The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State …
This is simply unbelievable. This is from NPR’s Senior Development VP Ron Schiller:
And not just Islamophobic, but really xenophobic. I mean, basically, they are – they believe in sort of white, middle America, gun-toting … I mean, it’s pretty scary. They’re seriously racist.
Cut their funding… now.
… and they want their gun control article back. You almost have to believe they were short on articles to run, so they resurrected one from the 90s and changed a few names around. The article is textbook, with utter confusion about what a machine gun is and isn’t, careless improper use of the term assault rifle, a police gun layout that doesn’t contain any of the weapons mentioned in the article, cops being outgunned, and, the icing on the cake?
“[A] 2009 bid by President Obama to reinstate a national ban has stalled.”
What 2009 bid? In order for this analogy to work, it would require you to place the keys in the ignition, start the engine, and try to take it somewhere. Barry’s been afraid to even look in the garage, let alone look for the keys to the car.
Chris Cox in US News and World Report. I’m guessing the publication chose that headline, since “high capacity” just plays into the other side’s rhetoric, and I’d like to think Chris Cox knows the difference between a clip and a magazine.
The New York Post is ticked that Bloomberg spent $100,000 worth of money out of the NYPD budget to pull off his publicity stunt at Arizona gun shows noting, “Bloomberg, of course, has never been bashful about putting taxpayers’ money where his mouth is.” They later go on to argue that the real solution is for the NYPD to stop buying from Glock, until they stop “selling high-capacity magazines to private citizens.”
New Yorkers have a tendency to think the world revolves around their city, but the fact of the matter is that whatever NYPD spends on Glocks is a drop in the bucket compared to what Glock makes selling guns to the civilian market. As it currently is, people are buying Glock magazines (the vast majority of which hold more than ten rounds) faster than they can make them.
Kudos to the post for recognizing the waste and silliness of Bloomberg’s stunt, but it’s disappointing they offered up an equally silly proposal to deny their police one of the best defensive handguns on the market. Imagine instead of spending $100,000 on publicity stunts, and wrangling about whether NYPD officers should sacrifice equipment on the altar of political correctness, if we actually spend all this time, energy, and money on helping the police, I don’t know, catch criminals or something?
I think the best commentary was this:
You know who won the Super Bowl? Arianna Huffington.
AOL bought HuffPo for $315 million last night. Based on the claims in their press release, they have about 25 million unique visitors a month. Let’s consider just how much that really is. Scaling down based on traffic, AOL could pay well over $600K for this blog. When I did the math and shared that news with Sebastian, he said he would sell. For anything over half a million, I guess we could be blog neighbors with Paul Helmke.
I’m shocked, shocked, I tell you, that Al Jazeera is willing to print libelous drivel about gun rights, and generally seems unsupportive of the RKBA. The notion that NRA protects its pocketbook is also a common theme you’ll hear from gun rights groups that don’t know who the real enemy is.
Much is being made of this poll, showing 55% of Arizonans want gun laws to be more strict. Any time you see someone touting a poll, you have to look at specifics, because in most cases someone is trying to pull a fast one. The question in question is the following:
In general do you think Arizona should have stricter laws concerning who can buy guns or not?
That’s pretty non-specific, so the polling results aren’t something I’d worry about regardless. It’s not a loaded question, like the one’s MAIG asks, but it’s pretty non-specific. Crosstabs also show that 81% of Democrats answering in the affirmative is what drove the majority results. Republicans flipped, with 55% opposing, and support among independents did not top 50%.
Also, I note the poll would seem to have oversampled women. Women were 55% of this survey, whereas census shows that Arizona is a hair under 50% on women. Women may be overrepresented on voter roles, however. But in the crosstabs, women were more likely to support gun control than men by a fairly wide margin. Support among men was only 43% with 50% opposing, whereas 65% of women support and 28% do not.
But the point is, look carefully at poll results. I would also note the margin of error here is +/- 4%.
