This photo show is so bad I don’t even know where to begin, and even basic facts and understanding about guns and gun regulations are completely missing. . I will endeavor to educate Ms. Glueck, so let’s start with the first slide. Go ahead and pull that puppy up, and we’ll go through slide-by-slide:
1st Slide
A big photo of Mikhail Kalashnikov holding what is definitely not a Chinese-made semi-auto AK. That’s a full auto AK old Mikhail is holding. The actually Poly-Technology AK is not in danger of being “banned again,” because it has never been unbanned. There’s an embargo against Chinese military goods entering the US that’s been in place since the 90s.
2nd Slide
Semi-automatic versions of the Galil are sold on the US market, but they do not shoot “630-750 rounds a minute.” Machine guns do that, and we know that civilians can’t own machine guns. Full-auto Galils have never been lawful to import into this country for civilian use. They were introduced in 1972, four years after the Gun Control Act banned importation of new machine guns for civilians.
3rd Slide
Hey, she got one right. That looks like a carbine version of the Uzi, with the requisite 16 inch barrel, to make it lawful to have a shoulder stock on it. The should stock shown looks to be a collapsing stock, which would have made it an “assault weapon” under the 1994 law.
4th Slide
The Beretta AR70. There was a “Sport” model that was briefly available on the US market, but I don’t think Beretta ever resumed production, and they are rare as hens teeth. So yes, it was banned, a straight up renewal of the 1994 wouldn’t change anything because it’s not manufactured currently.
5th Slide
That looks about what the Colt AR-15 looked like when it was introduced in the 1960s, but unless you buy one of the totally retro models on the market today they don’t look like that. And the M203 40mm Grenade Launcher is a destructive device and highly restricted, and so is its ammunition. You can certainly, as a civilian, mount a coast guard approved flare launcher to your AR, because it looks badass and all, but you’re not getting a hold of a grenade launcher at Joe’s gun shop.
6th Slide
This is a Styer AUG. With a straight up renewal of the federal assault weapons ban, this particular rifle would not be banned. No bayonet lug, no flash hider. Good to go. Under a one feature test, it would be covered, which means this gun would be banned for the first time. It was never banned, ever. Imported AUGs are currently banned, and have been since the 90s, but they are being manufactured domestically now. So any way you look at this, it’s wrong.
7th Slide
She apparently did not know that the firearm she linked to is a restricted NFA item. It is a transferrable machine pistol, which have been banned form new production since 1986. No one is proposing eliminating the NFA grandfathering for machine guns (yet).
8th Slide
Total FAIL! What’s pictured is an FN P90, not a FAL. This does not even look like the civilian legal semi-auto PS90, as the barrel is too short. This is a fully automatic firearm that has never been available to civilians. She notes that the gun pictures is “one member of the FN family,” as in FN makes the gun pictured. But it is in no, way, shape or form related to the FAL.
9th Slide
When reporters speak of semiautomatic and “spray bullets” in the same sentence, they only reveal a glaring ignorance. And the TEC-9 is no longer being produced. The semi-automatic variants that fire from a closed bolt weren’t that reliable.
10th Slide
Total FAIL! Revolving cylinder shotguns were reclassified as destructive devices in the 1990s. They are NFA items and not easily available to civilians. As far as I know they are no longer being manufactured.
5th slide. Look again. The photo is reversed. You are looking at the right side yet no ejection port, no mag release.
Layers of editorial oversight!
Wasn’t the Steyr AUG mentioned by name in the 94 AWB?
Yes, but that’s easy enough to get around.
Since when have facts, reality and truth had any relationship with gun banners? The very word Hoplophobia indicate a mental deficiency of the ones fearful of firearms. Perhaps gun banners should be banned.
Sebastian should directly challenge Glueck to respond to this critique. Even a total lack of response would be telling.
Given that she got her start in journalism covering the 2008 election for CosmoGirl, I guess we should be happy she got even one picture correct.
Here’s their feedback form. Hit them hard.
http://www.politico.com/aboutus/feedback.html
I never understood why the Street Sweeper was banned. Aren’t they a giant pain in the butt to reload? Impossible to conceal? Are they any more dangerous than a Remington 1100?
Do you also wonder why a rifle grenade launching feature was and is a defining feature of an “assault weapon”. Can’t recall one of those being used in a crime in the US.
(I first started with bayonet lug, but it turns out the Stockton schoolyard shooter had a bayonet fixed to his PRC origin AK-47 pattern rifle, although I don’t recall it otherwise being part of his crime.)
Don’t help the antis fix their errors — let ’em show themselves to be ignorant at best,
But posts like this can be forwarded to people not in the gun culture to show them how the gun grabbers have absolutely no knowledge about what they’re proposing to “control”.
Getting that word out is important; previously someone mentioned Wayne LaPierre doing endless interviews and the like during the lead up to the previous AW ban pointing out the difference between civilian semi-autos and the full autos the press was merrily conflating with the former.
I’m guessing that with the tec-9, she’s referring to a barrel shroud (as per part 3a of her “reference” link) as being the spray-enabling feature. This would make it even funnier given that the model pictured has no shroud..
Gun-grabbers are usually either liars or idiots.
The 1994 “ban” only banned new *production* and did not in any way ban *possession* of existing guns/magazines. Katie Glueck was wrong from the start with her claim that “In 1994, a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons criminalized possession …” and you would be wrong to said “… she got one right…” or that anything was “banned”.
She apparently doesn’t want anyone to “easily” fact check her claims either: the link she provides to “backup” her claim is to a search result that had a 30 minute expiration. The link was probably not even good by the time she hit “publish”.
What? No Calico 50 and 100 round rifles? I’m shocked!