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Savor the Richly Deserved Defeat of Feinstein's 'Assault Weapon' Ban
Reason ^ | March 19, 2012 | Jacob Sullum

Posted on 03/19/2013 4:12:39 PM PDT by billorites

Yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) revealed that her "assault weapon" ban will not be part of the gun control bill that Senate Democrats plan to offer next month. Although her bill still can be offered as an amendment, Politico reports, "its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat." At the risk of reading too much into this delightful development, I count it as a victory not just for the Second Amendment but for rationality in lawmaking.

As a comparison of the testimony pro and con readily reveals, supporters of Feinstein's bill never offered a plausible, let alone persuasive, explanation for the distinction she drew between the guns she deemed "legitimate" and the dreaded "assault weapons" she sought to ban. The closer you looked at the bill, the less sense it made, a fact that Feinstein tried to paper over by encouraging people to conflate semi-automatic, military-style rifles with the machine guns carried by soldiers. That flagrant fraud sufficed to win passage of the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004 (which was also sponsored by Feinstein), and it continues to influence public opinion. But this time around it was not enough to obscure the absurdity of Feinsten's attempt to distinguish between good and evil guns by reference to irrelevant features such as barrel shrouds and adjustable stocks. With no evidence or arguments to offer, Feinstein despicably invoked dead, "dismembered" children in a transparent bid to short-circuit logical thought. Her appeal to blind fear was familiar to anyone who has watched this authoritarian centrist rail against mythical drugs or kowtow to the national security state. I savor her richly deserved defeat.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; guncontrol; gunsfeinstein; secondamendment
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To: billorites

Oh PUHLEEZE!!! They will come back even harder. FAKE OUT so everyone loses interest.


41 posted on 03/19/2013 4:44:36 PM PDT by Ann Archy
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To: chris37

Absolute Orwell


42 posted on 03/19/2013 4:44:47 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: muawiyah
Feinstein didn't think it was a decoy. She wants it so bad you can hear her teeth grind at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue. If she could she'd ban guns for everybody but Democrats in the Senate, and not all of them either.

I agree totally. She didn't think it was a decoy. Other rats knew that they could count on that old hag to introduce the most radical piece of legislation, and she certainly did.

43 posted on 03/19/2013 4:45:06 PM PDT by SIDENET
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To: fwdude

The answer is NONE OF IT ~ these guys gotta’ run in 2014 all on their lonesomes. Would you want to campaign against locking up the violently mentally ill and putting guards in schools to protect the kiddies, while trying to justify voting to ban black spray paint and adding everybody in the country to the Secret Service ‘watch list’.


44 posted on 03/19/2013 4:45:13 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: ez
Democrat insiders say the universal background check, supported only by Democrats, will not head to the floor either.

There's a whole lot of Democrat Senators up for reelection in 2014 (those who got swept in with Obama in 2008). They can't afford a vote putting them on the record for something as unpopular as gun control and background checks.

If the Dems hold the Senate in 2014, look for this all this gun control madness to come to the Senate floor in 2015.

45 posted on 03/19/2013 4:50:04 PM PDT by kevao (.)
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To: billorites
It's a Trick, Get an Axe.
46 posted on 03/19/2013 4:50:26 PM PDT by RC one (.From My Cold Dead Hands.)
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To: Norm Lenhart
She has no faith in the Ice Age cycles or she'd give up on the idea that the Gran Sonora or adjacent deserts can be protected forever!

Just doesn't happen.

Probably thinks the Earth is only 6,000 years old

47 posted on 03/19/2013 4:50:39 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Tijeras_Slim

Nevermind, I get it now.

God, I’m such a dope sometimes.

/embarrassed


48 posted on 03/19/2013 4:51:49 PM PDT by chris37 (Heartless.)
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To: Norm Lenhart

Damned shame ‘ol Dan White failed to include her on his day of infamy...


49 posted on 03/19/2013 4:51:50 PM PDT by JDoutrider
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To: billorites
3..2..1...Savor complete.

Back to war.

50 posted on 03/19/2013 4:55:22 PM PDT by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: muawiyah

When that one eyed cyclops Fineswine goes away California will replace her with somebody who is worse. BTW, I loved the way Ted Cruz infuriated her. It reminded me of Groucho Marx versus actress Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers movies... “Well, the nerve of you!!!”


