Thread: Assault Weapons Ban

Originally Posted by Albany Rifles

Assault weapons are meant to kill soldiers.

They do not belong in the hands of civilians, period.

All weapons are meant to kill something or somebody. The real argument is where to draw the line about how easy it should be for some.

The devil is in the details about what an "assault" weapon really is, and who we want to have them, or not.

What if those civilians need to kill soldiers?

April 20, 1775

BOSTON -- National guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of
recently banned assault rifles were ambushed on April 19th by
elements of a paramilitary extremist faction. Military and law
enforcement officials estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200
injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared
that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has
links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed
against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the
group's organizers as "criminals," issued an executive order
authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered
with the government's efforts to secure law and order.

The military raid on the extremist arsenal followed widespread
refusal by the local citizenry to turn over recently outlawed assault
weapons. Gage issued a ban on military-style assault weapons and
ammunition earlier in the week. This decision followed a meeting
earlier this month between government and military leaders at which
the governor authorized the forcible confiscation of illegal arms.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed
out that "none of these people would have been killed had the
extremists obeyed the law and turned over their weapons voluntarily."

Government troops initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply
of outlawed weapons and ammunition. However, troops attempting to
seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from
heavily-armed extremists who had been tipped-off regarding the
government's plan.

During a tense standoff in Lexington's town park, National Guard
Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered
the armed group to surrender and return to their homes. The impasse
was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the
right-wing extremists.

Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange. Ironically, the
local citizenry blamed government forces rather than the extremists
for the civilian deaths. Before order could be restored, armed
citizens from surrounding areas had descended upon the guard units.
Colonel Smith, finding his forces overmatched by the armed mob,
ordered a retreat.

Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national
joint task force in its effort to restore law and order. The governor
has also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and
leading the attack against the government forces. Samuel Adams, Paul
Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as "ringleaders"
of the extremist faction, remain at large.
---

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON - While it is an article of faith among gun-control proponents
that government restrictions on firearms reduces violence and crime, two new
U.S. studies could find no evidence to support such a conclusion.

The National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report based on 253
journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, a survey of 80
different gun-control laws and some of its own independent study. In short,
the panel could find no link between restrictions on gun ownership and lower
rates of crime, firearms violence or even accidents with guns.

The panel was established during the Clinton administration and all but one
of its members were known to favor gun control.

"Policy questions related to gun ownership and proposals for gun control
touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics: Should
regulations restrict who may possess firearms? Should there be restrictions
on the number or types of guns that can be purchased? Should safety locks be
required? These and many related policy questions cannot be answered
definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," said
Charles F. Wellford, professor in the department of criminology and criminal
justice at the University of Maryland and chairman of the committee that
wrote the report.

However, the National Research Council decided even more thorough research
on the topic is needed. Many studies linking guns to suicide and criminal violence produce conflicting conclusions, have statistical flaws and often do not show whether gun ownership results in certain outcomes, the report said.

A serious limit in such analyses is the lack of good data on who owns
firearms and on individual encounters with violence, according to the study.

The report noted that many schools have programs intended to prevent gun
violence. However, it added, some studies suggest that children's curiosity
and teenagers' attraction to risk make them resistant to the programs or
that the projects actually increase the appeal of guns.

Few of these programs, the report concludes, have been adequately evaluated. The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System to begin collecting data.

The study by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Science, was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

"While more research is always helpful, the notion that we have learned
nothing flies in the face of common sense," said John Lott, resident scholar
at the American Enterprise Institute and a critic of gun-control laws. "The
NAS panel should have concluded as the existing research has: Gun control
doesn't help."

Meanwhile, a study released by the Justice Department suggesting background checks at gun shows would do little to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals.

The study noted the number of criminals who obtained guns from retail
outlets was dwarfed by the number of those who picked up their arms through
means other than legal purchases. The report was the result of interviews
with more than 18,000 state and federal inmates conducted nationwide. It
found that nearly 80 percent of those interviewed got their guns from
friends or family members, or on the street through illegal purchases.

Less than 9 percent were bought at retail outlets and only seven-tenths of 1
percent came from gun shows. The Justice Department's interviews also showed so-called "assault weapons" are not a major cause of gun violence. Only about 8 percent of the inmates used one of the models covered in the now-expired assault weapons ban, signed into law by the Clinton administration in 1994