Posted on 03/02/2004 9:05:08 AM PST by Atlas Sneezed
The vote was:
52 -Aye in favor of extending the ban 47 -Nay opposed to the ban.
But that IS my point. If you read my posts on here, you'll see that I argue that the media will be the most powerful campaign tool now with CFR in place. Geez, look at the Oscars. If leftists are given a stage to spout their political views unchallenged to the masses... ugh. Add this to the bigger media pricks, and you have a bonifide special interest group- that avoids CFR rules.
I concur with your statements about a good bolt action and a high standoff distance. That correlates with my earlier post about asymetrical conflict.
As for, "We need new arguments", well, that sounds good. What do you suggest?
Actually, my point was meant to be denigrating toward Collins and Snowe for voting to extend the AWB. In a small way, I contributed to that, by voting GOP instead of lesser evil. GOP has my vote. I'm not happy with the GOP.
Let me qualify that last statement a bit -- I'm not happy with the votes cast by Collins and Snowe re: AWB, nor their positions on certain other issues. In some regards I am disappointed in the GOP, in other regards I am happy with the GOP.
He won't see this S 1805 bill loaded down with these junk amendments.
The House past the same Bill CLEAN last year. You'll see this bill stripped CLEAN in the joint committee. The Rats and Rinos in the Senate are not going to get their way.
I trust you will vote as you see fit. I will vote as I see fit. I might be a single issue voter, I might not be. That uncertainity is part of the political process. Voters get to play chicken too.
OK, This is probably not the time to have a civil conversation,,,,,LOL!, but let me pose a question regarding "trampled". Bear in mind, that I own guns as well.
Other than some hoops to jump through regarding purchase and sale of the guns most of us enjoy owning, what has been trampled on thus far and why would passing a clean, unaltered extension of the AWB legislation trample further on those rights.
I see the attempts to do so frequently, but those measures just have not been passed by both houses.
We do not control the Senate as some believe, and so we see this today, but I saw it coming long ago.
IMO, this dies this year and will become a issue again next year. I see no reason to panic, blame bush, Rove and the administration for this continual political wrangling that was/is/will continue with those who just plain hate guns.
Nope, he said he wanted a clean bill so as not to delay passage. If a "dirty" bill gets passed, he did not say he wouldn't sign it. His spokenman said his position on the gun issues hasn't changed, so he would definitley sign it with the AWB attached.
that I can agree with.
Well, it's true. I look forward to the insights and knowledge that you always bring to these threads.
I need to spend more time at the range. I get caught up in day to day activities and don't make time for training.
Perhaps you and I can be the 'Tom Paines' of the day and provide the Common Sense that this country needs so sorely.
Wall Street Journal March 25, 1994
What Is an Assault Weapon?
The World's Greatest Deliberative Body has tied itself in knots over the crime bill. The bill's opponents worry about the $33 billion cost, but its defenders say that's all a smoke screen for the National Rifle Association. The most important business of the Republic, they say, is banning assault weapons. So it might be fair to ask, what's an "assault weapon," anyway?
Now, the weapons in question are not machine guns; automatic weapons have been illegal in this country since 1934. Rather, they are semi-automatics, capable of firing shots as fast as the shooter can pull the trigger. But most modern rifles are semi-automatics, and no one yet admits a desire to confiscate hunting rifles. So someone has to decide which semi-automatics are dreaded assault weapons. They tell by looking at the weapon; an assault weapon is in the eye of the beholder.
If you think we jest, we refer you to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the WGDB's leading expert on aesthetics and semantics. The Feinstein amendment, passed by the Senate last November and now part of the pending legislation, spelled out which weapons to ban. She and her aides riffled through their picture albums, picked out 19 weapons they especially didn't like and banned them by name.
One is the Colt AR-15. The Ruger Mini-14 would remain legal. The two are both semi-automatics firing the same 5.56 mm ammunition. In the hands of a criminal, they could each do the same damage; no more, no less. The difference between the two? The AR-15 looks more menacing because it has a plas¬tic stock and a pistol grip; that's it.
After listing the 19 aesthetic offenders, the Feinstein brain trust ap¬parently cross-tabulated its critical judgments to draw up a checklist of five aesthetic markers: a folding stock, too large a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor and a grenade launcher. Two strikes and it's an assault weapon, the WGDB decided; either a grenade launcher or a bayonet mount is OK, but not both.
From the proposed crime bill:
(B) a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of …
i. a folding or telescoping stock;
ii. a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;
iii. a bayonet mount;
iv. a flash suppressor or barrel having a threaded muzzle, and
v. a grenade launcher
Now, we'd agree that ordinary citizens don't have much need for bayonet mounts, but on the other hand, do you know anyone who was mugged with a grenade launcher? Statistics from around the country suggest that few criminals are deranged or dimwitted enough to call attention to them-selves by lugging around military-looking paraphernalia.
So-called assault weapons are used in only a tiny, tiny fraction of the violent crimes. In 1990, Florida's Commission on Assault Weapons reported that over the previous three-year period, assault weapons were used in 0.14% of violent crimes. In New York City, police confiscated 16,378 firearms in 1988, only 80 of which could be called assault weapons, Even a liberal such as Richard Cohen pointed out in a recent Washington Post column that according to the 1992 Uniform Crime Report, "more people were beaten to death that year (1,114) than were killed by rifles of any kind (698)."
But perhaps the best commentary came from Joseph Constance, deputy chief of police in Trenton, New Jersey. He told the Senate Judiciary Committee last August: "Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets."
The real question is why the Senate wants to tie itself into knots over so frivolous an issue. Both sides of the gun-control debate see an assault-weapons ban as the first step toward confiscating all firearms, we suppose, and that in turn evokes the ultimate liberal-conservative division over whether the root cause of crime is original sin. This remains in the realm of symbolism, and perhaps the WGDB wants to spend its August evenings striking postures. But in protecting the public from crime, it could scarcely be clearer, the assault-weapons ban would fire a blank.
Oh, I think I could, but this is one of those, "if you have to ask, you just wouldn't understand" questions, so I won't bother trying. Let your wealth of combat experience be your guide.
If you have concluded that ugly semiauto rifles have no place in your two-gun arsenal, that's fine... but
That conclusion has absolutely NOTHING TO DO with the AWB or the 2nd Amendment, and certainly nothing to do with anyone else's right to own ugly semiauto rifles.
This is one of those, "if you have to ask, you just wouldn't understand" questions, so I won't bother trying. Let your wealth of combat experience be your guide.
If you have concluded that ugly semiauto rifles have no place in your two-gun arsenal, that's fine... but
That conclusion has absolutely NOTHING TO DO with the AWB or the 2nd Amendment, and certainly nothing to do with anyone else's right to own ugly semiauto rifles, shotguns with pistol grips, or pistols that hold 11 rounds.
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