As I understand it, the Assault Weapons Ban did not affect guns manufactured prior to the date the law took effect. It only made certain types of guns illegal to manufacture in the U.S. and it made ownership of guns manufactured after the date the law took effect illegal. That is not the same as saying Obama and Biden want to ban semi-automatic weapons. Wouldn't every type of gun affected by the AWB still be available in the secondary market? If it is still legal to buy and own these types of guns (through the secondary market), they are not "banned".

It not only made certain guns illegal to manufacture in the U.S., it made it illegal to import them into the U.S. Under the ban, you can not buy an AK47 or MAK - 90 with a pistol grip or a bayonet lug. Stupid.

Ask yourself this. What did Obama mean when he said he doesn't see the need for anyone to own a semi-automatic weapon?

As a state senator in Illinois, Obama supported banning the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic firearms, increasing state restrictions on the purchase and possession of firearms. He also OPPOSES allowing citizens to carry a concealed weapon.

I already know what it takes to own an automatic rifle. And I have family members that own weapons that would probably be on the list as well. I agree that the Assault Weapons Ban is not the best way to go. I do not think it should be made permanent. I do not think it's a matter of how a gun looks, but what a gun does.

 

I stick with what I said earlier that automatic weapons should not be legal. I have no problem with semi-automatic weapons.

 

As for law abiding citizens needing an automatic weapon...how often would one need one? And if a law abiding citizen used an automatic weapon, how well would they be able to use it? How likely would it be that they would create "collateral damage" and hit innocent people because they do not know how to shoot the automatic weapon correctly?

 

Heck I don't know the answer to your question. Is that the standard that we use to deprive people of their personal liberties? Whether or not you or I believe they needed them? I see lots of people driving SUVs that may not need them either. Do we in the name of energy policy tell them that if they cannot justify to you or me that they need an SUV, then they can't drive one? Admittedly I have a libertarian bent to me that convulses when I see personal rights taken away, but I think I have some pragmatism to me also. I fully realize that the needs of a civil society should be considered when considering personal freedoms (speed limits for example). If there was a big and real problem with fully automatic weapons being used to commit crimes, I could perhaps understand questioning the need for people to own them. But in every statistical analysis I've seen about gun use in crimes, fully automatic weapons have been used so infrequently that they are almost statistically irrelevant. Accordingly, I would be opposed to banning automatic weapons.

 

All of which is off point anyway. Obama's talking about banning assault weapons. He's talking about raising the minimum wage to dangerous levels. He's talking about forcibly taking more money from people that he considers wealthy to help the poor and underprivileged. He's talking about raising the corporate income tax rate. He's talking about unilaterally renegotiating free trade agreements that while costing some American jobs create a whole lot of American jobs. I'd bet that but for Bush being the current President and the extreme dissatisfaction with him, there is no way in Hades that half of the people voting for him would even consider voting for him because of his policies. But because they are letting emotion control thinking, they ignore the fact that an assault weapon is different than many other semi automatic weapons in appearance only; they ignore the fact that even if banned, there will be no real way to stop criminals from using the assault weapons already in country or to stop them from being smuggled in; they ignore the catastrophic effect on the economy of huge increase in the minimum wage will cause; they ignore the fact that high corporate tax rates really hurt small corporate businesses and drive large corporations to countries that have lower corporate tax rates thus actually lowering revenues and hurting job growth in the U.S.; they ignore the fact that policies designed to artificially help the poor (like Democratic pushed policies making home ownership easy for everyone) end up doing more harm than good; they ignore the unfairness of having a small percentage of Americans pay a hugely disproportionate amount of taxes as it is; they ignore the job growth for Americans and the benefit to people living in poverty in third world countries created by free trade agreements. They ignore all the adverse ramifications likely to happen from an Obama presidency just because they dislike Bush. Which in a word is assinine. But ignore it they will.