Assault weapons ban to expire soon unless voters push renewal

The sight of Iraqis toting AK-47 assault rifles on the streets of Baghdad is common in the news, and a scary image. Thank goodness America's streets are safe from that kind of firepower, you might be thinking. But the 10-year-old federal ban on assault rifles in the United States is about to expire on Sept. 13.

Well, if Iraqis are actually toting assault rifles, then yes, America is safe from that particular scourge. Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the 1930s, and that particular regulation has no sunset clause. It's there until repealed (and no one seems really eager to repeal it). The Assault Weapons Ban doesn't ban assault rifles, it bans semiautomatic firearms with certain cosmetic features. The press has a long history of trying to confuse people about this; don't fall for it.

Congress has about 13 working days left to renew the assault weapons ban, otherwise the door will open once more for the manufacture and sale of AK-47s, Uzis, TEC-9s and other assault weapons in America. These are military style weapons that can fire bullets as fast as the shooter pulls the trigger.

That's only if you believe the ban was effective. It wasn't; it banned cosmetic features and normal-capacity magazines, without doing anything about the existing firearms and magazines. Manufacturers quickly redesigned their stock, so only the magazine capacity limit had any significant effect. Even there, thousands of pre-ban magazines are available for most firearm designs.

The only purpose for these powerful weapons is to kill people as fast as possible. That's not a pleasant vision for America. These guns have no place in a civil society. They belong only in war zones.

Note the continuing confusion about military weapons in war zones and the firearms affected by the Assault Weapons Ban. As for having no place in a civil society, "Assault Weapons" aren't any more powerful than other semiautomatic firearms (in many cases, they are less powerful). There are hundreds of millions of firearms in America that haven't killed anyone, and our Constitution clearly indicates that firearms have an important place in civil society. You can't handwave that away.

Since the assault weapons ban was first enacted in 1994, the use of such guns in crimes has fallen 66 percent. Police groups across the nation have asked Congress to renew the ban, and polls show nearly 80 percent of Americans support its renewal, the Brady organization notes. Yesterday, former presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton together urged Bush to renew the ban.

Yeah. It's dropped from about 2-3% of firearm crimes to about 1-2% of firearm crimes. That's a very substantial reduction there. You might even say it's not statistically significant... ya think? As for polls -- what are the odds that the people who "favor" the renewal know what it does?

The politicians from the White House on down are hypnotized by the big money of the National Rifle Association which opposes the ban. But ordinary citizens possess something more valuable than money - your vote. In this presidential election year, every vote is likely to count, just as it did in 2000. Ohio will be one of the key states that tips the balance and decides who will be the next president. Your vote is your leverage and your ammunition in the battle to renew the federal ban on assault weapons.

That's right, folks, your vote is your weapon. The NRA has big money that comes from over 4 million gun owners. And the real pro-gun activists think the NRA is too eager to compromise. Politicians think long and hard before they buck the NRA, because they know damn well that the NRA has 4 million votes to wield.

Our vote is our weapon, indeed. Use it. Vote pro-gun. Vote pro-liberty. (And consider voting libertarian).