AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s - police chiefs warn of an upsurge in crime.

[Q]

Assault weapons ban to expire Monday

Monday, September 13, 2004 Posted: 8:11 AM EDT (1211 GMT)


SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Ten years after it was born out of the carnage of three California mass shootings, the federal assault weapons ban is fading out of existence Monday.

While manufacturers look for a boom in business as people buy up previously banned weapons like AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s, police chiefs warn of an upsurge in crime.

The law's chief sponsor, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is urging retailers not to sell the disputed weapons, while hoping for a change in the nation's political climate.

Feinstein was horrified by the 1984 shooting rampage at a McDonald's in San Diego County that killed 21 people and the massacre of five people five years later at a Stockton elementary school yard.

But it was the shooting at a law firm in San Francisco in 1993, in which eight were killed and six wounded, that persuaded her to push for the assault weapons ban.

"It was the ultimate shock," Feinstein said in an interview. "That building is one of the great economic citadels in the city, and you see this prestigious law firm. And then -- boom. Someone comes in, aggrieved, and goes right through the place."

Just over a year after the San Francisco shootings, President Bill Clinton signed Feinstein's bill into law. It banned the sale of 19 specific semiautomatic weapons and ammunition clips of 10 rounds or more.

Former Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan wrote to all members of the House to encourage them to pass the ban at the time.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/12/gun.ban.ap/index.html

[napi21]

1. I question whether there will be anything bad occur when this ban expires.

I have read, and re-read the description of exactly what is banned by it, and it's mostly cosmetic "feel good" things that were banned. The only effective part of the ban was the large magazine capacity of a gun. The ban limited the capacity to 10 rounds. I agree, no one has a need to have 100 round clip! However, these clips have been available at any gun show, even after the ban was passed.

I think we should let this argument die on the vine. The ban expired today. It's a bad thing to make this part of the 2004 campaign issue. Like it or not, the NRA has managed to convince the MAJORITY of people that banning guns is a bad thing for them. It would be a shame to see Kerry AND the Dems running for the House & Senate to loose the election on this issue alone!

[MadHound]

6. Tell you what friend, go spend a year in my old neighborhood

And see if you are still thinking the same way afterwards.

I used to live in one of those neighborhoods that was considered "marginal". Not quite inner city, but had too many drive byes and crack houses to be qualified as a safe neighborhood. Shortly after the AWB went into effect, I noticed a sharp decline in the numbers of semi-auto reports going off in the neighborhood. It was soon limited to single shots on pistols, or the quick three shots, or the occaissional round from a shotgun breaking the neighborhood quiet.

I also noticed that shortly after 9-11, there was a serious uptick in guns being used in the neighborhood. This corresponded with the upswing of gun purchases by scared suburbanites, afraid that they were going to find Osama in their back yard. Naturally, like many guns including assault weapons, these new security blankets were stolen from their comfortable suburban homes and put to use in my neck of the woods, shooting up the neighborhood.

Now with the advent of more assault weapons, it is a sure and easy thing to predict that the real suffering of this renewed flood of assault weapons is going to hit the poor and lower class people. Scared suburbans are going to go out and buy up the Uzis, the TEC 9s, the high capacity clips, which will promptly be stolen and put to their deadly use in the lower class and marginal neighborhoods across the country.

Fortunately,I've moved from this old neighborhood of mine, though I still have friends who live there. And they are going to be subjected to an increased and more deadly field of fire. Instead of their cars catching the occaisonal single slug from a 9mm, they will be catching multiple slugs from an Uzi. Instead of a house being dented by a single .45, the house and occupants both inside and out will be riddled with rounds from a TEC9.

So I tell you what, why don't you go move into a neighborhood like mine for the next year, and then tell me that the AWB is something that we should let die on the vine. It is amazing what a little change in perspective will do for one's thinking.

[napi21]

7. Fully automatic weapons have been banned and will continue to be!

The name on this expiring ban is a misnomer. It DOESN'T BAN fully automatic weapons! They were banned many years earlier and still will be!

Do a google on "assault weapons ban". Find a site that explains exactly what it bans, not some partisan site, or NRA, or any others.

You will see that the things that were banned were:

In 1994, the Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 was passed. This law banned rifles that had detachable magazines and two or more of the following characteristics:

A folding or telescoping stock
A pistol grip
A bayonet mount
A flash suppressor, or threads to attach one (a flash suppressor reduces the amount of flash that the rifle shot makes. It is the small birdcage-like item on the muzzle of the rifle)
A grenade launcher

Here's one that I checked.
http://www.ont.com/users/kolya/AR15/aw94.htm

I detest the NRA for the propaganda that they are spewing, but the opponents are almost as bad. NEITHER side is really being honest.

[MadHound]

9. And my point still stands friend

These guns that were illegal will start to show up in increasing numbers in neighborhoods that are already suffering from a blight of guns, most of them stolen from nervous nelly suburbanites who in reality have nothing to fear. You are simply condemning an entire group of innocent people to live in an even deadlier free fire zone than before, all so some middle class or rich person can have their precious security blanket.

Having lived for many years in a troubled neighborhood, I see no use to put more fuel on the fire. Tell you what, why don't you go find your own local troubled neighborhood(you know, the one where you hear gunfire of some sort on a daily basis) and move in there. Then try and be sanctimonious with me after some crack dealer blows out your front room with the newly legalized grenade launcher affixed to his newly legal assault weapon that he recently stole from some suburbanite with "compensation issues" Get back to me after a year and then lets talk.

[porphyrian]

2. They want to justify increased police presence...

The prison industry has republican cock planted firmly in their mouths. Republicans use fear of "criminals" to scare the voters enough to justify increased fascism in policy. The prison industry benefits by getting billions in funding to build more and more prisons, since mandatory minimum sentences keep existing prisons overcrowded. It doesn't matter that the money is usually managed incompetently, because that allows existing prisons to release felons early to make room for new mandatory minimum inmates, which increases the crime rate, allowing the media to scare the public more, etc.

I'm guessing they are also trying to justify a police state in the coming Presidential term, not to mention keeping an eye on who starts snatching up assault rifles without the ban.

[REP]

3. Fully Automatic Weapons Will Remain Illegal

I'm all for sensible gun contol - like making buyers pass a written and range test before being allowed to buy a gun - but these kind of hand-wringing, hysterical articles are useless. "Assault weapons! Omigod the sky is falling!" No, they're the same kind of semi-auto weapons that are still available, only certain models were made illegal to sell (not to own) for a while.

[slackmaster]

4. Link to official federal government information about this change

http://www.atf.gov/

[Romulus]

5. I don't know why there would be an "upsurge"

seeing has how firearms that do the same exact thing, in the same exact way, were never banned under the "assault weapons ban."

[derby378]

8. I can't help but think...

...that Michael Moore, who supports reinstating the AWB, would also come down on the politicians and police chiefs who use fear to drum up support for the AWB. Bowling For Columbine showed how much our dominant media culture has bought into fear as a sales tactic (compared with relatively mellow Canada, which has far less gun crime and far less fear-mongering than we do).

Now that the AWB is toast, let's work on crafting new gun-control measures that can't be acused of infringing on Amendment II.