An Assault Weapon or Not An Assault Weapon...That is the Question - Granite Grok

An Assault Weapon or Not An Assault Weapon…That is the Question

I’m no expert on firearms but do a fair job of knowing how government works and this “we need to do something” thing plays right into my wheelhouse.

That “something” is the desire of legislators to appear to be capable of managing our lives in every meaningful way, so when a nut plotted, planned and then literally executed his massacre, the people who always feel the need to act like what they do matters got to work.

Long story short, the professional left sees the Newtown killings as a way to re-enact the Clinton Assault weapons ban.

We here at the Grok have already thrown down a mountain of text on the event and the reaction, but we’ve not yet (to my knowledge) actually remarked on the ban itself, and more specifically, on how it would not have changed anything.

Most of what comes out of Washington is designed to employ bureaucrats and to make things cost more, or to create hoops to jump through.   A health care law that makes health care cost more and harder to get.  A banking bill that makes it more expensive to operate but prevents none of the things its backers claimed.  A stimulus that hands out money for the sake of handing out money.  An assault weapons ban.

To simplify the discussion on details I defer to this article at PJ Media.  There is a list of what characteristics qualify a weapon as an assault weapon based on the Clinton law.  For my purposes, I’ll just post the accompanying pictures.

The top photo is of a weapon that, under the law, would be considered an asault weapon.

assault weapon

 

 

 

 

Not…an assault weapon.

not an assault weapon

 

 

 

 

You don’t need to be an expert to understand that the difference between these weapons when pointed at you is irrelevant.  That the original law was just bothersome window dressing designed to inconvenience law abiding citizens, collecters and enthusiaists.  And summoning it back like some supernatural spirit whose mere presence would have prevented any killing between then and now is simply absurd.  It didn’t work then, it wouldn’t work now.  Only armed, law-abiding, private citizens would have been able to stop or limit the calculated killing in Newtown.

But you never let a crisis go to waste.

While the Obama administration has been trying desperately to find a way to limit the second amendment, and would go as far as any administration ever if they suspected they could, any new effort will probaby be just as rediculous and cumbersome–but it will not deter criminals.

So success will be defined simply as appearing to have done something, which is to say that they will have made it more difficult for law abiding citizens to protect themselves from the people willing to ignore the law.  That is what passes for governance in modern America.

 

 

Steve has been recognized as the Americans For Prosperity Blogger of the month for December 2012

Steve Mac Donald has been recognized as the AFP December Blogger of the month

 

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