Thursday, February 26, 2009

The Return of the Deadly 'Shoulder Thing That Goes Up'

The Attorney General would like the "Assault Weapons Ban" back. We all knew he did, but now he's actually saying so. This should surprise nobody. (For the one that knocked me over, skip to the end.)
"As President [Barack] Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons."
First of all, asshole, there is no such thing as an 'assault weapon'.

What you mean is 'scary looking rifle'. All the weapons that were banned by the law were simply semi-automatic rifles that had pistol grips, barrel shrouds, vertical forward grips, etc. but were functionally identical to more benign-looking rifles.

It's pretty clear just from reading the bill that the people who wrote and introduced this legislation have no idea what these features are. But if you don't believe me, watch this now-famous clip in which a barrel shroud is described as "the shoulder thing that goes up." By one of the legislation's sponsors.

Secondly, when we had an AWB in place from 1994 to 2004, it did not reduce crime. Furthermore, there has been no increase in crime involving the banned firearms since Congress allowed the ban to expire.

Thirdly, attempts to blame American laws for gun violence in Mexico is pathetic. For one thing, Americans aren't killing Mexicans, Mexican drug dealers are. Banning a whole class of firearms will take them out of the hands of law-abiding American gun owners. (I never get tired of pointing out that the rate of gun crime among this group is statistically pretty close to zero.)

But the chance that a ban will stop Mexican criminals from aerating eachother is also zero. These guys will just add a truckload of surplus AKs or G-3s to the next shipment of coke or heroin coming up from South America.

Fourthly, (and I guess I know this stuff cause I'm a bitter coward, clinging to my guns) I call upon the Attorney General of the United States to read the fucking law and learn that some 20,000 or so gun laws already on the books make straw purchases of firearms illegal. Maybe he could send the BATFE after the idiots selling guns to Mexican gangsters, and the gangsters themselves.

Finally, even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn't ready to bring back the AWB. "On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now," she said yesterday.

Someone call Hell, and find out how deep the snow drifts are. I agree with Nancy Pelosi.

4 comments:

Atom Smasher said...

I think it's safe to assume that if you find yourself in agreement with Pelosi, she's eaither lying or mistaken or both.

cnick said...

Question for you guys: what kinds of weapons would it be reasonable for the government to ban from civilian possession? In other words, is there a line you would draw, and if so where is it?

MeatAxe said...

Any firearm festooned with "Deadly Shoulder Things That Go Up" is clearly not meant for civilian hands. That kind of evil implement should not be allowed in society.

Lets see, though. Banning arms from civilian posession....

M1A2 Abrams -- definitely too complex for the average shade tree mechanic to handle. In the interest of maintaining consistent quality, we can't allow the average joe to run one of these.

F-18 -- moves much too fast and would thereby violate speeding laws.

B-57 10 kiloton nuclear bomb. This makes far to big of a bang. Very nasty.

M2 Bradley. The fuel consumption on these makes the carbon footprint too utterly dreadful for words. A definite no-no in the suburban garage.

Atom Smasher said...

"arms" means "arms", not "some arms and not others". I'm for setting the goalposts at the extreme of "anything at all including nukes" and always trying to stay pointed in that direction. That said, I accept the pragmatism of some forms of regulation and restriction without liking them.

From my understandings of the Founding Fathers, they would have been appalled by the fact that I can't have a working tank, and equally appalled by the fact that the Federal government feels the need to keep a standing army of thousands of them.

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