"Lennie the Lurker" wrote in message
om...

Unfortunately, money and blustering bull**** still talk louder than
rationale. Myself, I think there should be a bounty on NRA lobbyists.
$5 per head, 360 day open season, no bag limit. If still alive, no
bounty, go finish the job first.

Yeah, you have the bluster part right, Lennie.

Jeez, I hate gun control arguments. They're such a bunch of crap, and it
makes me sick that intelligent people like you and John can fall for such
transparent bull****.

There are plenty of issues to deal with concerning guns used in crimes, and
accidental deaths, and so on. They need the attention of good thinking and
untainted facts. Instead you repeat bull****, bull****, bull****...and you
wind up distracting attention from the real problems with symbolic gestures,
like "assault weapon" bans.

Here's the news, Lennie. There IS NO data indicating that more than, at
most, 2% of crimes are committed with "assault weapons." It's been that way
since before the bans were enacted, in the late '80s.

But Gunner is not correct that the FBI tracks this data. The FBI has said,
quite rightly, and in congressional hearings, that there is no useful,
nationwide data on the use of "assault weapons." The closest thing is city
records of guns confiscated, which show that something less than 1% of guns
confiscated are "assault weapons." The reports that indicate more than 2%
usage (actually, less than 1%; I'm giving the benefit of the doubt. The high
figure was 3.13%, in Miami, 1989. Guess where they came from, in Drug City
1989? Not from your local gun shop, pard'.) come from BATF. And they are
completely bogus. The BATF tracks only selected cases, for specific reasons.
They are not survey data. They make no claim that they're representative of
anything. But HCI et al don't want you to know that.

In fact, the entire case against "assault weapons" is a creation of HCI and
their cronies. They did it Dick Cheney/Karl Rove style: keep repeating a lie
until it sticks.

It started back in 1988. There was an extreme anti-gun activist named Josh
Sugarmann, who, like the folks at HCI, were getting frustrated as hell that
they couldn't whip up much revulsion among American voters against handgun
violence. So they changed tactics. Here's what Sugarmann said about it then,
in his polemic titled "Assault Weapons in America":

"The issue of handgun restriction remains a non-issue with the vast majority
of legislators, the press, and public. . . . Assault weapons . . . are a new
topic. The weapons` menacing looks, coupled with the public`s confusion over
fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons --
anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun -- can
only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these
weapons."

It was a political scam. And it worked. Fifteen years later, they have
people like John saying "we have to get these assault weapons off the
streets."

But they were never ON the streets, in any numbers. The guns used in crimes
continue to be handguns, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who's
tried to stuff an AR-15 under his coat. g

Back around 1990 I interviewed the people who keep gun records for the state
of NJ, for a series of PR editorials I wrote then. I was up to my neck in
the FBI/UCR stats, interviews with state UCR records-keepers, Dewey Stokes,
and the lawyers at ILA for well over a year, trying to get to the bottom of
it all. I lobbied NJ state Assemblymen, trying, in my naive way, to get the
truth out. I was verbally beaten up by a NJ state Senator, now blessedly
deceased. g Overall, it was not a pretty picture. I learned that much of
our legislation is based on intentional lies. The "assault weapons" bans are
among them.

Anyway, pulling together a few facts for this message, I came upon a summary
of testimony given by a top Trenton cop, whom I had talked to at the time,
and it reminded me of a few relevant facts. Here's the summary (not mine,
because I tossed my notes years ago, but it sounds exactly right, by my
memory):

"According to the Deputy Chief Joseph Constance of the Trenton New Jersey
Police Department, in 1989, there was not a single murder involving any
rifle, much less a "semiautomatic assault rifle," in the State of New
Jersey.[107] No person in New Jersey was killed with an "assault weapon" in
1988.[108] Nevertheless, in 1990 the New Jersey legislature enacted an
"assault weapon" ban that included low-power .22 rifles, and even BB guns.
Based on the legislature's broad definition of "assault weapons," in 1991,
such guns were used in five of 410 murders in New Jersey; in forty-seven of
22,728 armed robberies; and in twenty-three of 23,720 aggravated assaults
committed in New Jersey.[109]"

The numbers are cites that point to references to the text, if you want them
I'll tell you where you can find them.

New Jersey's experience is similar to that of most states. The "assault
weapon" issue was bogus, cooked up by HCI et al to stir up some trouble.
Their real target was handguns, but they treated the "assault weapon" issue
as a means to an end. Then "assault weapons" took off in the press's
imagination, much to the delight of gun-banners everywhere.

Anyway, I'm not going to get into a citation war over this. I think that
most people here know that I play it straight, and any figures that anyone
comes up with that indicate 5% or 10% of crimes are committed with "assault
weapons" are bogus, unequivocally; I'll only go after one if you cite them,
and you'll eat dirt before I'm done if you make me do it. I'm too busy for
that crap. g I forget where many of the bodies are buried but I'll find
one if I have to.

The point is, you've been had. In a big way. "Assault weapons" are not the
problem. 'Never were. It's all a distraction, which is intended to get you
drooling and foaming. And it's worked.

Now, while you're diddling around with bogus "assault weapon" issues, people
are getting killed. And guns are one issue. Crazy people who get their hands
on them are another issue. There are lots of real issues, and large
magazines are one of them. Gunner will go up a tree on this, and I refuse to
get into an argument with him about it, but big magazines are bad news.
SKS's are not bad news. They're innocuous little rifles with 10-shot fixed
magazines fed with stripper clips. But there are some after-the-fact models
made with removable magazines, and they can be a problem when people stick
20-round magazines on them. Also, I read that the one used by the deer
hunter was "modified" for the removable magazines. Apparently that's a
popular conversion. I don't know how many of them are around, but the
conversions ought to be outlawed, IMO.

When I see somebody at the range with a big clip hanging down from some
little semiauto gun, my blood boils. He's part of the problem -- that is,
both the image problem and a real problem, which is that violent kids, and
nutballs, and murderers love 'dem big magazines. This is an
off-the-reservation thing to say, but I believe they should be sacrificed in
the name of sanity and social comity. I'm not a purist about anything,
except using natural hackle and dubbing on my dry flies, and I'm willing to
toss big magazines over the side in the name of good sense, and as a symbol
of responsibility among gun owners. And I don't give a flying **** what
arguments Gunner makes about it. g

Ed Huntress