Kevin Jensen
State Researcher
imported post
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10930181
Assault weapons
Tribune Editorial
Article Launched:11/07/2008 07:47:00 PM MST
Utah gun shops have been doing a brisk business in assault weapons. The reason appears to be that customers worry that president-elect Barack Obama will support a new version of the federal assault weapons ban, which was in force between 1994 and 2004.
Here's hoping the worried gun buyers are right.
Not that we are against all guns or the 2nd Amendment. Sporting firearms? Fine. Handguns for self-defense? No problem. We just think that the private arms race should be stopped short of military-style, semi-automatic firearms with large-capacity magazines that are specifically designed to kill a lot of people quickly.
That's the kind of weapon that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used to shoot up Columbine High School. The kind of weapon that some trigger-happy paranoid in South Carolina used the other day to pump 29 rounds through his closed front door and walls, killing a 12-year-old trick-or-treater on the shooter's front porch. The shooter says he thought he was being robbed.
Some people would point out, rightly, that the victim would be just as dead if he had been killed by a single shotgun blast. It's the action of the shooter, not the action of the gun, that's the problem.
That's right, as far as it goes. But by that thinking there would be no reason to withhold grenade launchers and artillery pieces from civilians. Society should draw the line on how much firepower it is willing to put into one person's hands. Police officers and the mililtary should be exceptions.
Critics of the previous ban claim it was ineffectual because it outlawed certain features of guns whose action was identical to that of legal hunting rifles. They were right about that, too. It banned 19 specific guns plus certain combinations of military-style features, such as folding stocks and detachable magazines. But the ban wasn't more effective because the National Rifle Association worked hard to make sure it wasn't, and it was easy for manufacturers to evade it.
A new law should focus on accomplishing the intent of the original, banning military-style, semi-automatic weapons with large-capacity magazines that fire many rounds in quick succession.
This isn't about disarming licensed hunters or law-abiding citizens. It's about taking off the market products with a terrible capacity for mayhem.
vanderson@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10930181
Assault weapons
Tribune Editorial
Article Launched:11/07/2008 07:47:00 PM MST
Utah gun shops have been doing a brisk business in assault weapons. The reason appears to be that customers worry that president-elect Barack Obama will support a new version of the federal assault weapons ban, which was in force between 1994 and 2004.
Here's hoping the worried gun buyers are right.
Not that we are against all guns or the 2nd Amendment. Sporting firearms? Fine. Handguns for self-defense? No problem. We just think that the private arms race should be stopped short of military-style, semi-automatic firearms with large-capacity magazines that are specifically designed to kill a lot of people quickly.
That's the kind of weapon that Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris used to shoot up Columbine High School. The kind of weapon that some trigger-happy paranoid in South Carolina used the other day to pump 29 rounds through his closed front door and walls, killing a 12-year-old trick-or-treater on the shooter's front porch. The shooter says he thought he was being robbed.
Some people would point out, rightly, that the victim would be just as dead if he had been killed by a single shotgun blast. It's the action of the shooter, not the action of the gun, that's the problem.
That's right, as far as it goes. But by that thinking there would be no reason to withhold grenade launchers and artillery pieces from civilians. Society should draw the line on how much firepower it is willing to put into one person's hands. Police officers and the mililtary should be exceptions.
Critics of the previous ban claim it was ineffectual because it outlawed certain features of guns whose action was identical to that of legal hunting rifles. They were right about that, too. It banned 19 specific guns plus certain combinations of military-style features, such as folding stocks and detachable magazines. But the ban wasn't more effective because the National Rifle Association worked hard to make sure it wasn't, and it was easy for manufacturers to evade it.
A new law should focus on accomplishing the intent of the original, banning military-style, semi-automatic weapons with large-capacity magazines that fire many rounds in quick succession.
This isn't about disarming licensed hunters or law-abiding citizens. It's about taking off the market products with a terrible capacity for mayhem.
vanderson@sltrib.com
