I Can Haz Moar Guns?
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There has been an increase in gun sales since Barack Obama has been elected President. While this is great news for guns manufacturers and sellers, it makes the rest of us wonder wtf people are thinking.
Apparently, there is a belief among 2nd Amendment advocates that Obama will not fight tooth-and-nail to protect the rights of gun owners. Clearly, that implies that he has an agenda to take away all guns from private ownership.
Huh?
Aside from the absurd leap of logic from that statement, how would he accomplish such a task? I mean, the 2nd Amendment is not going away anytime soon, is it?
Its not like any President in recent history has ignored the constitution in any major way, right?
Alright, that's not a very good example.
Still, it seems a bit paranoid to think that all guns will be banned the instant Obama takes office. The same thing happened when Clinton took office the first term, with gun sales going through the roof, yet there were no jack-booted storm troopers from the ATF going door-to-door to confiscate legally-owned firearms during his eight-year administration (don't laugh, that's precisely the scenario some people are afraid of).
More importantly, I would hope Obama has more important things on his plate for the first few months.
Labels: politics
posted by M. B. Dezotell at 9:21 PM
6 Comments:
A friend of mine has been struggling financially for a while -- but he went further into debt to buy a new Bushmaster AR-15 style varmint rifle (24-inch fluted barrel, Pentax scope: it should make a good coyote gun). He's not a nut job, he's just a hunter wanting to get a nice rifle while he's still allowed to.
A lot of this manic gun-buying is based on a purely pragmatic expectation that the 1994 AWB law is coming back. We've all lived through it once, and we want to be better prepared to weather a new one. Some people see this as an investment opportunity too, since the price of grandfathered "pre-ban" guns shot up during the last AWB.
As for Obama. . . I doubt whether he'll push aggressively for new gun laws. The real problem is that the Democratic leadership in the Congress has several persons with a record of doing exactly that, and if they manage to put something on Obama's desk, I don't see him vetoing it. (That goes double for the hated AWB law, since he's written on his website that he supports renewing it and making it permanent. Ironically, McCain supported it too.)
Using an assault rifle to shoot coyotes, or for any sporting purposes really, is overkill. Your standard bolt-action deer rifle would work just fine, if that's what you're really after.
On the other hand, if you are looking to privately own a military-grade semi-automatic rifle because of the "coolness" factor, the Bushmaster AR-15 looks like the weapon of choice, if you can afford it.
Buy it while you still can.
Dez, you are wrong, and here's why. . . To start with, nobody has said anything about using an "assault rifle" to shoot coyotes. Assault rifles are military machineguns that have been unavailable to most private citizens in the USA for a long time. You wouldn't want to shoot coyotes with one anyhow, they're not particularly good for that.
The anti-gun faction have invented a new term, "assault weapon", which is basically a catch-all for any kind of firearm that they think looks scary. It has included rifles, pistols and even shotguns with an arbitrary list of cosmetic features. They would love for people to think that "assault weapons" are assault rifles, and that assault rifles are readily available to the public, so they can push for new laws to ban ordinary (but scary looking) firearms that *are* available to the public.
The real issue is semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15. The AR-15 coyote gun uses the same ammunition as the bolt-action coyote gun. It has the same power, velocity, range, accuracy. So how is one "overkill" and the other is not? I don't see the line of reasoning there. The advantage of the AR is simply that you get a fast second shot on a coyote, which is useful once in a while.
But the ban never addressed most semi-automatic rifles, specifically. When I referred to assault rifles in my previous statement, I was talking about fully-automatic weapons, which have been banned for private ownership since 1934.
Semi-automatic weapons (SAWs) were defined in the 1994 ban as semiautomatic rifles capable of accepting high capacity feeding devices (10 or more rounds), and equipped with two or more proscribed features. These features included: Prominent pistol grip; Flash Suppressor and/or threaded muzzle; Grenade launcher; Collapsible or folding stock; Bayonet lug.
It was relatively easy to modify existing AR-15-type rifles (semiautomatic with prominent pistol grip and capable of accepting a high capacity feeding device) so that they lacked any of the other features, so the ban really had very little effect except to annoy gun manufactures and vendors.
The main reaction to the ban, however, was to rally gun advocates to the fight against it. The argument was that ANY limit to gun ownership was an attack on our liberties as American citizens as defined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution (quote: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.")
Yes, "shall not be infringed" is pretty clear. But, since the state-of-the-art for weapons technology in our forefather's time was the flintlock rifle, public safety was not a concern.
I never understood the reasoning against the pistol grip, but the rest made sense to me: magazines that hold 10 rounds or more, for example. How many coyotes do you need to shoot before you reload? Flash suppressor and/or threaded muzzle (useful for attaching a silencer)? Why would that be necessary, unless you plan on defending yourself against a military force (or the ATF)? Same with the grenade launcher or the bayonet lug. A collapsible or folding stock would be great for stuffing the weapon in a backpack for hiking - but the real usefulness is to make it easy to hide until you need it.
These are not arbitrary items. They also do not interfere with legitimate gun ownership, as was proven by the increase in gun sales between 1994 and 2004.
The AWB also did not effect the sale of guns with these features made before 1994, so again, the only people effected were the gun manufacturers and vendors.
Have you noticed, as I did in doing research on this subject in the last few days, that the majority of websites devoted to fighting back against the AWB have been owned and operated by gun manufacturers and vendors? Of course they want you to believe that the Assault Weapons Ban is a big deal. It really is not. Its effect on gun ownership is slight, at best.
It also seemed to have little effect on crime, given the statistics accumulated during the 10 years it was in effect. Given that, why do it again?
Politics isn't usually about being effective. Often, it is all about the appearance of doing something meaningful, while actually doing nothing at all. So, yes, Obama and the Democratic Congress will very likely renew the ban on "Assault Weapons".
So, by all means, buy your Bushmaster AR-15s with the flash suppressor, folding stock and bayonet lug while you still can! ( I never said not to, did I?)
Dez, I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote that, "Politics isn't usually about being effective."
The AWB was symbolic and it was an attempt at social conditioning. The real goal was to get America's gun owners accustomed to living under a long and complex list of arbitrary rules, so the anti-gun faction would later be able to come back and expand those rules in whatever direction their hearts desire.
If they can pass one gun law that makes no logical sense and serves no pragmatic purpose, and make it stick, then why not another? And another. . . and another. . . and eventually gun ownership can be whittled down to a vestigial nub.
If you follow the AWB to its logical conclusion, that's what you end up with. Then the US Govt is in the business of defining what is a legitimate use for firearms, and defining exactly what kind of firearms we "need" for those purposes, and forbidding the possession of all others.
That's not the sort of country I look forward to living in. But as we say in Texas, "If at first you don't secede. . ."
I've never been a fan of the "slippery slope" scenario. "If we let people smoke pot, that will lead to Heroin!" or "If we let gay people marry, soon people will be getting married to animals, furniture and who knows what else!"
But that brings us back to my original point, which is that the entire issue of gun control in this country has been taken out of context, with both sides over-reacting and pointing fingers and making wild accusations. "The Liberals are trying to take away our guns and civil liberties!" to "The Conservatives would rather see our children shot dead in the streets than give up their precious guns!"
This is not as black-and-white an issue as a lot of people would have us believe. There is room for compromise on both sides.
But the paranoia will prevail as long as it serves the needs of those promoting it. This issue has a long way to go before it is done, if it ever is.
(On a footnote, if Texas wants to separate from the Union - and really means it this time - I don't think you'll get much resistance from the rest of us. I, for one, will be cheering you on. Oh, and could you take Alaska with you?)
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