabbers? Of course not. Fight now, your freedoms and liberties are being attacked.

29 posted on 01/10/2013 5:44:16 AM PST by ThunderSleeps (Stop obama now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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To: Kaslin

Then there’s the mother of twins, who was hunted down in her own home, and was forced to empty her .38 revolver into the perp, before he walked out of the house and drove off.

What if there’d been more than one assailant?

She was out of ammo!


30 posted on 01/10/2013 5:45:51 AM PST by G Larry (Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
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To: Kaslin

What prevents the US Military from being used against its people?

Was Waco justice? Is that the kind of “government” you want, 100% of the time?

The US Constitution is a statement in mastery of the understanding of checks-and-balances, of balancing competing powers to prevent tyranny.

The 2nd Amendment is loaded with meaning. We could live with security in a benevolent police-state, but the Founders knew there would be nothing to guarentee that benevolence.

Someone says, “You’re paranoid!” Say, “Hang signs in your neighborhood saying ‘Gun Free Neighborhood’. See what happens.”

The people without guns are dependent on the 2nd Amendment, too. Defence against tyranny is for all the marbles.


31 posted on 01/10/2013 6:01:56 AM PST by Empire_of_Liberty
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To: Kaslin

Since 1963, American citizens have woken up each morning and check the news daily to find out if their government had declared them CRIMINALS in their own homes because they exercise a right that they have had since the first pilgrims came here.


32 posted on 01/10/2013 6:22:09 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Click my name! See new paintings!)
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To: Kaslin

Citizens need effective weapons for the same reasons the nation needs nuclear weapons: The simple act of owning them prevents most of the agressive things that could happen if they didn’t own them.


33 posted on 01/10/2013 6:36:37 AM PST by norwaypinesavage (Galileo: In science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of one individual)
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To: Eye of Unk

Paul Harvey on Guns
Monday, November 06, 2000

Are you considering backing gun control laws? Do you think that because you may not own a gun, the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment don’t matter?

CONSIDER:

In 1929 the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915-1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill, and others, who were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million “educated” people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

That places total victims who lost their lives because of gun control at approximately 56 million in the last century. Since we should learn from the mistakes of history, the next time someone talks in favor of gun control, find out which group of citizens they wish to have exterminated.

It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed, a program costing the government more than $500 million dollars. The results Australia-wide; Homicides are up 3.2%; Assaults are up 8%; Armed robberies are up 44%; In that country’s state of Victoria, homicides with firearms are up 300%.

Over the previous 25 years, figures show a steady decrease in armed robberies and Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain how no improvement in “safety” has been observed after such monumental effort and expense was successfully expended in “ridding society of guns.”

It’s time to state it plainly; Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws only affect the law-abiding citizens.

Take action before it’s too late, write or call your representatives.


34 posted on 01/10/2013 6:39:45 AM PST by darylmh (new workers, new prisons)
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To: Kaslin
On the other hand, a handgun CAN come in handy.

Glock Commercial

35 posted on 01/10/2013 6:42:06 AM PST by mc5cents
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To: SampleMan

I submit this question for consideration, “How many enemies,foreign or domestic, criminal sand/or tyrants may I shoot before I must reload and how rapidly can I shoot them?” I submit to you that there should be no limit other than that of the military pattern firearm technology that I now possess.


36 posted on 01/10/2013 6:43:50 AM PST by DMZFrank
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To: Kaslin
So Peter King doesn't know why anyone would “NEED” and assault weapon.

Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers advocated the extermination of 25 million Americans because they couldn't be reeducated.

There's 25 million reasons to have an assault weapon, and that's just a start.

37 posted on 01/10/2013 6:51:18 AM PST by IMR 4350
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To: Kaslin

When has Congress stood up to BHO?


38 posted on 01/10/2013 6:57:40 AM PST by BwanaNdege ("To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"- Voltaire)
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To: G Larry
The answer to why does anyone need a thirty round magazine is.....for the intruder who has a 29 round magazine!!!
39 posted on 01/10/2013 7:11:47 AM PST by ontap
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To: Kaslin
Citizens need firearms for the same reasons that the police and military do. To oppose bad guys and defend themselves. When the military and the police no longer feel the need to have semi-automatic weapons with high capacity magazines the rest of the population may feel the same way. Until then, every citizen should oppose any additional regulation of firearms types or magazine sizes.

In addition, no citizen should submit to registration of arms they currently own. Being forced to be on such a list is no different an infringement of one's constitutional rights than would be a requirement to register with the government because you belonged to a particular religion.

40 posted on 01/10/2013 7:13:11 AM PST by freeandfreezing
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