snipped
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
hated to snipp Ed's good comments... here are some numbers.. though a
bit old.. that show what is actually being used to kill folks...
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/guic.txt
* Although most crime is not committed with guns,
most gun crime is committed with handguns. pages
1 & 2
* In 1994, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms (ATF) received over 85,132 requests from
law enforcement agencies for traces of guns used
in crime. Over three quarters of the guns traced
by the ATF in 1994 were handguns (mostly pistols),
and almost a third were less than 3 years old.
page 4
* Surveys of inmates show that they prefer
concealable, large caliber guns. Juvenile
offenders appear to be more likely to possess guns
than adults. page 5
* Studies of the guns used in homicides show that
large caliber revolvers are the most frequent type
of gun used in murder, but the number of large
caliber semiautomatic guns used in murders is
increasing. page 5
* Little information exists about the use of
assault weapons in crime. The information that
does exist uses varying definitions of assault
weapons that were developed before the Federal
assault weapons ban was enacted. page 6
How often are guns used in violent crimes?
According to the National Crime Victimization
Survey (NCVS), almost 43.6 million criminal
victimizations occurred in 1993, including 4.4
million violent crimes of rape and sexual assault,
robbery, and aggravated assault. Of the victims
of these violent crimes, 1.3 million (29%) stated
that they faced an offender with a firearm.
In 1993, the FBI's Crime in the United States
estimated that almost 2 million violent crimes of
murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault were
reported to the police by citizens. About 582,000
of these reported murders, robberies, and
aggravated assaults were committed with firearms.
Murder was the crime that most frequently involved
firearms; 70% of the 24,526 murders in 1993 were
committed with firearms.
Most stolen guns are handguns
Victims report to the Victim Survey that in 53% of
the thefts of guns, handguns were stolen. The
FBI's stolen gun file's 2 million reports include
information on--
1.26 million handguns (almost 60%)
470,000 rifles (22%)
356,000 shotguns (17%).
From 1985 to 1994, the FBI received an annual
average of over 274,000 reports of stolen guns
How many automatic weapons are stolen?
Under the provisions of the National Firearms Act,
all automatic weapons such as machine guns must be
registered with the ATF. In 1995, over 240,000
automatic weapons were registered with the ATF.
As of March 1995, the NCIC stolen gun file
contained reports on about 7,700 machine guns and
submachine guns.
etc etc,
Mike