… and thought it was 2004 this morning, because today it’s all about assault weapons and overheated rhetoric:
Yes, Virginia, if you believe in Santa Claus then you’ll believe there is a significant difference worth debating between the killing efficiency of a fully automatic assault weapon and a semi-automatic assault weapon. But understand, the finger-twitch variation is not enough to reduce the bloody heaps of bodies that keep piling up in communities across our fruited plains. The National Rogue Association knows that. And so, thankfully, does Andrew Traver.
They are desperate to make banning semi-automatic firearms an issue again, and they have just the guy to help them out in Andrew Traver. I’ll be honest, I never would have guessed back in 2005 when the PLCAA made ATF a position subject to Senate confirmation, that our opponents would be champing at the bit over the prospect of feasting on the badly needed victory of being able to get an ATF Director.
Huh.
I thought it was an 80s flashback…..
It must be Brady 80’s everywhere:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/11/18/104010/mexican-cartels-amass-better-arsenals.html
Arrrrrg! What is it with these people?!? Why the heck do they always tromp out Chicago as an example of why guns should be illegal?!?
If gun laws would actually have an effect, Chicago, New York, and Washington D. C. ought to be the safest places in America…but they aren’t!
Oh, and the article uses the phrase to “bloody heaps of bodies that keep piling up” link to a study that lists incidents of assault weapon abuse. Yes, I just paged through it–and it just lists incidents. At least a handful of which (I didn’t look at them all) did not involve dead bodies. And, of course, by providing it as a list blows each incident out of proportion–where are the statistics? How do these incidents relate to total gun crime? To total crime? To the previous crimes during the ban?
Why do I have the feeling that a good, honest look at the statistics would destroy their case?
While I hate to use statistics to defend freedom–statistics assume that each individual is just an object to be measured, rather than a moral agent with choice–statistics are crucial to help us get the “big picture”, even if it fuzzes the details (and yes, the details are sometimes important–sometimes even very important!). If you aren’t using statistics, or if you are using them incorrectly, chances are, you are trying to hide the Big Picture.
But then, what would you expect from a fear monger?
I actually anticipated in 2005 that it would probably be impossible to get most ATF directors confirmed, which meant that ATF would be without a director from there forward… which brings us to the current circumstances where the ATF is losing turf wars with other agencies and generally becoming less and less influential.
The anti-gunners have a problem: they can either choose the slow death of director-less ATF being eaten by other agencies (mostly FBI) or they can choose the slightly quicker death of a pro-gun ATF director who destroys them from within.
Helmke is making a pretty quick transition from being merely obstinate to being a total asshole.
“Semi-automatics are only a little less deadly than fully automatics.”
I’d agree with that, and it’s pretty good justification for removing regulation from full auto guns. I am not sure Helmke wants to equate semi-autos with full-autos. By doing so, he’d only be paving the way for repeal of NFA provisions.
Best response to Helmke’s comments comes from the CalGuns Foundation forum:
Makes sense to me.
You know, ignoring Mr. Helmke’s eloquent argument for NFA repeal:\
Let us stop arguing that teenagers are children. An 18-year-old is definitely not a child.
If you are old enough to vote, you should be old enough to carry a firearm.
Keep it up Paul, and awake some more sleeping “Fudd’s” that will realize your also going after their hunting rifles too!
I’m very glad this is happening……again.
It’s proof……again……that people like Helmke cannot be reasoned with.
They cannot be compromised with.
They cannot be bargained with.
This is who they are.
They are for bans.
Too many younger gun-rights folks have this idea that if they just apply “reason” and “logical argument” and “show the superiority of their ideas” that they will win the day. (Perhaps based more on overly-lofty self images than anything else?)
Too many of the younger gun-rights folks have not been in the fight long enough to truly understand the enemy.
And that’s what these people are. The enemy.
Make no mistake here.
You are seeing what the enemy is really like, what they really believe, and what they really, really, really want.
Helmke is making a pretty quick transition from being merely obstinate to being a total asshole.
Well, if you’d gotten your pee-pee smacked in court as many times as Helmke and his ilk have in the last couple of years, you’d be a whiny, name-calling little bitch, too. ;-)
Well done This was a excellent piece of writing. Do continue when you are. I will be excitedly waiting around.
Helmke’s just screaming about anything in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.