Wednesday, September 15, 2004

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Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry promised over the weekend that he would "take on the terrorists" who attacked the U.S. on September 11th by forcing them to obey America's gun control laws. This is quite a stretch but actually Kerry said laws like the Assault Weapons Ban were valuable "not just to fight ordinary crime but to take on terrorists."
"The 9/11 commission and other reports have shown that al-Qaida wanted to come into America, and in the al-Qaida manual of terror, they were telling people to go out and buy assault weapons."
I, for one, am glad that he’s taking this tough stance. I still have nightmares of AK-47’s crashing into the sides of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. And not just any AK-47, but AK-47’s with bayonet lugs, folding stocks, and high capacity magazines!

Mr. Kerry, didn’t you just accuse the President of fighting the wrong war at the wrong time and wrong place? Who’s fighting the wrong war now, Mr. Kerry? In case it went over your big head, it wasn’t really AK-47’s that took out 3000 Americans on September 11th. In fact, the attacks of September 11th were completely devoid of any assault weapon.

The only weapon used were commercial airliners. Are you going to propose a Commercial Airliner Ban? More Americans are killed every year in automobile accidents than in gun violence. Are you going to submit a Automobile Ban bill?

There are no logical reasons and no statistics to justify banning “assault” weapons. Part of the ruse that the anti-gun lobby uses is calling these weapons automatic weapons or machine-guns. Most of these weapons affected by the expired ban are semi-automatic, which means each time you pull the trigger, one round is fired. An automatic weapon (a machine-gun) is one in which it continues firing as long as you hold the trigger. And those types of weapons, automatic weapons, have been strictly regulated ever since 1934 by the National Firearms Act. You need to get a license to own one and you have to notify the ATF if you dispose of it (sell it, give it away, whatever.)

Firearms in the hands of criminals is a very bad thing. However, depriving law-abiding citizens of their firearms, no matter what kind they are, is even more deplorable. Just as commercial airliners piloted by law-abiding citizens is a good thing and commercial airliners piloted by terrorists is a horrible thing. If a terrorist wants to kill people, he will find a way. He doesn’t need a gun. But if I want to kill a terrorist, I'll use my assault weapon. (Honey, get my trusty SKS with flash suppressor and 20 round magazine for me. A couple of swarthy looking gentlemen with towels on their heads have parked a large truck in front of the house and I want to take them out before they hit that detonator in the fat one's hand...)

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