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Bring the Assault Weapons Ban Back Into Presidential Politics
Tonight, Barack Obama is attending a fundraiser in Newark, New Jersey. I truly hope he uses this opportunity to speak about Bukhari Washington and the tragic lunacy of allowing civilians to possess assault weapons legally.
Who is Bukhari Washington? In October 2007, The New York Times profiled him: a tragedy-stricken, resilient teenager in Newark. To introduce his 14-year-old subject, Samuel G. Freedman wrote:
After every cataclysm had struck -- after his father had died and his mother had fallen ill with heart disease, after one older brother had gone into jail and another into a psychiatric hospital, after exhausting the welcome at a sister's home and moving into a shelter, after shuttling through 13 schools by the eighth grade -- after all of that, Bukhari Washington clung to one vision.
Somehow, he would still attend Christ the King Prep.
Bukhari was fiercely determined to gain admission to "epically troubled" Newark's first new Catholic High School to open in fifty years. In a city plagued by poverty and corruption--although a new day may be dawning under Mayor Cory Booker-- Bukhari sought to persevere and prevail through education. He was accepted to Christ the King, and in summer preparation for starting ninth grade, he had completed a "boot camp" and worked in a residence for AIDS patients.
Then, on August 14, Bukhari Washington was killed as he lay in bed. A bullet shot accidentally from a semiautomatic assault rifle in the apartment below him went up through his pillow and ended his life. The 19 year-old neighbor who shot him had no prior criminal record; it appears to have been a horrible accident.
In 2004, George W. Bush and the NRA-influenced Republican congress allowed the federal ban on assault weapons to expire. While the RNC proved that the Republican are looking to identity politics to determine the election, Barack Obama appears admirably set on winning on the issues, and legally restricting assault rifles is an issue on which Democrats have the high ground.
Senator Obama said it himself in his convention speech:
"The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals."
It's not liberal or conservative to listen to Bukhari Washington speak from beyond his early grave, and then to think about ways that responsible leadership in government could have prevented his death.
"I have to end this curse...Our family has been through so many problems, continuous problems. I feel like I have to stop it, and I'm capable of stopping it."
Bukhari Washington 1993-2008
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You know, I was reading the newest blog by Steven Brant earlier, and marveled that he actually responded to those who posted responses to his article. Not only that, he engaged them in discussion. He clarified his points. He engaged in that act once thought to be the mythical beast of the quasi-journalist world of blogging and opinion articles: reasoned discourse.
Mr. Brown, to be brief, my personal views differ from yours - greatly. However, I remember once upon a time a fellow named Zach who worked for the Brady Campaign and who responded and defended them on the Brady Campaign website's own blog. He was intelligent, and he conceded fair points and demanded his own be considered as well. Often, they were. He was the sole voice of reason I have ever encountered, in any medium, that spoke in favor of gun control.
Please, Mr. Brown, take the higher road than that walked by others who need not be named and discuss your points with us. Why do you describe "allowing civilians to possess assault weapons" as "tragic lunacy"? What do you think the candidate in question, and his party, would gain by stout support for a new "assault weapon ban"? What do you think about the statistics surrounding weapons described as "assault weapons"? What do you think of the history of the Democratic Party, at multiple government levels, and the responses by their constituencies after advocating gun control?
Reasoned discourse, Mr. Brown. Reasoned discourse.
"Assault Weapons" are banned in New Jersey.
I wonder if Mr. Brown could even describe what an "assault weapon" is.
Mr Brown--bringing the assault weapon ban back into the presidential race will guarantee that John McCain is the next president and Congress is Republican again.
Yes! Bring back the assault weapons ban! There are too many assault weapons on the streets!
If you want to guarantee a loss for BHO--keep talking about draconic gun control
Every time the assault weapons ban is brought into politics, democrats lose elections. I wonder why that is? It's probably because assault weapons bans are purely symbolic and have no effect on crime or gun deaths.
Maybe the democrat party is banking on Barack's "star power" to muscle through the asininity of an assault weapons ban and win this election.
1. The percent of murders committed with all rifles, not just semiautomatics like the AK-47 you mention, but all rifles including bolt actions, lever actions, single shots, and all other types account for only 3% of murders. The number commited with semi-automatic rifles is clearly even lower. I would ask you to try to support his assertion that rifles of any type are especially dangerous weapons. One incident does not support this.
2. Rifles represent the lowest danger of all weapon types, including hands and feet. The number of murders committed with no weapons at all is almost double the number of murders committed with rifles. The number of murders committed with a knife or other edged weapon is more than quadruple the number of murders committed with rifles. The number of murders committed with a blunt weapon is almost quintuple the number of murders committed with rifles. In fact, a person is more than eleven times more likely to be murdered with a knife, blunt object, or no weapon at all as compared to a firearm.
3. Despite the fact that these weapons are said to be 'super dangerous' and are also said to be increasingly used by criminals by the Brady Campaign (I would like a quote for this but I can't find it), the percentage of murders committed with all rifles dropped from 3.0% to 2.9% between 2005 and 2006.
The FBI has kept crime data per weapon type for the last two years and I think we are getting a refresh in a few months for the 2007 data. If semi-automatic rifles such as the AK-47 are too dangerous for civilians and and worthy of a ban, I suppose we would either see that in the data or there is something wrong in your assumptions. That data below tends to indicate that your assumptions are wrong.
