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September 14, 2004
Fewer laws, fewer crimes!
Jeff Soyer, my blogfather at Alphecca, has made the phony "Assault Weapons Ban" the theme of this week's Weekly Gun Bias Report. I am delighted to see that Jeff will be a guest on Cam Edwards radio show (NRANews tomorrow between 2 and 5 p.m.), and I can't wait! One of the more astounding abuses of logic is the term "Assault Weapons." Its legal companion, the "Assault Weapons Ban" codifies this abuse of logic into an impractical law which creates power for bureaucrats (at the expense of the Second Amendment) and, of course, a platform for activists: Assault weapons "have no place in a civilized society," said Dorothy Johnson-Speight, founder of Mothers in Charge, a group of women who have lost a son or daughter to violence."More powerful than the police?" That's an absurd (but typical) lie from a professional activist who probably knows better. The ban on "assault weapons" had nothing to do with any weapon's firepower, as neither caliber nor velocity were in any way regulated. Furthermore, the police have always been exempt from such laws and have been allowed fully automatic weapons whenever they desire. Nor were "assault" weapons banned for the rate of fire (all semi-automatics fire one round for each stroke of the trigger). Rather, they were targeted for such characteristics as cosmetic appearance, magazine capacity, bayonet lugs! Banning large-capacity magazines meant very little in practice, because the old magazines are easily available (and also always available to police). And if anyone thinks banning bayonet lugs or flash suppressors makes anyone safer (or that criminals who have them are "more powerful" than the police), then I suggest a refresher course on the meaning of power. The police have, and will always have more powerful weapons. But that's not the way Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson tries to spin it. He claims falsely that the expiration of the AWB places automatic weapons in the hands of the public -- and that such weapons are being used against police: Although the investigation continues, Johnson said the officer had been shot with an automatic weapon. He said the expiration Monday of the Brady gun law would put more automatic weapons into the hands of criminals.Now, I don't have access to the police reports, so I cannot state conclusively that these were automatic (as opposed to semiautomatic) weapons. But if they were automatic, they have been virtually prohibited (available only to a specially licensed few) since the early 1930s, and the AWB had nothing to do with them. If, on the other hand Commissioner Johnson is describing semiautomatic weapons subject to the AWB, then considering that the crime occurred last Friday, it's hardly evidence that the ban is working. He can't have it both ways. But the weasel wording suggests to me that he's trying. Sadly, much more demagogic language was deployed by Commissioner Johnson and other prominent anti-gun activists at a rally yesterday -- words like "genocide" and "terrorism." "This is self-genocide," Myers said. "We are killing each other. The government is sitting back and watching us kill ourselves."Note that the gun in Friday's crime has morphed from an "automatic" weapon to an "assault rifle." I don't know whether it was an "AK-47" or not, but at least one semiautomatic civilian version (the MAK-90), was not on the AWB list, and has been legally available for sale in Pennsylvania for the past ten years. (More here on the legal farce created by the cosmetic AWB.) Obviously, the AWB did not prevent Friday's cop shooter from getting whatever gun he used. Has it ever occurred to these activists that anyone crazed enough to gun down police officers might not stop to worry about whether his gun was on a bureaucratic list so complicated that lawyers have trouble interpreting it? The deliberate blurring of the distinction between automatic and semiautomatic is being done for political reasons, because most people's eyes tend to glass over when they're given technical explanations. What they want is to hear about machine guns! Or better yet, they want to see pictures. Today's Inquirer did not disappoint; just above the headline, there's a picture of a man standing in front of anti-gun activists holding a book showing large pictures of fully automatic Heckler and Koch submachine guns. The caption reads as follows: Kenny Ali, president of Men and Women for Human Excellence, peruses a submachine-gun catalog after the rally. Seated are activists Malik Aziz (center), of Philadelphia, and Umar Salahuddin, of Atlantic City.It's highly unlikely that either Kenny Ali or Malik Aziz are allowed to own firearms because both appear to have prior convictions. But is it really fair of them to work to take away from others the rights they have lost? Aziz asks a good question: "Once a person has done his time, why should you further punish him?"Many people would agree with Aziz that felons should have the right to vote, but he seems silent on the issue of their Second Amendment rights (and his anti-gun activism would appear to make him anti-Second Amendment). Are not Second Amendment rights, grounded as they are in the human natural right of self defense, just as important as voting rights? I applaud both Ali and Aziz for turning their lives around and for trying to help their communities, but I don't understand this inconsistency. Nor do I understand how their communities are helped by undermining the right to self defense. As I have said many times, gun control laws, like sodomy laws, criminalize personal freedom, invade privacy, and would put people in prison because of their lifestyle choices. A man's home is not his castle if he can't defend it. (Something that politicians like Joseph Hoeffel don't seem to understand.....) posted by Eric on 09.14.04 at 09:04 AM
Comments
Excellent reply, Sean Kinsell! Good riddance to a bad ban, I say. I totally agree that gun-ban laws are as morally reprehensible as "sodomy" laws and for the exact same reason, for the exact reason you gave. Your home is your castle, and therefore you have the right to defend it. Steven Malcolm Anderson (Cato the Elder) the Lesbian-worshipping gun-loving selfish aesthete · September 14, 2004 03:11 PM If the "only reason" to have a so-called "assault weapon" is to kill people, I'm way behind. I've got an AR-15, a CETME, and an FAL, and I've never even shot at someone, let alone killed them. Thanks for the update, Commissioner Johnson. Sigivald · September 14, 2004 03:32 PM Take the challenge:identify the assault weapons (according to the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994): http://www.ont.com/users/kolya/AR15/awc.htm Hmmm. Who put the ten-year lapse into the law anyway? Let's see; it was passed in August 1994.... Sherman, set the Wayback machine. Which party was in the White House in 1994? And WHICH party is whining about the Assault Weapons ban expiring? The Logician · September 14, 2004 06:53 PM BTW, Eric, this is slightly off-topic, but if you see it: I'm no Arlen groupie, but from what I can tell, Hoeffel is an affable rent-a-Donk. I fell asleep--no joke--in the middle of looking at his campaign website. Obviously, I don't want anyone to tell me how to vote, but since his district is around your neck of the woods, I thought maybe you might know of something he's done as a congresscritter that an interested voter might consider. As it stands, Specter seems to me to be doing a good enough job being a bland compromiser, and he has the advantage of seniority. Sean Kinsell · September 15, 2004 02:52 AM Sean you couldn't have said it any better! Thanks everyone! Eric Scheie · September 17, 2004 06:22 PM |
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From the article:
"'I ought to get a B-minus or a C-plus,' Hoeffel, 53, said, because he supports gun ownership for hunting and sporting."
Well, that's all right, then. If your house is robbed by a buck (in season), you're good to go.