Been There, Done That

Outdoor Channel | SHOT Show 2013: By: Steve Wright, OutdoorChannel.com LAS VEGAS — That recent two-word curse Rep. John Boehner directed at Sen. Harry Reid during the fiscal cliff negotiations was repeated en masse Wednesday on the main floor of the SHOT Show. No, those particular words weren't shouted in refrain to President Barack Obama's message. But neither are they a gross exaggeration of the reaction.

President Obama's address on proposed gun safety laws was streamed live on a football stadium-size video screen above main showroom floor, where representatives of the gun industry are gathered for the 35^th annual trade show.

It's interesting to me (although perhaps fairly "Ho-Hum" to you) that the talking points this author presents sound so familiar.  It's easy to use the word "trite" when describing words, phrases, and explanations which have been repeated so frequently that the reader can find himself repeating them before they are even read.

Say it to yourself:

"A bird in the hand ....."
"A stitch in time ..."
"Look before you ...."
"The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban ...."

Ah, I didn't fool you there at all, did I?  The completed sentence is " ... proved that draconian restrictions on private firearms, or magazine capacity, have NO effect on crime rates!"


But then, you knew that already.


Or else, you can read the quotes which I gleaned from this  January 16, 2013, article from The Outdoor Channel:

With the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004, as the primary history lesson here, the latest proposals from the White House are more likely to stimulate the gun industry than stifle it. While the President offered some ideas previously untried, the assault weapons ban and magazine restrictions? Been there, done that.

..
The 1994 law defined an assault weapon, listing several models of semi-automatic rifles and shotguns specifically, plus the features of any new models that would fall under this ban. The law listed various combinations of pistol grips, extended magazines, telescoping stocks, etc., that would provide the legal description of an "assault weapon." Detachable magazine size was limited to 10 rounds.

"As tough as the law sounded, the ban was laughably easy to evade in practice," wrote Paul M. Barrett wrote in his 2012 book Glock: The Rise of America's Gun.
Yes, manufacturers had to adjust the cosmetics of some guns to avoid the ban. But no matter how hard anyone tries, there's no simple definition for an assault rifle.
"The true definition of an assault gun lies in how you use it," (Jim Drager, head of business development at Mission Arms Group) said. "If you look at the Old West, they did a heck of a lot of damage with a double-barreled shotgun. Any firearm can be used as an assault weapon in a broad definition of it."

Much has been said about "Assault Weapons" over the years.  There's the definition of firearms-savvy people who stubbornly and "un-cooperatively" insist that it is a rifle-caliber stocked rifle which is capable of full-automatic fire, and there is the definition of the "Progressives" who insist that it's any firearm capable of firing more than x-number of rounds without reloading, and has the external characteristics of a barrel shroud, flash-suppressor, extensible stock, and a pistol grip.  Or some combination  (1 to three "features" depending on how "progressive" the governmental authority feels during the political climate of the moment.)

Two things are for sure: Progressives don't seem to have noticed that full-automatic weapons have been unavailable to the general public for years, not do they feel obligated to explain how these specific "features" turn a "hunting rifle" into an "Assault Weapon".