The New York Daily News notes:
Even President Obama, for most of his career a supporter of restrictions on firearms possession, has failed on two occasions – his Tucson and State of the Union speeches – to mention one of the most obvious reforms, the banning of semiautomatic weapons likeJared Lee Loughner‘s Glock and the high-capacity clip he used.
The Glock 19 is one of the most common pistols out there, and the New York Daily News thinks banning it is an “obvious reform.” I eagerly await the Brady Campaign to condemn this as a measure that just goes too far. They go on to say the power of the NRA is really caused by our faulty system of American Government, which places too much emphasis on making sure the interests of minorities are protected.
Who are the radical whack jobs here again?
This is a favorite of our opposition, so it’s not surprising that Nicholas Kristof  of the New York Times tries to make an analogy that’s so incredibly bereft of any subject matter knowledge of either side of the analogy, it renders the entire point utterly ridiculous. A proper analogy to the assault weapons issue, turned to cars, would be relabeling sports cars as “death vehicles.” Let me write a hypothetical newspaper article, using the correct analogy.
After a series of high profile, mutli-car accidents, which have caused dozens of fatalities, the environmental group American Council to Ban Automobiles has renamed itself in honor Ashley Brandy, a nine year old girl, killed when the minivan her mother was driving collided at high speed with a so-called “death vehicle.” Now named the Brandy Campaign to Prevent Automobile Fatalities, the group plans an aggressive lobbying campaign to ban these types of death vehicles in Congress. Several years ago, citing environmental concerns, ACBA proposed outlawing all vehicles capable of exceeding 65 miles per hour. That proposal met with cool reception in the halls of Congress. While polling showed lukewarm support among the public for banning automobiles that can exceed 65 miles per hour, it has shown that the public does support laws to limit the availability of death vehicles. Advocates have pointed out these cars have no purpose other than to drive at unsafe speeds, and risk killing other motorists.
Several years ago, California became the first state in the nation to outlaw death vehicles. Similar to the California law, the bill currently being advanced in Congress will ban certain excessively fast automobiles by name. Â Congress has also, much like their California counterparts, examined features common to these cars, and banned certain combinations of features from appearing on vehicles. Under the current bill it will be unlawful to manufacture, sell, or transfer an automobile with any two of the following features:
Congress has also, at the urging of  The Brandy Campaign, added a section to the bill that limits any automobile with V or higher rated tires from having an internal gasoline tank greater than five gallons. “We believe this is an important aspect of the bill,” said Saul Henke, a spokesman for the Brandy Campaign, “This way even if someone drives his death machine at an unsafe speed, he or she won’t be able travel very far before having to stop to refuel, giving authorities or other motorists a chance to catch up and intervene.”
Mr. Henke also expressed concerns that the proposed law does not go far enough. “Because the bill doesn’t ban certain engine configurations, manufactures may easily skirt these restrictions, and continue to make dangerously fast cars. We’ve been working with our allies in Congress in an attempt to close this dangerous loophole.”
Sports car enthusiasts, along with the National Motorists Association, have been attempting to fight the ban. “Sports cars are driven responsibly by millions of Americans every day, and enthusiasm for these machines is as American as Apple Pie,” said NMA Executive Vice President Duane LaPerrier, “The notion that these vehicles have no purpose than driving at dangerous speeds and killing families in minivans is ludicrous.” When asked why anyone had a need for a car that could drive so fast, LaPerrier pointed out, “You’ll still have fast cars, even with this ban. The only thing this will accomplish is putting good people in jail, for such things as adding a fiberglass panel to their car, or buying a spoiler with low profile tires.”
The Brandy Campaign dismissed the idea, noting “Ordinary motorists have nothing to fear from this bill. By banning these deadly cars, we’ll save the lives of hundreds of children in this country. Over 33,000 people die in automobile accidents each year, many of them children.” The NMA has called for better enforcement of the nation’s traffic laws, and harsh penalties for those who drive automobiles irresponsibly. Critics have pointed out that the National Motorist Association has ties to the automobile industry, and represents only a fraction of American Drivers.
