Nancy Pelosi (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Well, that didn't take long.
It seems Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that the Obama administration would seek a new ban on semiautomatic firearms was premature, and the damage control teams have arrived to put the torn facades back up.
First, we had House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "throw[ing] cold water" on the idea:
“On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference.
That sound bite appropriately raised some eyebrows, because as The Hill pointed out:
[T]hat phrase is the stock line of those who don’t want to pass new gun control laws, such as the National Rifle Association.
More cover came from the shill gun rights group, American Hunters and Shooters Association, in president Ray Schoenke's open letter to Holder, where he noted:
“The Obama administration shouldn’t be distracted from handling the important economic issues currently facing our country. This type of legislation will only disillusion the millions of law-abiding gun owners who voted for Barack Obama, believing that he did indeed support their right to own firearms.”
Thanks in no small part to your efforts, Ray.
Here's the thing: Anyone who doesn't think Pelosi is champing at the bit to reenact one of her pet hates is deluding themselves.
I rise in strong opposition to the repeal of the ban.
She'll ban importation if she can:
PELOSI, STARK, MCCARTHY (NY) WARN THAT CHINESE WEAPONS LOOPHOLE FOR CHEAP ASSAULT RIFLES WILL BE REOPENED IF PNTR IS PASSED
And she'll use whatever misdirection she can to ban their ownership:
You can do more as soon as we solve this insanity over the gun legislation in this town that's going on now--which I don't understand.
...if you need an assault weapon to hunt, if your aim is that bad, you should just take up another sport.
...if we had intelligent legislation to handle guns we would be doing even more.
Does that sound like she just wants to enforce what's on the books to you?
As for Schoenke, he needs to try and recapture whatever credibility he can with all those sport shooters he duped into supporting Obama. But isn't it curious that AHSA founder and past president, anti-gun activist John Rosenthal, had this to say?
Restore and improve the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons
And isn't it curious we don't see Mr. Rosenthal issuing a statement condemning his colleague's defense of what he deems "the weapon of choice by gangs, career criminals and terrorist organizations"?
That's OK--they've put a facade up on that, too. Still, c'mon, John--how about an open letter to Ray?
With all this running for cover going on, it would be easy to lose focus on the jewel in the crown. So perhaps it would be helpful to once again review the words from the official White House website. Don't take my word for it--take theirs:
Obama and Biden...also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.
So what was going on with Holder?
The guy just let us see the cards before everyone was ready.
Anyone who thinks we're not one highly publicized incident away from a reinvigorated full court press to ban semiautomatics and more is kidding themselves.
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A note of clarification
You'll note when I use the term "assault weapon," I always encase it in quotation marks. That's because it is a deceptive term for semiautomatic firearms, designed to confuse the uniformed into thinking that the firearms in question are machine guns. In case you weren't aware, semiautomatic firearms do not "spray bullets"--they are designed to fire one round with each squeeze of the trigger. That opportunistic politicians and the media perpetuate this illusion--when they should know full well where it came from--should tell you all you need to know about the sincerity of their intentions.
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Update--GRE PR
I forgot to mention this when I first posted this column: Check out the latest Gun Rights Examiner press release.
Check out the latest from other Gun Rights Examiners:
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- Austin Gun Rights Examiner: Attorney General Holder doesn’t appear to know federal law
- Charlotte Gun Rights Examiner: Ambitious gun rights agenda introduced in North Carolina
- Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner: What kind of people are gun owners?
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- DC Gun Rights Examiner: The book burning will continue ‘till public safety improves!
- Denver Gun Rights Examiner: Thank you, Nancy Pelosi
- LA Gun Rights Examiner: No question about it: they're coming for the guns. And the money, and the energy, and the food . . .
- Milwaukee Gun Rights Examiner: Time to change our attitude about guns
- Minneapolis Gun Rights Examiner: Open carry is the 2nd Amendment
- Seattle Gun Rights Examiner: Obama is assembling a ‘gun grabber dream team’
- St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner: What will it be--a new 'assault weapon' ban, or a preserved Union?
Comments
Powder Alarm!!
When this happened I kind of thought the timing was too early with everything happening in the economy. No question he let his mouth get the best of him in being honest about the agenda that they have in the brew, maybe! He may have done this to put gun owners at ease by having others come forward and say this not true we need to enforce the laws on the books. Here's a big problem for them. We all know that the media is parroting what the antigun folks want to be heard. They want to build a support base and a reason to pull off a new AWB. And they are using the violence in Mexico as the foundation. So are we being played to give Obama and company support only to have them slap us down later. Liberals are liars and have proved that far too many times, thats a fact we know to hold true.
