Thursday, February 26, 2009

From my Cold Dead Hands...




Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban

Previous Ban Expired in 2004 During the Bush Administration



By JASON RYAN
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2009—
-The Obama administration will seek to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004 during the Bush administration, Attorney General Eric Holder said today.

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder told reporters.

Holder said that putting the ban back in place would not only be a positive move by the United States, it would help cut down on the flow of guns going across the border into Mexico, which is struggling with heavy violence among drug cartels along the border. ...

"I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder said, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which asserted the Second Amendment as an individual's right to own a weapon.

3 comments:

Shellback said...

Stock up on your cop-killer bullets boys before the ban!

Taras Bulba said...

Gun nut.
Has anyone ever determined the definition of an "assault rifle?" Since a semi-automatic Ruger rifle can do about the same thing as an AR-15, is that also an assault rifle or because it doesn't look as menacing, would it fail the definition?

I talked to some of the muscle-heads at a gym I belong to who also happen to be fairly strong gun nuts. They said the cost of what are referred to as "black" guns (AKs and AR-15 types) have gone through the roof.

Shellback said...

"Assault rifles" under the previous ban were defined by cosmetic items - like flash suppressors, pistol grip, etc. If a weapon had a certain number of these items, it was an "assault rifle".

Manufacturers just eliminated things like the flash suppressor and continued to sell them. Outraged liberal lawmakers said that gun manufacturers were exploiting a "loophole" in the ban.

Of course, the real definition of an assault rifle is one with a selector switch which can switch the rifle to either full auto or semiautomatic modes.