Oh, dear. It seems that the American Political Science Review did a lousy job of refereeing a pseudo-academic study, Cross-Border Spillover: U.S. Gun Laws and Violence in Mexico.
The study was brought to us by Joshua Keating from Slate, which is merely guilty of being a hack e-zine.
Keating’s article is primarily the result of an uninformed reporter assuming that academics in soft social sciences actually engage in more than bias-reinforcing navel-gazing. Put bluntly, he doesn’t have the background to write intelligently about the subject, which is sadly a common truth for most journalists. Keating’s inability to do more than parrot what he’d like to believe is merely exacerbated by the inflammatory image chosen to accompany the article.
... except the only thing here is that which all of us who were affected by the Assault Weapons Ban is that it didn't accomplish a thing!
Most of us have quit wondering "Why did they even bother?" The entire Political Fiasco was nothing more than 'feel-good' legislation intended to make it appear that lazy politicians were actually "DOING SOMETHING!"
Politicians are like Summer Colds: annoying, apparantly veering from low-key presence to sneezes and sniffles and maybe you miss a couple days of work. Then you shrug your shoulders and go on with your life, knowing that next year you'll go through the same thing for no reason and no permanent change in your life.
And .. there's no cure for Politicians, either.
This article, self-described as a deconstruction, worked just fine. Hard tell how many of us read it, though, then shrugged and went on with our life.
ITEM: The Assault Weapon Ban had no clear-cut goal, except the announced one of reducing violent crime by removing murder-guns from public hands.
RESULT: No murder rates were affected by removing murder guns from public hands. In fact, most of the guns which were most 'restricted' were not previously involved in violent crime, and so .. what did they expect would happen, after the interveiws were over? Oh, the authors would get re-elected?
CONCLUSION: Nobody every lost any money by underestimating the intelligence of the American Voting Public.
ITEM: Manufacturers noted that specific firearms were identified by brand/model name and/or specific 'deadly' features.
RESULT: Manufacturers either changed the model name, or changed/deleted the named cosmetic features, and continued to sell the same firearm for the same price
CONCLUSION: Two parts: First, Politicians are naive; Second, Politicians never look at the consequences OR the result of the laws they pass, they only look at their press clippings. Here's a possible third conclusion: the negative press clippings never make it into their scrap-books, so they believe there were no negative press clippings.
ITEM: Main Stream Media sources (AKA: "Useful Idiots") are so busy sucking up to politicians, they tend not to evaluate their performance.
RESULT: MSM to this day thinks that the reason why the Assault Weapons Ban was repealed after ten years is because of the Evil Conservatives with try to the Evil Capitalists who brought us "Assault Weapons" (and refrigerators and typewriters) instead of acknowledging that the only reason the AWB was passed was because Conservative demanded that if the Liberals couldn't prove an improvement in ten years, the Law would be "Sundowned".
CONCLUSION: MSM and Politicians (and here we're specifically talking about Liberal Feel-Good Politicians) don't really care whether their high-profile issues negatively affect honest law-abiding citizens more than people who are going to break the law 'anyway', they just want to be seen as trying to "Do Something". Because they believe it will look good on their resume. And the sad fact is, it does! These same Maroons are getting re-elected, and the same sycophantic civilians are still writing op-ed pieces for the New York Times.
So, What's It All Mean, Dean?
It doesn't mean nothing. Politicians imposed a ten-year moratorium on such inconsequential "Assault Weapon"n features as bayonette lugs, flash hiders, magazines with a capacity of over ten rounds, pistol grips on rifles ... etc ad nauseum. All arbitrary, all obviously non-sensical, but because some IDIOTS had elected other IDIOTS to National Office, honest and law-abiding citizens had to put up with "work arounds"
During this period (1994 - 2004), I personally came into possession of a number of magazines with a capacity of over ten rounds ... including 25-round pistol magazines. It was entirely legal, and I never misrepresented myself. Nobody ever asked me if I had a criminal record because even if I HAD been a criminal, it would have been legal for me to buy them.
I used these Nefarious Tools of Crime to miss both cardboard and steel targets with ease, laughing all the time because even though I was forced to admit that I can't hit the broadside of the barn with a pistol, I was still defying the law of the land! I HAD EM! AND IT WAS LEGAL!
A slap in the face for Clintons (one and all), Kennedy, Kerry, Lautenberg, and McKinnea and all of their Alphabetically Ordered/Politically Correct/Clue-less Ilk!
These political hacks couldn't write a sound law if their lives depended on it. We all knew it. We grumbled, we complained (some of us whined; most of us whined and did it anyway) because we resented feeling like criminals for doing something which was legal .. but still proscribed.
The nice thing about this very late article is that someone is publishing a non-blogger article that says what we have been saying for decades:
What a bunch of maroons!
POST SCRIPT:
Bwa-hah-hah-hah-hah!
2 comments:
We love to re-elct politicians who are known morons and idiots time after time.
Just admit it, the Statists don't want to just ban assault weapons. They want to eventually ban all private ownership of any firearms.
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