Assault weapon ban lifts

[Curt 1]

http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=world_home&articleID=1710962

 

Oh good, just what we need.

 

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - The expiration Monday of a 10-year federal ban on assault weapons means firearms like TEC-9s can now be legally bought, a development that has critics upset and gun owners pleased.

The 1994 ban, signed by former president Bill Clinton, outlawed 19 types of military-style assault weapons. A clause directed that the ban expire unless Congress specifically reauthorized it, which it did not.

 

Some of the 19 foreign-made weapons like the AK-47 and Uzi are still banned under a 1989 law prohibiting imports of specific automatic weapons.

 

Studies by pro-and antigun groups as well as the Justice Department show conflicting results on whether the ban helped reduce crime. Loopholes allowed manufacturers to keep many weapons on the market simply by changing their names or altering some of their features or accessories.

 

The differences between assault weapons and guns on the market before the ban expired are "cosmetic," Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, said Monday on CBS's The Early Show.

 

"To lead anyone to believe we're talking about a class of guns that's more powerful, makes bigger holes, shoots more rapidly is not true," LaPierre said.

 

Gun-control advocate Sarah Brady disagreed. "There's nothing cosmetic at all about this law," she said on The Early Show.

 

Gun shop owners said the expiration of the ban would have little effect on the types of guns and accessories that are typically sold and traded across their counters every day.

 

At the Boise Gun Co., gunsmith Justin Davis last week grabbed up a black plastic rifle resembling the U.S. military's standard issue M-16 from a row of more than a dozen similar weapons stacked against a wall.

 

The civilian version of the gun, a Colt AR-15 manufactured before 1994, could be sold last week just as easily as it can be sold this week. "It shoots exactly the same ammo at exactly the same rate of fire," said Davis.

 

However, the expiration could result in sharply lower prices for some weapons, said Sanford Abrams, owner of Valley Guns in Baltimore and vice president of the Maryland Licensed Firearms Dealers Association.

 

He said some pre-ban, military-style rifles with a combination of banned features such as flash suppressors, bayonet mounts and detachable magazines had been trading at gun shows for up to $1,600 US but the price could drop to less than $900 since those characteristics will again be allowed on new weapons.

 

"The biggest complaint we had was from ex-military wanting to buy a version of what they had in the military," Abrams said. "They wanted to buy one but they didn't want it to be minus any of the characteristics it had in the military."

 

Many states, including California, Massachusetts, New York and Hawaii, have passed their own laws curbing the use of assault weapons. Some of those are more stringent than the federal ban.

 

U.S. Representative Butch Otter (R - Idaho), trumpeted the end of the federal law.

 

"President Clinton's so-called 'assault weapons' ban was nothing more than a sop to antigun liberals," Otter said Friday in a written statement. "It provided only the illusion of reducing gun violence, but it did real damage to our liberties."

 

But advocates for the ban, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, point to some particularly vicious shootings in which military- style weapons were used, including the 10 killings in the sniper shooting spree that terrorized residents in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., in 2002.

 

National police organizations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and the Fraternal Order of Police all support the renewal of the ban. President George W. Bush has said he would sign such a bill if Congress passed it.

 

Presidential candidate Senator John Kerry criticized Bush for not pushing for an extension.

 

"Today George Bush made the job of terrorists easier and made the job of America's law enforcement officers harder and that's just plain wrong," Kerry said Monday.

[big-will 7]

I've been saving up just for this.

[Ocean11 0]

Let's jes hope they use 'em to overthrow the gubmint already. They's bin tokkin' bout it long enough... I reck'n that ole George Bush is mo' of tie-rant than that King George wuz.

[Fattwins 0]

poops. I need that AK to protect my family. just think about this if the amount of money that was spent on guns was put into law enforcement... What might happen????????? a safer country?

[Ocean11 0]

Then those people who were keeping their guns in case they needed to rise up and protect the Constitution wouldn't be able to do that.

 

Only the people who are letting them have better guns are also the ones who are tearing bits and pieces off the Constitution and throwing them away.

 

Weird shit.

[badmigraine 0]

I used to follow this stuff and I have an anti-gun bias, but in this case, sadly, the NRA is right.

 

Clinton's ban was typical hot-air politics. It didn't really do any of the things avid supporters like Ms. Brady would have us believe.

 

The analogy would be banning a kind of sliced pickle at some Buger King outlets. After the ban, you could get the same pickles at other restaurants, and even Burger King was offering similar pickles that taste and look pretty much the same as the ones they are now forbidden to serve.

 

The real gun issue in the US isn't banning this or that type of gun, it's how to disarm the entire population at one fell swoop, so that criminals don't have access to the weapons. There are millions of unregistered and untraceable firearms floating around the US, ranging from arquebuses to high-tech composite miniatures.

 

"Let's ban guns" won't work.

 

Last I checked, marijuana, heroin and ecstasy were "banned" items, but you can get them easily enough in most places. And somebody who is determined to get them, will get them.

 

My personal view...the focus in the US is on the wrong thing. The real focus should be on "why are Americans so prone to gun violence?" Most families in Switzerland have an M-1 rifle in their house, but you don't hear about their problem of gun violence. There's something irresponsible and frightening about a country where at any moment you could be picked off by an insane sniper, or have your car jacked with a pistol in your face in front of the local shopping mall. Why is it like this in the US?

 

Given the US agenda, maybe Bush or Kerry is better off proposing a gun ban in Iraq.

[damian 0]

Oh yes, I agree. For a long time now I have claimed that US citizens, their guns and propensity for violent crime constitute America greatest terrorist threat.

 

Any perpetrator of violent crime in America should be:

 

a) given an appropriate punishment via the courts (as is likely already happening?)

be give a label of 'worse than a terrorist' who is out to destroy 'our way of life'.

 

If Americans are so adamant to stamp out violent threat from outside (terrorism) then they should be intensely disgusted by those fellow Americans that take it upon themselves to use guns against other Americans from inside your own neighbourhood.

 

I have a similar view towards those that commit similar crimes in my own country. Part of my disgust is aimed at policy makers that create breeding grounds for such crime and the members of society that supports these policy makers.

 

(ps - taxing me more and giving it to poorer people is not the answer. I have not gone that left wing wet).

[nori-chan 0]

>>Most families in Switzerland have an M-1 rifle in their house

 

Really? I am surprised at it.