Assault Weapons Ban Expires

[hooligan]

Through an e-mail that was passed down to me:

I'm not endorsing the petition, I just want you to read up on it...

Assault Weapons Ban Expires MONDAY




President Bush is letting the national ban on assault weapons expire.
In six days, these deadly, military-style weapons will start returning
to our streets, unless Bush acts. Click here to demand that the
President and Congress renew the ban now. Please also forward this
email to your friends and ask them to speak up -- we'll deliver our
message to President Bush and Congress by Friday, before the ban
expires.

Click to Sign the PetitionDear MoveOn member,

On Monday, September 13th, at midnight, the national ban on
military-style assault weapons will expire, allowing these murderous
weapons back on our streets.

Congress is feeling the heat and is prepared to renew the ban, if the
president will only ask -- but President Bush is letting the ban
expire, on behalf of the gun lobby. We've got to take action.

Please sign on to our emergency petition to President Bush and
Congress to renew the assault weapons ban now:

http://www.moveon.org/savetheban/

Then please ask your friends and family to sign, by forwarding them
this email. We'll deliver all of the comments by Friday, September
10th, before the ban expires, so we need as many people as possible to
sign on today.

In 2000, President Bush campaigned on a promise to renew the ban. Yet
today, after we've endured mass murders like Columbine and terrorists
have bought assault weapons on American soil, President Bush is
letting the ban expire.

Bush is jeopardizing our safety for the sake of an endorsement from
the National Rifle Association. As reported in the newspaper The Hill,
"The National Rifle Association's (NRA) endorsement of Bush is on hold
until after the ban expires."[1]

Since 1994, the assault weapons ban has taken the deadliest military-
style weapons off our streets, dramatically cutting their use in
crimes by 66 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, and
reducing the murder rates of police officers and the public.

This is not a partisan issue -- the assault weapons ban was supported
by Presidents Reagan, Ford, Carter, and Clinton, and by Republicans
Tom Ridge and Rudy Giuliani. The ban is supported by 74 percent of
American voters, by Republicans and Democrats on the committees that
investigated 9/11, and by virtually every police officers' association
including the Major Cities Chiefs Association, International
Brotherhood of Police Officers , National Fraternal Order of Police
(FOP), National Black Police Association, and Hispanic American Police
Command Officers Association.

Yet President Bush is letting the ban expire, as he refuses to call on
Congress to send him the ban renewal for his signature.

If he lets it expire, beginning Tuesday the 14th of September, an
18-year-old will once again be able to buy an AK-47 assault rifle in
most states.

Don't let Bush put deadly assault weapons back on our streets. Go to:

http://www.moveon.org/savetheban/

Please help make sure your friends have signed on too, before we
deliver this petition on Friday.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

--Wes Boyd
MoveOn.org
Tuesday, September 7th, 2004

Footnote:
[1] The Hill, "Gun makers get ready for big demand," September 2, 2004

* See our website for the complete article, as well as further
resources and other background information on this
issue.________________________________

[thaite]

I ain't signing that petition. That was a useless piece of legislation to begin with.

[Mr.Lum]

I don't think people should be able to buy those. What the hell do they need them for? Killing people. You don't hunt with that type of stuff. They should ban assault weapons competely.

[Arex]

Here's a good editorial on the subject from the New York Times:

The New York Times
Who Needs Assault Weapons?
By Nicholas Kristof
August 18, 2004


Meridian, Idaho - If you've been longing for your very own assault rifle and 30-round magazine for the next holiday season, you're in luck.

President Bush, sidestepping a promise, is allowing the ban on assault rifles and oversized clips to expire on Sept. 14. So at a gun store here in Meridian, a bit west of Boise, the counter has a display promising "2 FREE HIGH-CAPACITY MAGAZINES."

All you have to do is purchase a new Beretta 9-millimeter handgun and you'll receive two high-capacity magazines - on the condition, the fine print states, that the federal ban expires on schedule.

President Bush promised in the last presidential campaign to support an extension of the ban, which was put in place in 1994 for 10 years. "It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society," Mr. Bush observed at the time.

These days Mr. Bush still says that he'll sign an extension of the ban if it happens to reach his desk. But he knows that the only way the ban can be extended on time is if he actually urges its passage, and he refuses to do that. So his promise to support an extension rings hollow - it's not exactly a lie, but it's not the full truth, either.

Mr. Bush's flip-flop is surprising because he has generally had the courage of his convictions. Apparently he's hiding from this issue because it's so politically charged.

Critics of the assault weapon ban have one valid point: the ban has more holes than Swiss cheese.

"The big frustration of my customers is that [the ban] removed things that were kind of fun and made it look cool, but didn't affect how the gun operated," said Sean Wontor, a salesman who heaved two rifles onto the counter of Sportsman's Warehouse here in Meridian to make his point.

