Sangamon County Rifle Association
Right Reason on Second Amendment Rights
Springfield, Illinois



Jim Butler

Phony "Assault weapons" Ban
 Resurfaces with Obama's Election

Jim Butler, President, SCRA
January 09 GunNews








American citizens who own a semi-automatic firearm are in for a tough time during Obama's tenure in the White House as he would like to see an enhanced 1994 style "Assault" ban reinstated.

The 1994 "assault weapons" ban was passed by tricking the public into believing that lawmakers were outlawing machine guns instead of semi-automatic firearms, which only fire one shot each time the trigger is squeezed.  It just shows you that no one's rights are safe when Congress is in session.

"No one should have any illusions about what was accomplished (by the ban).  Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime.  The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control."

Washington Post Editorial.
Sept., 15, 1994

"Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic, purely symbolic move. . .  Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation."

Charles Krauthammer,
Syndicated Columnist,
The Washington Post,
April 5, 1996

". . . we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence."  This was from an updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban:  Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003, National Institute of Justice, June 2004.

According to the "Impacts of the 1994 Assault Weapons ban:  1994-96." National Institute of Justice, March 1999," The public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated."

The 1994 "Assault Weapons" ban which expired in 2004, was a piece of chicanery put forth by the anti-self-defense movement designed to deprive Americans of their Second Amendment Right.  These are the same people who argued before the Supreme Court claiming that the Second Amendment didn't mean an individual right.  They were deservedly proved wrong.

Obama, along with a team of Clinton retreads, will try to pass another "phony assault weapon" ban against semi-automatic firearms which have been owned and used for over 100 years by citizens of the United States.  Most semi-automatic firearms have no more firepower or killing capacity than the average hunting rifle and "play a small role in overall violent crime."

This ploy by the Obama administration could cost Congressional Democrats dearly as reported on January 14, 1995 in The Plain Dealer, a Cleveland, Ohio newspaper.  President Clinton said, "The fights I fought . . . cost a lot  -- the fight for the assault weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress." "The NRA is the reason the Republicans control the house."

It has taken the present day Democrats a long time and a great deal of effort to regain control of Congress.  Are they willing to throw all this away by reintroducing another phony "Assault Weapons" ban just to please the Obama administration?  Are Congressional members willing to put their jobs on the line and possibly being sacrificed on the altar of gun control again?  Those 20 members of Congress in 1994 made a bad choice.  Will history repeat itself?


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