Posted on 01/02/2013 10:28:13 AM PST by neverdem
In the wake of the Newtown massacre, a call has gone up for a conversation about our gun laws. To that end, here are questions for advocates of gun control who are pushing for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, among other new restrictions, to address school shootings.
What’s the functional difference between an assault weapon and a semiautomatic rifle? You do understand that the answer is “nothing”? An assault weapon is not an automatic weapon. It is semiautomatic like most guns now sold in the United States, i.e., it fires every time the trigger is pulled. What sets it apart is its scary-looking features.
What’s more powerful, the Bushmaster .223 used by Adam Lanza in his slaughter or the average deer-hunting rifle? If the answer is the average deer-hunting rifle — indeed, many states ban the Bushmaster .223 for deer hunting because it is too weak — will you attempt to ban them, too?
What gun law would have stopped Newtown? Please be specific. Adam Lanza’s mother didn’t have a criminal record. Neither did he. If the Bushmaster .223 had been banned, he could have done the same with a semiautomatic rifle. If all semiautomatic rifles were banned — something that would never pass Congress — he could have done the same with a semiautomatic handgun. If high-capacity magazines had been banned, he could have reloaded with smaller magazines.
How many guns are in the United States? The answer is 280 million. In a country with that many guns, how is gun control possibly going to succeed? If you ban a small subset of new guns for sale, what are you going to do about the rest? Let’s say you succeed beyond anything that is remotely possible. Let’s say you somehow stop the new sale of guns altogether and somehow decommission half of existing guns. What are you going to do with the other 140 million guns?
Does the Virginia Tech massacre affect your view of the efficacy of an assault-weapons ban? In 2007, Seung-Hui Cho perpetrated the deadliest shooting in the country’s history. He killed 32 people using two semiautomatic handguns.
Why has violent crime declined in the United States during the past 20 years even as gun ownership has ticked up? According to Gallup, nearly half of adults have a gun on their property, the highest number since 1993. Why has crime declined even as gun-control laws have been liberalized?
The assault-weapons ban passed in 1994 and was in effect for ten years. The paradigmatic school shooting took place at Columbine High School in 1999. Why didn’t the assault-weapons ban prevent it?
There have been hundreds of murders with guns this year in Chicago, where gun laws are restrictive. What new gun laws does the city need to stop the tide of mayhem? There have been hundreds more in New York City, where the mayor is the foremost anti-gun scold in the country. What new gun laws does New York need?
Why aren’t violent crimes routinely committed at gun ranges teeming with people who own multiple weapons, some of them quite dangerous-looking, and who enjoy shooting them?
Why do gun-free-school laws never succeed in stopping lunatics bent on murder from taking guns to schools?
NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre proposed posting armed police officers at schools in his widely derided press conference last week. Would you feel at least a little bit better if an armed officer were guarding your child’s school? Please be honest.
In places where gun laws are the tightest, why do so many people own guns anyway? In your zeal against guns, do you favor stop-and-frisk policies to catch people carrying illegal guns in major urban areas?
In your view, to make a public policy worth pursuing, should it have a discernible connection to its stated goal? Or is it enough that the policy be well-intentioned and opposed by the NRA? Actually, there’s no need to answer that. It’s obvious enough already.
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail: comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. © 2012 King Features Syndicate
Q. What is the similarity between Hussein Obama and an "assault weapon"?
A. Whatever in the minds of liberals they want them to be.
Basically, they are the same, aren’t they? My dad had a Savage in .222 when I was small. You don’t see them much anymore. It puts the fear in Pucsatony Phil. I know that much.
Almost. The .222 Rem is smaller, the .222 Rem Mag is larger.
The three in the center all the same, just different names. The only difference in the three is the 5.56 has a thicker interior wall and therefore the case capacity for gunpowder is slightly smaller.
FR needs a "like" button. after your post, there's little more to add... but I still want to share in expressing the statement, LOL.
What you said - the real intended result is less Freedom for the People and gun-related violence has nothing to do with it.
Don't help the opponents blur the difference between true assault weapons and semi-automatic rifles, which almost all sporting rifles are (but not muzzle-loaders or bolt-action rifles).
They are all deadly.............
Any gun pointed at me...is an "assault weapon" period.
During WWII most soldiers carried semi-autos.
I've shot pump-shotgun's and semi-autos...Hard to say...in the right hands what's faster.
I own some gun's...I prefer pump or bolt-action long gun's. That's just my preference. I own some pistols too. Some semi-auto...
And they are all "assault weapon's." Don't let the MSM blur the line..............
There are two real reasons behind leftists pursuing any policy that demonstrably doesn’t work, and both reasons hide behind the “sounds good” front reason.
For the sheeperal, as you said, it’s all about self-righteousness through advocacy.
For the progressive communist, it’s all about advancing a power agenda behind the guise of “good” policy.
One other thing...........I'd bet you more bolt-action rifles are out there...than semi-auto's. I think you are wrong.
I think a better question is why we patriots keep asking questions we already know that answers to?
The gun grabbers want gun confiscation and mass murder. They want to be able to f*ck with law abiding citizens with impunity and not have to worry about the consequences.
We will never get any kind of rational response from people that literally want the power of life and death over the rest of us.
They pursue it because they are emotional feminized children. They want mommy and daddy to protect them so they don’t have to deal with that nasty responsibility thing.
The only ultimate goal is disarming the public. For whatever reasons that may be tossed around, this is really the only one. All the reasons lead to disarming the public.
What most of the gun control morons don't seem to understand is: I can assault you with a single shot .22 bolt action.
Hey, hey, hey there, laddie-buck!! None of that, now! You keep your eyes glued firmly on the mcguffin, on the proposition as framed by the grabbers, and never you mind about ulterior motives and what's going on under the table!
Who do you think you are, anyway? A citizen?
First, with Liberal/Leftists, you need to determine what the intended results are. What they say they intend, is a lie, boob bait for the bubbas.
What weapons did the perp use in Newtown? I’ve heard the .223 Bushmaster was recovered from his car. What’s the truth here?
I’ve seen two videos of the gun being pulled from the trunk. In one the officer racks it and a shell drops out, clearly a shotgun. The other is blurry but seems to have a magazine like a rifle. I’d go with shotgun in the trunk as long as the clear video is not fake
Most in the attic, I suspect.
You are going to lose your bolt-action rifle(s), too, if you keep saying that....
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