Pundits believe the Ashley Brandy Automotive Safety Act will be passed by Congress at the end of the year. The President made banning death vehicles part of his platform, so proponents of automobile safety should be getting a Christmas present from Congress that’s sure to warm their holidays.
That, Mr. Kristof, is how it’s done. And looking at it that way, do you see why people who enjoy sports cars responsibly might be a little insulted, and a little upset? Do you get now why gun owners take advocacy for these laws very personally? This article sounds like it was written in Bizarro world, and in the real world people would laugh any such proposal out of Congress, but that’s exactly what the assault weapons debate is, in the context of cars. What’s the difference? Everyone is familiar with automobiles and driving. Not everyone is familiar with guns, including many people who own them.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a good fisking, but the media has me in the mood to demonstrate their complete ignorance of this subject. I’m not sure where the Phoenix New Times do their research, but it sure isn’t thorough:
There isn’t much difference between a fully automatic M-16 machine gun and the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, both of which are readily available for sale in Arizona.
Really? The entire trigger group is different. The bolt carrier is different. The receiver, which is the part ATF considers “the gun” is different. There are parts present in an M16 that are entirely missing from the AR-15, namely the auto sear. Can you guess what that does? You think just because it looks the same it isn’t different?
Both shoot the same, high-powered .223-caliber ammo and can be loaded with large-capacity magazines of 30 rounds or more. Except for different internal workings that allow the fully auto mode in the M-16, they’re the same gun.
Why yes, you seem to. Except the .223 isn’t “high-powered.” It’s a medium power cartridge, unsuitable for all but small game.
The semi-automatic version isn’t much less lethal, either — that much is made clear by the Army’s decision to use M-16s that fire semi-automatically in up to three-round bursts, rather than full-autos. Semi-auto fire can be more accurate than “spraying,” the Army found.
Guns are more accurate, and likely to hit a target, when you actually aim it. Holy crap. I mean, what a startling friggin’ revelation. I also never knew that burst fire was the same as “semi-automatic.” Burst fire is burst fire. Semi-automatic is one shot per trigger pull. Legally burst fire is no different than fully automatic fire.
The biggest difference, by far, is in the laws that apply to them.
First accurate thing you’ve said in the whole article.
The full-auto requires a federal firearm license and registration of the weapon.
I guess another sentence error free was too much to ask. It requires a tax stamp, technically. An Federal Firearms Licensee can’t possess a Title II firearm unless they are also a “Special Occupational Taxpayer”. But this is technical stuff that’s probably a little rough for a reporter. We can’t expect them to know too much about firearms laws when they are advocating for more of them, can we?
The machine-gun owner must notify the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms bureau in writing if he or she changes residences, and the firearm can’t be sold privately.
Sold privately? If you inform the ATF that you just sold your machine gun privately, they’re going to bust down your door and shoot the family dog so you can be carted off to be charged with that felony.
The registration fee – as minimal as it compared to the overall price of the weapon – also seems to affect purchases, Mangan says. When ATF raised the fee, it saw a drop-off in the number of licenses purchased.
The fee has been 200 dollars for as long as the National Firearms Act has been in effect, which is to say since 1934; a princely sum back then. You’re confusing this with the fee to apply for an FFL, which has nothing to do with machine guns.
We think this comparison brings up some great questions: Is it logical to have such a dramatic difference in the law for such a relatively minor difference in a feature of guns? Are the requirements for machine guns too strict?
If you ask me, it makes no sense, and they are absolutely too strict. Mostly because people get hysterical about machine guns because they don’t realize a gun you’re spraying wildly around isn’t likely to hit much.
Or should AR-15 buyers (or, by extension, buyers of any high-powered, semi-automatic guns with high-capacity magazines)Â be held to the same high standards as M-16 buyers?
Until you can demonstrate you have a clue, which this article clearly demonstrates you don’t, you can go to hell on that one.
UPDATE: Reporter’s opinion here. I have struck the portion where I missed an “”t,” and apologize for the error.