4/14/2008 9:13:00 PM
Good lord, where to start? First off, the SKS is not an "assault rifle" even by the Brady Campaign's definition--it's a top-loading, ten-round, fixed-magazine rifle with no pistol grip and a standard stock. Secondly, define "high velocity, "military style" and "quick succession." "High velocity"? Yeah, bullets go fast. It's cause there's an explosion behind them and they're pushed through a small tube. Even lower velocity pistol rounds like the .45 ACP are often supersonic, and pretty much all rifle rounds are. "Military style"? So, it looks bad? Here's a lesson: a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle is the same gun whether it has a fixed stock, a ten round magazine, and no bayonet lug, or has a folding stock, a thirty round magazine, and a pistol grip. Aesthetic features don't change the function of a weapon. "Quick succession"? Semi-automatic means one round per pull of the trigger. It's not a machine gun; you still have to aim. There is no difference between a semi-automatic hunting rifle and a semi-automatic "assault rifle," but the anti-gun lobby would have us believe that somehow pistol grips and bayonet lugs make a gun more dangerous. EDIT: Oh, and as for cops, 82.1% stated that they do NOT support an "assault weapons" ban (San Diego Police Officers Association, May 5, 1997). Also, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Survey of State Prison Inmates (1997), only 2% of convicted felons who carried a firearm had anything definable as a "military-style semi-automatic gun."
As for the assault weapons ban itself, here is what the Brady Campaign's website lists regarding the 1994 ban. Many of these same items were put in the attempted resurrection of the ban by Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY). My thoughts are in parentheses:
"The 1994 law also prohibits manufacturers from producing firearms with more than one of the following assault weapon features:
Rifles
* Folding/telescoping stock (Irrelevant. A folding stock has nothing to do with a weapon's lethality.)
* Protruding pistol grip (Trust me, it's just as easy to shoot someone with a rifle that doesn't have a pistol grip. This is simply another aesthetic qualification of an "assault weapon.")
* Bayonet mount (Yeah, those drive-by bayonetings are a real problem.)
* Threaded muzzle or flash suppressor (A flash suppressor is actually just a piece of metal on the end of a barrel that diffuses the gases and explosion which create the flash into different directions, away from the shooter's line of sight. This allows a shooter to fire a weapon in low light without being blinded.)
* Grenade launcher (grenade launchers were banned in 1934 by the National Firearms Act, the same bill that made fully automatic weapons so tightly restricted. This was simply put on the website to make people think that grenade launchers would be legal if the AWB was repealed.)
Pistols
* Magazine outside grip (Irrelevant. A magazine extending past the grip on a Colt 1911 might contain 10 rounds. A magazine in the grip on a Glock 17 can contain up to 17 rounds.)
* Threaded muzzle (Irrelevant, since silencers are illegal anyway except with BATF registration)
* Barrel shroud (Purely aesthetic. A barrel shroud diffuses heat from the barrel, making it so that a pistol can have a longer barrel and the shooter does not burn their hands. It's a safety feature, but it does make the gun look "meaner.")
* Unloaded weight of 50 ounces or more (Also purely aesthetic, and if you think about it, rather backwards--a larger, heavier pistol is much more difficult to conceal. Most handgun murders are committed with small, lightweight, easily concealable pistols.)
* Semi-automatic version of a fully automatic weapon (Vague enough to ban many semi-automatic pistols, but also irrelevant. Glock makes a fully-automatic pistol for police and military, as does Beretta. Both are close to their civilian designs. Colt does not make a fully-automatic version, but a semi-automatic 1911 is just as deadly as a semi-automatic Glock or Beretta.)
Shotguns
* Folding/telescoping stock (See "Rifles.")
* Protruding pistol grip (See "Rifles.")
* Detachable magazine capacity (A detachable magazine does not make a shotgun deadlier.)
* Fixed magazine capacity greater than 5 rounds (Most hunting shotguns have a smaller capacity than that anyway.)"
Later on the website, there is a section that states:
"Opponents of the ban argue that such weapons only 'look scary.' However, because they were designed for military purposes, assault weapons are equipped with combat hardware, such as silencers (These are illegal unless you register with the BATFE; the website is horribly misleading), folding stocks and bayonets (which have no relevance to a weapon's lethality; nobody gets killed with bayonets), which are not found on sporting guns. Assault weapons are also designed for rapid-fire (except that they are semi-automatic, just like many, many sporting rifles and shotguns) and many come equipped with large ammunition magazines allowing 50 more bullets (actually, there are very few weapons that accept magazines of more than 30 bullets, and the 50+ capacity magazines that do exist are quite expensive) to be fired without reloading.
...Standard hunting rifles are usually equipped with no more than 3 or 4-shot magazines (Not true; even bolt-action rifles generally have 5- to 10-round fixed magazines).
...A pistol grip on a rifle or shotgun, which facilitates firing from the hip, allowing the shooter to spray-fire the weapon. A pistol grip also helps the shooter stabilize the firearm during rapid fire and makes it easier to shoot assault rifles one-handed. (This is honestly my biggest beef with the whole site. YOU CANNOT SHOOT ANY RIFLE EFFECTIVELY FROM THE HIP, OR ONE HANDED. Go look at some news footage of US soldiers. Do you see them resting their weapon on their hip while firing? Or shooting one handed? No, you don't. They put the rifle to their shoulder. They use both hands. They do this because you cannot shoot a rifle any other way. I have tried to fire my "assault rifle" from the hip to see if it is effective. I'm a pretty good shot, but I got no closer than two feet to a target that was 25 feet away shooting from the hip. ****, I'd rather the criminals thought they could fire from the hip--I'd much rather have someone shooting at me from the hip. Even if they managed to hit me by sheer luck, it'd probably be non-fatal. Look at every mass shooting. Any time that the shooter has attempted to "shoot from the hip" it has resulted in more wounded than dead, if anyone was killed at all. The really deadly shootings are the ones where the shooter had firearms training, often military, as in the case of Charles Whitman's shootings at the University of Texas clock tower [incidentally, none of Whitman's weapons would be banned by the assault weapons bill]. The "shooting from the hip" idea is purely myth.)
