Lookism

Feinstein pushes for semi-automatic rifle import ban based on 45-year-old law | The Daily Caller:
 (March 20, 2014 @ 6:38pm)

California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein is circulating a letter on Capitol Hill calling once again for a ban on semi-automatic rifles and asking for President Barack Obama to keep his State of the Union promise to make 2014 a “year of action.” 

Citing the Gun Control Act of 1968, Feinstein states, “In recent years… importers of firearms have taken advantage of ATF’s interpretation of the ‘sporting purposes’ test to evade the import ban.”

It's significant that one of the primary reasons she continues her objection the 'acceptance of firearms with certain characteristics' is that:

Many semiautomatic firearms on the market today do not have a military origin but are modeled closely after military firearms. 

Is this "Lookism"?  I think so.  OR .. profiling.

(BTW, the full text of The Letter, from which the above sentence is a direct quote, is available at the Daily Caller article, the link to which is available at the head of this article.)

I personally find it interesting that "Ol' Lady Di" is cleaving to her prayers and her gun-controls.  Specifically ... citing the 1968 Gun Control Act? [Hereafter: 68GCA]   Apparently she has (conveniently) forgotten that the law had passed on the basis that it would reduce gun violence, and a "Sunset Provision" was forced by the Conservative members of Congress.   The effect of that provision was that, if after ten years, the law could not be shown to achieve the goals which its promoters had promised,it would be rescinded.

In 1978, the CDC (one of the most vocal supporters of the law) admitted that, by it's own data gathering, the statistics could not support the efficacy of the law.   And so, it was rescinded.

Today 68GCA remains a good example of what happens when politicians shoot themselves in the foot, and The People Bleed For Them.

INSANITY: doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

-- Albert Einstein



I admit to some concern for Ol' Lady Di.  I remember all this about 68GCA, and I'm pretty sure you do, too.  She was instrumental  (along with many of her revanchist cronies) in its passing that duplicitous bill, and she must have been heartily chagrined when the law was allowed to sunset.  Can't she remember that the very definitions she so enthusiastically championed as a "Bad Gun" have already been proven to be not only passe', but inapplicable?

Perhaps she is channeling John Quincy Adams, who said: "Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air".

JQ Adams, however, might not have been quite so ready as she to assign the terms "difficulties and obstacles" to the American people.

For me, I am more prepared to compare her politics to a "Let Them Eat Cake" attitude (which was popularly, if perhaps not accurately, attributed to Marie Antoinette).  Which is to say, she remains blissfully and willfully ignorant or dismissive of the Will of The People.