"by State, Type of Weapon, 2005"
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_20.html
Total murders: 14,860
Total handgun murders: 7,543 50.8%
Total rifle murders: 442 3.0%
Total shotgun murders: 517 3.5%
Total unknown firearm murders: 1,598 10.6%
Total knife murders: 1,914 12.9%
Total other weapons: 1,954 13.1%
Total no weapon murers: 892 6.0%
"by State, Type of Weapon, 2006"
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_20.html
Total murders: 14,990
Total handgun murders: 7,795 52.0%
Total rifle murders: 436 2.9%
Total shotgun murders: 481 3.2%
Total unknown firearm murders: 1,465 9.8%
Total knife murders: 1,822 12.2%
Total other weapons: 2,158 14.4%
Total no weapon murders: 833 5.6%
So what is this telling us? It looks to me that there are several things we can take away from this data:
What I find interesting is that knives killed twice as many people as rifles and shotguns combined and about as many people were killed without a weapon as with rifles and shotguns combined.
The assault weapons ban was a bad law that deserved the die, and the democrats would be mistaken to try to bring it back. The weapons effected by the ban were rarely used in crime and are owned by millions of lawful citizens.
Obama also screwed up big time by claiming there was a difference between rural areas and big cities when it comes to gun ownership. That's as absurd as saying there is a difference between those places on the right to free speech and protections against unlawful searches. The second amendment applies equally to all parts of this country, both in small towns and big cities.
Furthermore, I fail to see how the Bukhari Washington case has anything to do with the case for bringing back the assault weapons ban. Washington was killed due to improper handling for firearms, not the availability of so-called "assault weapons". The type of firearm was not relevant, and Washington could have just as easily been killed by a revolver or bolt-action rifle in the same manner. The proper response to Washington's death would be to minimize the chances of negligent discharges by making proper firearms safety training widely available and affordable to anyone who seeks it out, but that's something the gun control fanatics strongly oppose.
There's no such thing as a "semiautomatic assault weapon". Assault weapons, by definition, are capable of firing in automatic mode. In other words, multiple rounds fired by a single pull of the trigger. Get your facts straight. It is true that many assault weapons have a selector switch that enables them to fire in the semiautomatic mode. True assault weapons are not legal for sale in the United States. The AK-47 look-alikes that the Community Organizer is talking about are single-shot weapons that fire a .30 caliber round equivalent in power to a deer rifle. Certainly not something to be shot in town, but not to be banned, either.
"In 2004, George W. Bush and the NRA-influenced Republican congress allowed the federal ban on assault weapons to expire."
I supported the federal ban on assault weapons, because as a moderate gunowner I believed in compromise -- yet 10 years later I opposed renewal. Why? Because the "renewal" proposed by most prominent gun control groups and figures was NOT just renewal, but rather a drastic EXPANSION of the ban than would have revoked the exemptions for sporting rifles and shotguns and specifically banned sporting guns that the sponsors of the ban had promised gun owners would NOT be banned.
If you lie to and double cross moderate gunowners, don't be surprised when they turn into new NRA members.
Mr. Brown,
Don’t you think that gun owners cringe every time that we hear of an innocent person being injured or killed by a firearm? We know that some of these firearms accidents could be prevented by proper training and following basic firearms safety rules. However, there seems to be reluctance by some factions to allow such training to be allowed. There is an Eddie Eagle gun safety program that is for young children that teaches them to Stop. Don’t touch. Leave the area. Tell an adult if a firearm is encountered. However, this program is not being adopted by enough schools. Instead of gun safety programs, students are expelled for making a finger gun. However, even with training, tragic accidents do happen. You could probably go to any police station and find an incident of an accidental discharge of a firearm. Whether a round is fired from an intermediate caliber firearm referred to as an assault weapon by those who want to give the firearm an evil connotation, or a higher caliber hunting rifle, or the lowly .22 caliber rifle or pistol, a firearms accident is still a tragic event. If you really want to help prevent firearm accidents, why don’t you instead support easily access to firearms training instead of dividing our country with laws that are perceived by law-abiding firearms owners as unconstitutional?
William Dawes
I'm sorry that the young man died! You say he was killed by a single round, fired accidentally? Then, as any firearm can fire one round, why is it important that the firearm in question may be a, mis-named, "assault weapon"? It could as easily have been the single-shot .22 I used to teach my son when he was 7, right? And while Obama may wish to call that .22 an "assault weapon", he'd be laughed off the stage for doing so.
Your point is terrifically misplaced. The problem is not the weapon, but mis-handling of that firearm.
Semper fi
What gun is not an "assault weapon"?
From what I have seen of the gun control people--there is something wrong with every firearm made--if a gun isn't way too powerful for civilians to own it is far too weak to put a hole in toilet paper (with too powerful starting right where too weak ends) or the gun is either a sniper weapon or so inaccurate that you aim due north and the bullet goes either only a few degrees east or west of south; and there is also no gap between the gun is way too high quality or not even worth recycling.
Forgetting for a minute the fallacious categorization of some fairly low-powered rifles (most centerfire hunting rifles are significantly more powerful) as "assault weapons," and the evil of forcible citizen disarmament in general, you should know that the SKS rifle from which the fatal shot was fired was never banned by the "assault weapon" ban.
Besides, if the shooter hadn't been compelled by draconian gun laws to hide the fact that he possessed one, perhaps he could have sought the training he would need to handle it without negligently discharging it.
Supremes say no.
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