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At it again: Anti-gunners trying to demonize yet another class of firearms
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First it was “plastic guns” that critics, including perennial anti-gun Senator Edward M. Kennedy, hysterically claimed could become the weapon of choice of terrorist because they did not show up on x-ray machines.
But the “plastic gun” turned out to be a myth, and the pistol once called a “terrorist weapon” for its use of polymer components around a steel frame – the Glock – is now the choice of American police officers.
Then it was the “semiautomatic assault-weapon,” pilloried in the press because it looked like a military firearm and had some cosmetic features some people didn’t like, and this allowed the fear-peddlers at the Violence Policy Center (VPC) an opportunity to confuse people and gull them into supporting a ten-year ban that accomplished nothing, especially when it came to protecting the lives of police officers.
One law enforcement expert debunked claims by the gun prohibition lobby that these semiautomatic firearms – which function identically to grandpa’s Remington or Browning shotgun he used to hunt ducks and geese – are “the weapons of choice” of criminals.
I can tell you that the claim that AK-47s or something called an ‘assault weapon’…is widely used by criminals, isn’t true and never has been true.
The buzz-phrase became “you don’t need an assault rifle to hunt ducks,” when any hunter could tell you that it’s illegal to hunt ducks with a rifle, anyway, while any gun rights activist will note that the Second Amendment is not about duck hunting, and that “It’s the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Needs.”
Next up was the so-called “.50-caliber Sniper Rifle,” which gun banners portrayed with the proper degree of paranoia as the gun terrorists would use to bring down passenger jets. There has never been a single recorded incident of such magnitude, and according to Wikipedia, “the ViolencePolicyCenter is only able to document 4 actual uses of .50 BMG rifles by criminals.”
Now, VPC’s Tom Diaz, who has made a career demonizing different firearms, is now going after a class of large-caliber handguns developed solely for big game hunting (thus deflating another myth of the anti-gun lobby, that handguns are designed only for shooting people). Like the terms “assault rifle” “plastic handguns” and “sniper rifle,” Diaz has invented a slur term for the huge handguns, dubbing them “vest busters.” This alludes to the claim that bullets fired from such handguns will penetrate soft body armor worn by police officers.
It is no accident that every time the gun ban lobby launches a campaign to ban one type of gun or another, it camouflages the campaign with claims that “it’s to protect children” or “it threatens the safety of law enforcement officers.” Yet the VPC even acknowledges that handgun bullets do not constitute a threat to police wearing bullet resistant vests.
During the 1990 to 1999 period, 20 law enforcement officers were killed by gunshot wounds as a result of rounds penetrating their body armor. All of these rounds were fired from rifles.
Sadly, Michael Steele, former Maryland lieutenant governor and now head of the Republican National Committee, has also fallen for the mantra of gun prohibitionists. He has also alienated millions of gun owners – an important “base” voting bloc for Republicans – by stating, “What do you need an assault weapon for, if you’re going hunting? That’s overkill.”
Steele exhibited a horrid ignorance of competition shooting, along with the increasing use of AR-15 type rifles for varmint hunting and predator control, especially in the West, by a new generation of shooters brought up with such rifles. According to the Associated Press and Seattle Times, Congressional Democrats currently have little interest in pushing gun control, and Steel should follow their lead.
Don’t sucker for the new campaign to demonize a class of guns. In a society that condemns racial or religious bigotry, anti-gunners should not get a pass by practicing social bigotry against firearms, and the people who own them. Considering the racist origins of gun control, one would think that new attempts to demonize specific firearms might be met with the same disgust we would feel about demonizing specific classes of people.
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