One was an assault weapon that was produced before the ban (and thus still legal), and the other was a sanitized version produced afterward to comply with the ban by removing the bayonet mount and the flash suppressor.

After these cosmetic changes, the rifle is now no longer considered an assault weapon, yet, of course, it is just as lethal.

Still, assault weapons, while amounting to only 1 percent of America's 190 million privately owned guns, account for a hugely disproportionate share of gun violence precisely because of their macho appeal.

Assault weapons aren't necessary for any kind of hunting or target shooting, but they're popular because they can transform a suburban Walter Mitty into Rambo, for a lot less money than a Hummer.

"I've got a ton of customers shooting squirrels with AK-47's," said Kevin Tester, a gun salesman near Boise. "They're using 30-round magazines and 7.62-millimeter ammunition, they're shooting up the hills, and they're having a blast."

I grew up on an Oregon farm that bristled with guns to deal with the coyotes that dined on our sheep. Having fired everything from a pistol to a machine gun, I can testify that shooting can be a lot of fun. But consider the cost: 29,000 gun deaths in America each year.

While gun statistics are as malleable as Play-Doh, they do underscore that assault weapons are a special problem in America.

They accounted for 8.4 percent of the guns traced to crimes between 1988 and 1991, and they are still used in one in five fatal shootings of police officers. If anything, we should be plugging the holes in the ban by having it cover copycat weapons without bayonet mounts, instead of moving backward and allowing a new flood of weapons and high-capacity magazines.

The bottom line is that Mr. Bush's waffling on assault weapons will mean more dead Americans.

About 100 times as many Americans are already dying from gunfire in the U.S. as in Iraq. As many Americans die from firearms every six weeks as died in the 9/11 attacks - yet the White House is paralyzed on this issue.

Mr. Bush needs to live up to his campaign promise and push to keep the ban on assault weapons. Otherwise, we'll bring more of the Iraq-like carnage to our own shores, and his refusal to confront our gun problem will kill more Americans over time than Osama bin Laden ever could.
The "ban" may be an incomplete, loophole-filled band-aid for a much larger problem, but it's better than no band-aid at all. After all, what are the chances that something like this will ever be passed again? It's much easier to modify legislation already in the books than to pass a whole new bill. It's a shame that the raving lunatics in the NRA have such political clout...

RX

[younggiftedandblack]

I don't think people should be able to buy those. What the hell do they need them for? Killing people. You don't hunt with that type of stuff. They should ban assault weapons competely.

Actually I have seen people hunt using assault weapons. To me it's just feel good legislation since you can still get the weapons if you really wanted to.

[Mr.Lum]

Actually I have seen people hunt using assault weapons. To me it's just feel good legislation since you can still get the weapons if you really wanted to.

I've never seen a hunter with an assult weapon. I agree however that they can still be obtained, but I think there needs to be stronger legislation and stronger enforcement. There is no reason to be keeping those kind of things in your house. This isn't Saudi Arabia or Iraq.

[Yeahman]

I've never seen a hunter with an assult weapon. I agree however that they can still be obtained, but I think there needs to be stronger legislation and stronger enforcement. There is no reason to be keeping those kind of things in your house. This isn't Saudi Arabia or Iraq.
You will regret not having one in your house when the revolution comes.

[Mr.Lum]

You will regret not having one in your house when the revolution comes.

There is not an ounce of revolutionary spirt in the USA. Americans are too lazy for that. Well, except the country ones in the West. I'm on the East coast. I have no worries about your "revolution".

[thaite]

i really wish I had some spare cash, because i'd be out buying some firearms come monday if I could.

[Arex]

Actually, I'm not sure the expiration of the federal ban will have any effect on California (and other states) since, I think, California has its own regulations regarding assault weapons. What those regulations are, I don't know.

RX

[kitty]

why would you want to hunt a deer with an M-16?

[kimpossible]

why would you want to hunt a deer with an M-16?
to mow down those commando deer with flak jackets

[Mr.Lum]

why would you want to hunt a deer with an M-16?

Because you could taste bullets when you sat down to eat him.

[Yeahman]

There is not an ounce of revolutionary spirt in the USA. Americans are too lazy for that. Well, except the country ones in the West. I'm on the East coast. I have no worries about your "revolution".
I will take the initiative to stoke the fires of revolution that run deep in the hearts of so many Americans... just as soon as this episode of the Aprentice is over and I take my hands out of this bag of chips. Oh wait. Big Brother 5 is on after this. Hmm... Maybe tomorrow.

why would you want to hunt a deer with an M-16?
Because those bastards do the same to us if they could.

[Mr.Lum]

I will take the initiative to stoke the fires of revolution that run deep in the hearts of so many Americans... just as soon as this episode of the Aprentice is over and I take my hands out of this bag of chips. Oh wait. Big Brother 5 is on after this. Hmm... Maybe tomorrow.

Maybe never.



Because those bastards do the same to us if they could.


But they can't.