Here's what they are working on for the time being. Keeping ammo off the street and mostly the 7.62x39. If my intel is correct there's a lot of it being held up in customs. There is a push to stop imported military ammo from coming into the country. I could see them stopping the ammo and than later saying something about what's the big deal if we outlaw these firearm, because there's no ammo. The next more is the coding of bullets and cases to outlaw all old ammo. These people have a lot of antigun tools in their bag of tricks. No one knows which direction they will come from. But for now I'm going to believe the slip was with intent.
He's no doubt getting a private reaming for not following the memo to wait for blood to dance in before making this move.
"the weapon of choice by gangs, career criminals and terrorist organizations"; I often hear this propagated in the media. But aside from television and the movies, is there any “proof” that these tools are in fact the weapons of choice for anyone not affiliated with the government? I understand that freedom fighters (terrorists to any government) will acquire and use these weapons. When the **it hits the fan, I too will acquire such a weapon, most likely from a government minion, in order to help level the playing field. The French did it against the Germans in WWII, so shall it be done here.
It think it's interesting that Ms. Walsh's photo shows Connecticut Representative DeLauro in the background, a member of Congress who never missed an opportunity to direct government to harass citizens with statutes that have no effect on crime or safety.
"...if you need an assault weapon to hunt, if your aim is that bad, you should just take up another sport."
Despite his claims about his hunting experience, I seriously doubt Secretary Cuomo dispensed that wisdom while field dressing a deer on the floor at a Congressional Lunch Series. Instead of knocking over my own straw man, I'll simply post some facts, and trust that the Examiner readership will arrive at the correct conclusion.
* A semi-auto rifle is not inherently more accurate than a more traditional bolt rifle--the more expensive the barrel, generally, the better the accuracy--and the same goes for ammunition[1];
* black paint, plastic parts, pistol grips, and threaded muzzles have no effect on accuracy--which is why you'll see 1,000-yard competition rifle shooters slaving over their micrometer-adjusted cartridge loading equipment, instead of simply hitting the gun with a can of black RustOleum[2];
* the two most popular calibers for AR-15 style, or Kalashnikov-style rifles are weaker than the 114 year-old .30-30 Winchester, which is generally considered the minimum acceptable cartridge for deer hunting[3];
* regardless of whether a rifle is self-loading or manually-operated, hunting restrictions specify a maximum magazine capacity in the field--usually five shots maximum--and if the first shot doesn't hit where it was supposed to, it becomes a lot more difficult to place succeeding shots on wounded game that is in motion[4];
* semi-automatic rifles have been used by hunters for decades--see Browning Patent 1900 or BAR (i.1910, 1967), or Remington 740 or 7400 (i.1955)--these rifles have wood and milled steel parts, instead of plastic, stamped steel or aluminum parts[5];
--
Interested in verifying my statements?
[1] Custom aftermarket barrel, guaranteed accuracy below one-minute-of-angle at 100 yards, $1499:
www.remington7400.com/index.php
Stock Remington 7400 barrel assembly, $149:
www.e-gunparts.com/product.asp?chrProductSKU=101070-05
Low-cost ammunition versus "match grade" ammunition--$17 and $34 respectively:
www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/item.asp?sku=001293006A
www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/item.asp?sku=00129GM3006M
[2] Articles that touch on all the relevant areas of accurate shooting, absent any mention of pistol grips, threaded muzzles, high-capacity magazines, or black paint:
www.freewebs.com/precisionrifle/accuracyarticles.htm
[3] Use this bullet energy calculator:
billstclair.com/energy.html
1. Click on the ".223 Rem. (5.56 NATO)" button. Note that energy is 1,282 foot-pounds
2. Click on the "7.62x39 (AK-47)" button. Note that the energy is 1,552 ft/lbs.
Go here--note that bullet weight and velocity are 150 grains and 2,390 feet-per-second:
www.winchester.com/products/catalog/cfrdetail.aspx?symbol=X30306TR&cart=MzAtMzAgV2lu
Go back to 'billstclair.com/energy.html', plug in 150 in the field labeled "Bullet Weight (grains)", and 2390 in the field labeled "Velocity (feet/second)". Energy for the .30-30 Winchester is 1,902 ft/lbs.
[4] Here's a typical hunting regulations page--search for "magazine capacity":
www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/hunting/big_game/regulations/weapons.asp
[5] Semi-automatic hunting rifles that aren't "black rifles", some of which have been around a while:
hunting.about.com/od/toppicks/tp/tp_auto_rifles.htm
I've been searching in vain on the Internet for some time, TJP, for a quote by Rep. DeLauro that I read in a print publication many years ago--I suspect it never got electronically transcribed. The gist of it--coming from a rabid Marxist who mislabels herself a "feminist"-- is that when it comes to guns, they want women to be virgins.
I guess that might be a turn-on for a rapist, too.
If anyone can source that for me, I'd be grateful.
Dave, I remember seeing the phrase attributed to Rep. DeLauro in "The New Gunweek" back in the '90s. Check with them; they may be able to pull it from their archives.
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