Monday, January 17, 2011

Jon Meacham on the Assault Weapons Ban

via The Huffington Post.

This is the type of gun that the shooter in Arizona is charged with using — a Glock 9 mm with an expanded clip that holds 33 rounds. What on earth could such a thing be good for except for rapidly ending as many human lives in as short a space of time as possible?

Congress banned such clips in 1994 under President Clinton; in 2004, under the second President Bush, they were allowed back on the legal U.S. market. So were other assault weapons banned for the previous decade. Of course the alleged murderer in Tucson was by all accounts mentally ill and susceptible to substance abuse. Could he have put his hands on this kind of Glock and this kind of clip illegally? Sure he could have. But he didn’t have to.
What do you think? Please leave a comment.

11 comments:

  1. You realize a Glock is not an "assault weapon", right? Or is it? It seems to be whatever evil gun du jour that gun controllers want it to be, so maybe you guys can tell us exactly what isn't an "assault weapon".

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  2. Meacham is a Fudd. A dying breed.

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  3. Another example of how George W. Bush was the shittiest president of all time.

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  4. "Another example of how George W. Bush was the shittiest president of all time."

    While I'm not going to argue with the conclusion of your statement, I still fail to understand how this is Bush's fault. I know there is some unexplained and irrational need for lefties to blame everything on Bush, but I don't get this one.

    A law was written almost 10 years before said President took office. The act was designed, by law, to expire during a future unknown President's term and signed into law two terms before said President was to begin serving. Yup, must be Bush's fault.

    So a psycho nutjob decides to attack and kill a crowd of people in Arizona and it is Bush's fault? You can't even blame Obama and at least he is the actual President. Good grief.

    You blamed somebody, feel better now?

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  5. From the USA Today article of 9/14/04

    Bush said in the 2000 campaign that he would sign an extension of the 10-year ban on the semiautomatic weapons. However, he did not press Congress to send him such a bill, and its Republican leaders never did.

    You're right brother. You got me fair and square. I posted that this morn whilst still rather groggy. The truth is that Bush had a greater sense of morality and responsibility in this instance than did his fellow republican lawmakers.

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  6. "Another example of how George W. Bush was the shittiest president of all time."

    On the contrary. Ignoring the AWB was the best thing he ever did.

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  7. TS, Please don't steer the discussion towards the definition of an assault rifle.

    Whom are you talking to when you asked, "You realize a Glock is not an "assault weapon", right?"

    If it's the author of the article, I would say in his defense that he was referring to the fact that under the AWB, those high-capacity magazines were banned or restricted or whatever. I didn't get the idea that he thought a glock pistol was an assault weapon.

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  8. "Congress banned such clips in 1994 under President Clinton; in 2004, under the second President Bush, they were allowed back on the legal U.S. market. So were other assault weapons banned for the previous decade."

    I got the impression that he was considering the Glock an Assault Weapon too since he claimed the law also banned other assault weapons.

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  9. Mike, this is where I was getting it from:

    But I am embarrassed and ashamed that so many Second Amendment true believers are unable to make sound distinctions between sporting arms that tend to be used responsibly and the vicious, unnecessary machinery of human death like that allegedly wielded by Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson.

    Meacham’s position is deplorable. Basically it is “we should ban guns that I don’t own.” Make no mistake about this though, this Glock is NOT functionally different than a Tec-9 or semi-auto Uzi banned in 1994- though it was never considered an “assault weapon”. In fact the features that kept it from being included are its compact design (by having the magazine enclosed inside the grip), and not being overly heavy. How much sense does that make?

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  10. The ways of defining assault weapons often make no sense. Agreed.

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  11. Mike, I think you are the one person on the gun control side that admits that (that is why I started regularly reading you). You haven’t seemed to back off of the concept of AWBs, though.

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