Much of the steam
that is left in the drive to ban semi-automatic firearms
seems to be fueled by a massive confusion of terms.
The media has at
times intentionally tried to mislead, at other times, the
errors may have resulted from ignorance and confusion. The
media takes itself very seriously, yet the best defense
for them is ignorance. No wonder so many of the public are
confused.
The Clinton/Feinstein
gun ban of 1994 affected guns frequently referred to as
military-style assault weapons. What would peaceful
citizens want with war guns?
First of all, the
founders of our country wanted the citizenry to be armed
with the same firearms that every soldier would have. The
Militia Act of 1792 said that every military-eligible male
had to own a military rifle, military ammo, and have it at
home. This is a far cry from the National Guard whose
members use government rifles, government ammo and leave
it all with the government when they go home.
Peaceful citizens
should own military, fully automatic assault rifles
because peaceful citizens are part of the constitutional
system of homeland security called the militia.
The 1994 gun ban,
however, has nothing to do with fully automatic military
assault rifles. It deals with semi-automatic firearms,
which fire only one bullet for each trigger pull. They are
not used by a single military in the world.
If you watched CNN
recently, you would have seen a lie concocted by John
Zarella of CNN and Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne. The
Sheriff fired a fully automatic machine gun and identified
it as one of the weapons banned in 1994. Flat out not
true. CNN subsequently “clarified” its report.
A recent Doonesbury
cartoon has the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre testifying thusly:
“Freedom means the right to bear automatic weapons! It
would be the height of hypocrisy to deny the Iraqis the
same sacred liberty that Congress is poised to restore to
its own citizens.”
Doonesbury creator
Garry Trudeau is wrong on two counts. The gun ban that is
about to expire is a ban on semi-automatics, not machine
guns.
Moreover, contrary to
Trudeau’s opinion, Iraqis are allowed by the American
administration to own fully automatic machine guns, let
alone, mere semi-automatics.
A better presentation
of the situation would have been to have depict a gun
rights advocate asking Congress to repeal the
semi-automatic ban along with all restrictions on real
machine guns - for Americans, and not just Iraqis.
Americans should be put on a par with the Iraqis!
Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld stated recently that Baghdad is safer than
is Washington DC. Media attention to the ideologically
motivated targeting of American and British troops
obscures what is not reported - the low incidence of
murder in Baghdad.
Of course, we have
the same problem in he United States. Media coverage of
murder during the last decade rose 500 percent, yet the
murder rate declined almost 50 percent. Many Americans
believed that crime was out of control, when in fact,
quite the opposite was the case.
If we get the ban on
semi-automatics lifted, we still have work to do.
Hopefully, one day the citizens of the victorious country
will have as much freedom as the citizens of the defeated
country!
© 2003 Larry Pratt -
All Rights Reserved
