[Vision2020] obama election / gun purchases

[Mike Finkbiner]

Setting aside anything that Senator Obama may have said or done in the past, 
people are concerned about his effect on honest gun owners because on the 
http://change.gov/agenda/urbanpolicy/ web site there is this statement -

"They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent"

If you aren't familiar with firearms that may seem reasonable, but when you 
look at the details it's pretty obvious that it's not an effective tool 
against crime.  First, the government admitted that  “... the weapons banned 
by this legislation [1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban - since repealed] were 
used only rarely in gun crimes”.  (National Institute of Justice, March 
1999)  Secondly, there was no positive effect.  Violent crime has continued 
to trend downward since the ban was lifted, and rifles of any description 
continue to be involved in a tiny percentage of crimes.

The law was based largely on the way rifles look.  Features such as barrel 
shrouds, pistol grips and other ergonomic features may set them apart from 
classic walnut stocked sporting rifles, but seem pretty trivial from a 
criminal perspective.   The two mechanical features mentioned are that these 
firearms have a detachable box magazine which can hold several cartridges, 
and the self-loading action allows you to fire one shot with each pull of 
the trigger until the magazine is empty.

By comparison I was looking at a 1950's Remington Woodsmaster rifle in Sure 
Shot sporting goods last week.  It has a fine walnut stock, is self-loading, 
has a detachable box magazine and fires the 30-06, a far more powerful 
cartridge than almost all of the rifles on the "Assault Weapons" list.  
There are many hundreds of thousands of rifles similar to that in hunter's 
closets around the country.  Do you wonder that they are concerned about 
laws banning similar firearms?

But people say they only want to ban firearms which can shoot 20 or 30 times 
without reloading.   It would be pretty easy to put a larger magazine on the 
Woodsmaster or it's cousins, and I wonder when they will decide that also 
includes shotguns.  If you load your pump shotgun with five 00 buckshot 
cartridges and fire until it's empty, you will have sent 45 heavy lead .33 
caliber balls at your target.  They won't travel as far as a rifle bullet, 
but anyone within 100 yards will be in deadly danger.

In other words, banning a category of weapons which are only cosmetically 
different than common hunting rifles, and no more lethal than common 
shotguns seems like a cynical first step towards - what?  There is no 
evidence it's for crime control.

In 2003 the Center for Disease Control published a review of studies from 
several countries. They state that they found "insufficient evidence to 
determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for 
preventing violence". (Wikipedia)  It seems that criminals are willing to 
break laws to get weapons.  There have been several academic studies which 
revealed many benefits that honest citizens gain from owning firearms for 
self defense, but this is already too long to go into that.

This country has done well over the last two centuries for several reasons.  
One of them is the balance of power.  We have been suffering through a 
period where one group has been acting to restrict some of our rights.  This 
years election can probably be seen as a reaction to that.  The pendulum 
swings.  If the government distrusts the citizens so much that it fears 
leaving them effectively armed, at some future date will the party in power 
decide that elections are too dangerous, and they now have the power to stop 
the pendulum?

- Mike

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
                                                                 -- H. L. 
MENCKEN