The new push to ban so-called 'assault weapons'

January 26, 2:01 AMSt. Louis Gun Rights ExaminerKurt Hofmann

Previous Next

50 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

This being the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, I have so far looked only at what is going on right at the local level.  Starting now, though, I am going to expand the focus.  Gun rights in St. Louis are, after all, seriously impacted by state and federal gun laws.  This is not to say that I will abandon local gun rights issues--as they come up, I'll discuss them, but to focus on local events exclusively would be to ignore many of the most pressing gun rights issues facing St. Louisans and others.

One type of proposed federal law that incessantly comes up for discussion is a new federal ban on so-called "assault weapons."  The last such ban, of course, expired in 2004, after which, suddenly . . . such firearms continued to be used in only a tiny percentage of violent crimes.  That little detail hasn't deterred the gun prohibitionists, though, who constantly comb the news waiting for the next killing in which such firearms are used, in order to have something to point to in order to make their case.

This time, it's Miami that has provided fodder for the citizen disarmament advocates, with a shooting involving an "AK-47" (I suspect that it was a semi-automatic copy of an AK-47, rather than a real, fully automatic one--real AK-47s have been, and continue to be, regulated under laws much more restrictive than the AWB).

Miami police issued a plea for information Saturday after at least one person with an assault rifle opened fire on a crowd of people on a streetcorner Friday night, killing two teens and wounding seven other people.

Certainly a horrible and tragic event, but I would argue that such violence is more an indication of the amount of work that needs to be done in repairing the badly frayed social fabric of this country, than it is an effective argument for restricting peaceable citizens' access to certain popular firearms, in a doomed attempt to keep those firearms out of the hands of criminals.

That, however, is exactly how some would use this incident.

"These are weapons of war, and they don't belong on the streets of Miami or any other street in America," Mayor Manuel Diaz said.

Like Mayor Slay, Mayor Diaz is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and the fallacy of that group's claim that they're only interested in stopping illegal  guns is exposed by the number of now legal guns they would like to make illegal (the AR-15, for example, generally considered an "assault weapon" by the prohibitionists, is now the biggest selling centerfire rifle in the U.S.).

In their drive to ban so-called "assault weapons," the mayors have powerful allies in the federal government, including a president and vice president who have made no secret of their wish to do so.

They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

Vice President Biden, by the way, was one of the original sponsors of the now expired ban.  Eric Holder, whom President Obama has chosen, pending Senate confirmation, as the Attorney General, has stated that he believes the Supreme Court's Heller decision poses no obstacle to such a ban.

And I had mentioned, I think, closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I would also think that making the assault weapons ban permanaent wold be someting that would be permitted under Heller, and I also think would be good for my law enforcement perspective.

President Obama seems already to have abandoned even the pretense of honoring his campaign promises to "respect the Second Amendment," and we can expect the agenda of smotheringly restrictive gun laws to get underway in earnest any time now.

Are you ready for it?

----------

In other news, please join me in extending a warm welcome to our newest Gun Rights Examiner, Paul Valone, of the Charlotte Gun Rights Examiner.  When it comes to gun rights advocacy, this is far from his first rodeo, and I have no doubt he will bring a lot of good insight to the discussion.  In fact, he already has brought it, and on a subject near and dear to me--"Mayors Against Illegal Guns."  Even if you're nowhere near Charlotte, please give him a look, along with the other Gun Rights Examiners.

• National Gun Rights Examiner:  For the children (part two)
• Los Angeles Gun Rights Examiner:  Three little words, Part I: take me shooting.
  
• Cleveland Gun Rights Examiner:  More ccw training equals more priveleges?
  
• Charlotte Gun Rights Examiner:  'Gun Trafficking' bill for NC?  Part 2:  How 'Mayors Against Illegal Guns' lies to you