Assault Weapons Ban Lifted.

[Bradylama]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/12/gun.ban.ap/

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Ten years after it was born out of the carnage of three California mass shootings, the federal assault weapons ban is fading out of existence Monday.

While manufacturers look for a boom in business as people buy up previously banned weapons like TEC-9s, police chiefs warn of an upsurge in crime.

The law's chief sponsor, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is urging retailers not to sell the disputed weapons, while hoping for a change in the nation's political climate.

Feinstein was horrified by the 1984 shooting rampage at a McDonald's in San Diego County that killed 21 people and the massacre of five people five years later at a Stockton elementary school yard.

But it was the shooting at a law firm in San Francisco in 1993, in which eight were killed and six wounded, that persuaded her to push for the assault weapons ban.

"It was the ultimate shock," Feinstein said in an interview. "That building is one of the great economic citadels in the city, and you see this prestigious law firm. And then -- boom. Someone comes in, aggrieved, and goes right through the place."

Just over a year after the San Francisco shootings, President Bill Clinton signed Feinstein's bill into law. It banned the sale of 19 specific semiautomatic weapons and ammunition clips of 10 rounds or more.

Former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan wrote to all members of the House to encourage them to pass the ban at the time.

But it was set to expire exactly 10 years later if it wasn't renewed in Congress, and President George W. Bush never pushed Congressional leaders to move the renewal legislation.

Loopholes allowed manufacturers to keep many weapons on the market simply by changing their names or altering some of their features or accessories. And because existing weapons and large ammo clips were protected by a "grandfather" provision, many pre-ban guns remained in use.

"The bill's not perfect; we could have written a better bill," Feinstein says now. "I just didn't know how craven the gun manufacturers would be."

Studies done by pro- and antigun groups as well as the Justice Department show conflicting results on whether the ban helped reduce crime.

California and other more urban states, including Massachusetts and New York, have passed their own laws curbing the use of assault weapons. Some of those are more stringent than the federal ban.

I'd like to point out first that there were no real "loopholes" in the Assault Weapons Ban. The entire doctrine of the law was purely cosmetic, and banned certain weapons for looking more dangerous than actually being dangerous. In other words, not all "assault weapons" were actually banned.


So, what are your views on the lifting of the Assault Weapons Ban? How did you feel about the ban in the first place? Do you plan on going out and buying an AK of your own?

 

[PsychoSniper]

The ban was pure shit, as it only affected guns made after the ban went into effect.

All weapons that were sold previously, were legal as they were grandfatherd thru the law.

Plus, the law wasnt based on lethality.

 

[mad]

Less guns out there, the better world it is.

If I remember right, you yankees have the right to bare arms written in your constitution, which is really sad. Some of the words your country is based on encourage citizens to have tools of death in their posession.

 

[SuAside]

says the man with an assault rifle in his av :p

anyhow,

i'll quote someone but i have no idea who it is:

"let them have all the guns they want, hell, even give em rocketlaunchers! as long as only i have the ammo, everything will be fine."

:p

 

[Bradylama]

If I remember right, you yankees have the right to bare arms written in your constitution, which is really sad.

Yeah, its really sad how the Founding Fathers gave us the ability to overthrow the government in case we needed to.

 

[Jebus]

If I remember right, you yankees have the right to bare arms written in your constitution, which is really sad.

Yeah, its really sad how the Founding Fathers gave us the ability to overthrow the government in case we needed to.

Like they ever would. The only two 'bigger' riots against the American government I can think of out of the top of my head are the riots in New York during the civil war and Waco.

And we both know how they ended.

So, the only thing AK's and such have ever been used for in the USA is for killing fellow citizens...

 

[mad]

Yeah - I mean, a violent revolution is the only option . . There is no other way to change things than with lots of bloodshed, right?

It´s like a law of nature these days, and no one can really see what´s happening and what they´re approving.

 

[Bradylama]

You forget Shay's Rebellion, then, which convinced the States to use a Common Currency, and initiated widespread reform.

Also:

the riots in New York during the civil war

Anti-Draft/Anti-Black riots in which citizens armed with clubs and bricks dispersed after clashing with armed troops.

Waco

Which was neither a riot, nor a revolution in any sense of the matter.

Yeah - I mean, a violent revolution is the only option . . There is no other way to change things than with lots of bloodshed, right?

Generally some bloodshed is needed when the government becomes an oppressive police state. That is why we have the Second Ammendment, so that citizens can protect their rights by force if necessary.

 

[Jebus]

You forget Shay's Rebellion, then, which convinced the States to use a Common Currency, and initiated widespread reform.

Sry, never heard of it.

Will look it up.

Also:

the riots in New York during the civil war

Anti-Draft/Anti-Black riots in which citizens armed with clubs and bricks dispersed after clashing with armed troops.

Waco

Which was neither a riot, nor a revolution in any sense of the matter.

They were both rebellions against the government of the USA. Wether their motives were right or wrong don't matter. Also, I believe the riots in New York were more severe than that...


Anyway, I don't want to get into another gun control thread. We've had plenty of them a couple of months ago, and there isn't anything I could say now that hasn't been said then, so I'm keeping out of this...