51 posted on 03/19/2013 4:57:36 PM PDT by forgotten man (forgotten man)
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To: muawiyah

If she ‘thinks’ at all I’d be shocked (SHOCKED I TELL YOU! ;)

Likely there are 2 thought molecules racing around the inside of her scull like a particle collider. Occasionally they annihilate each other, a thought forms for a picosecond, then it’s back to drool production via the lizard brain.


52 posted on 03/19/2013 4:59:36 PM PDT by Norm Lenhart
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To: ez

And 1934...


53 posted on 03/19/2013 5:00:29 PM PDT by karnage
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To: billorites
The under-the-breath comments made by Sen Leaky Leahy, who was sitting next to Fineswine at the hearing while Sen Cruz was carving her up, were also embarrassing for their juvenile, mock outraged tone. Yes, senator, you DO need a lecture.
54 posted on 03/19/2013 5:06:37 PM PDT by JPG (Stay strong.)
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To: JPG

They need more than a lecture. They all be charged with attempting to destroy constitutional rights of citizens. These gun grabbers need to be jailed.


55 posted on 03/19/2013 5:14:41 PM PDT by Dutch Boy
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To: Dutch Boy

we need another amendment.......

The New York Times and other papers with a circulation exceeding 250,00 will have editorials restricted to one per day and that shall be limited to 100 words.


56 posted on 03/19/2013 5:18:17 PM PDT by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....The fairest Deduction to be reduced is the Standard Deduction)
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To: School of Rational Thought

***Creep only tables semi-auto ban,****

“I’ll be back!”-Dianne the Terminator wannabe/


57 posted on 03/19/2013 5:27:30 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (CLICK my name. See the murals before they are painted over! POTEET THEATER in OKC!)
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To: billorites

Now, if they REALLY wanted to pass this travesty of a law they should have done what was done to pass the 1968 GCA and Clinton’s AW ban.

Add millions of dollar$ to it to give each state for “CRIME CONTROL”!

Even the hardened pro-gun politicians fell for this PORK!


58 posted on 03/19/2013 5:30:57 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (CLICK my name. See the murals before they are painted over! POTEET THEATER in OKC!)
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To: billorites

***This has been a constant battle since I was a child. Certainly been going on largely nonstop since at least 1968.***

It started with a simple call for Federal handgun registration back in 1962 by Thomas J Dodd and Emanuel Cellar.

1962; “We don’t want to take away your guns, we ONLY want to register handguns! Rifles and shotguns will not be affected”.

1964: “We only want to register all your guns, not ban them! Only Army surplus guns will be banned.”

1968: “We only want to register your guns, and ban “Saturday Night Specials” and small foreign handguns along with army surplus rifles!” (They got the ban on 5 shot army surplus rifles and handguns and small foreign pistols)

1970: “We only want to ban Saturday night specials! Large handguns and rifles will not be affected!” There was also a call at this time to ban all private possession of ALL GUNS.

1976: “We only want to ban all handguns! Long guns will not be affected!”

1981: “The NRA should give up their handguns, and they can keep their rifles!”- Lee Grant on GMA

1984: “We must ban “assault Rifles, unsuitable or hunting!”

1989: George Bush bans import of some foreign made “assault rifles”.

1992: Assault rifle ban passed by Clinton.

2000: first calls to ban single shot .50 cal rifles...

2012 calls for MORE bans on semi auto rifles and handguns.

and so it continues.

They lied to us in 1962.
They lied to us in 1964.
TheY lied to us in 1968.
They lied to us in 1970.
They lied to us in 1976.
They lied to us in 1981.
They lied to us in 2013,

AND THEY ARE LYING TO US NOW!


59 posted on 03/19/2013 5:36:18 PM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (CLICK my name. See the murals before they are painted over! POTEET THEATER in OKC!)
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To: bert

Feinstein’s birthday is June 22, 1933 so she is starin’ down the barrel of 80 in a couple of months.


60 posted on 03/19/2013 5:55:17 PM PDT by wayoverthehill
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