 

[Bradylama]

They were both rebellions against the government of the USA. Wether their motives were right or wrong don't matter. Also, I believe the riots in New York were more severe than that...

You're right. Lots of blacks were lynched, as well as Draft Officers. The wealthy were beaten, black orphanages were burned down, looting was widespread.

It ended, however when Federal troops arrived, and after a few volleys the unarmed rioters dispersed. At best, the most powerful weapons any of them carried were flintlock pistols, and there were very few.

It was just that, though. A riot, not a rebellion, or a revolution.

As for Waco, that disaster started because the ATF was convinced that they had an illegal weapons cache. The Branch Dividians were protecting their property, really.

I also failed to mention the Whiskey Rebellion, which while also failing, forced the government into making law more easily available to people that didn't live in the cities.

 

[The Commissar]

Why don't you count the American Civil War was an armed revolution? While many of the Confederate States forces were from the Federal Army, most where ordinary citizens armed with the weapons they used every day.

 

[Bradylama]

Because the Confederacy sought merely to gain independance from the Union rather than overthrow, and change it. It was a rebellion, but not a revolution.

Almost won, too.

Thanks for pointing that out, though. I dumb.

 

[Silencer]

So they didn't care for the deaths of the restaurant patrons or school attendants, but lawyers? Now it's obvious who governs the country.

 

[Bradylama]

What's your point there, buddy?

 

[Silencer]

Oh, none, but it's acherontic that it takes a massacre to make people take steps towards gun control, instead of preventing a state in which a society is so permeated by firearms, that it's only a matter of time before a tragedy ensues. Wake up people - guns are meant to KILL.

I'm not at all taking a stance that were there no weapons in the reach of the public, there would be no murders nor massacres. But it'd certainly make them harder to accomplish - meaning that at least a fraction wouldn't have been commited, murderers not willing to take the effort.

Oh, and I have to both agree and disagree with you - every ban of such kind has loopholes, for they are intrinsically linked with the nature of the ban - if it bans only a portion of the whole, then yes, manufacturers will try to avoid it by moving their production to categories seen as less threatening (by the lawmakers). I think that was your original point - that the "assault weapons" were wrongfully categorised.

And my trollish point remains valid - it has taken a massacre of respectable law practicioners - high-profile indivuduals, much like the lawmakers themselves - for them to realize that nobody's safe and they may very well be the next targets - and take adequate steps.

 

[Bradylama]

And my trollish point remains valid - it has taken a massacre of respectable law practicioners - high-profile indivuduals, much like the lawmakers themselves - for them to realize that nobody's safe and they may very well be the next targets - and take adequate steps.

Oh, ok. I didn't get that before. Yeah, I noticed that in the article too. 21 deaths in a Mcy D's was piddly shit compared to 8 suits and ties, apparently.

 

[Murdoch]

And my trollish point remains valid - it has taken a massacre of respectable law practicioners - high-profile indivuduals, much like the lawmakers themselves - for them to realize that nobody's safe and they may very well be the next targets - and take adequate steps.

Which is interesting on other levels too. The assault weapons ban is called the Brady Law after the assistant to president Reagan who was shot in the head, etc during a failed assassination attempt in the early 80s. You can't get much more ironic than that. Good point Silencer.

And as far as I'm concerned, guns don't make people more violent, they just make the violence more lethal. The reason western European countries do not have as many deaths due to domestic violence is because they cannot use firearms, not because they are inherently less violent. I think that this is a much better argument against guns than the ones currently used by the gun-control lobby, and would be supported by many more people.

 

[victor]

You need a law to be able to overthrow the government with armed force if it becomes a police state? Has it ever occurred to you that if there really is a police state, it will abolish the constitution, or at least that part? And also, if there really is dictatorship, would you not rebel with weapons if it wasn't mentioned in the constitution?

A big D'uh to you all.

A united Human race conquering the galaxy is the way to go.

 

[welsh]

Interesting thing about the law is that a majority of folks support the ban, that even a lot of the NRA supports the ban.

Who doesn't support the ban- the NRA and the industry (which also wants to ban lawsuits against dealers).

Did the ban work- well that's a topic often debated. We have had gun threads here before where the issue was debated.

Tom Diaz, Making a Killing, is a book on the gun business in the US. If you read it, you might figure out why the ban was put into affect.

What will happen- we'll have a few shooting sprees, maybe some terrorists will buy some assault weapons at Walmart and do a shooting spree. And if they want to add irony, maybe they will return the same weapons to another Walmart for a refund.

 

[Bradylama]

You need a law to be able to overthrow the government with armed force if it becomes a police state? Has it ever occurred to you that if there really is a police state, it will abolish the constitution, or at least that part? And also, if there really is dictatorship, would you not rebel with weapons if it wasn't mentioned in the constitution?

The law is in place to ensure that we have weapons before the government turns into a police state. Obviously, if we didn't have the right to bear arms, then when the State becomes totalitarian we'd have absolutely no choice but to take it in the ass.

What will happen- we'll have a few shooting sprees, maybe some terrorists will buy some assault weapons at Walmart and do a shooting spree. And if they want to add irony, maybe they will return the same weapons to another Walmart for a refund.

An assault weapons ban didn't stop Columbine, in which the students involved used shotguns and rifles.