Excellent letter read on Norville Tonight about assault weapons ban . . .

[mbali]

Why debate the weapons ban now, now that the law has expired without congressional action? Why weren't you covering this issue instead of the 'he said, she said, he said' of the Bush/Kerry military service?

Their truths or non-truths won't kill me or my family . . . automatic rifles will!"

[slackmaster]

1. The AW ban had nothing to do with automatic rifles

See http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/921.html

and http://www.atf.gov

Automatic rifles are legally classified as "machineguns" and have been heavily regulated since 1934.

HTH

[mbali]

2. I'm sure the writer meant "semi-automatic" but that's beside the point

The point is that there has been next to no coverage of this very important issue while the press has been falling all over itself analyzing a couple of documents that don't mean squat.

[slackmaster]

3. I disagree, think it's a non-issue

The ban was so thoroughly circumvented by gun manufacturere - By making similar models lacking trivial features - that its expiration poses no threat to society. Even if banning semiautos is in the public interest (and personally I don't believe it is), loss of that ban is nothing to worry about.

I agree with you about the Killian docs, but frankly we should be focusing on issues where we have something positive to contribute like health care, education, the economy, and the war in Iraq.

Bush lied about supporting the renewal of the AWB. That's just one in a continuing series of deceptions. Bush himself is the biggest issue on the negative side.

[mbali]

4. You say it's not an issue, then go on to correctly note that Bush lied

about it. THAT's one of the reasons it's an issue. 68% of the American public supports the extension of the ban. Bush pretended to support it and then winked and nodded at his NRA buddies as the Republican Congress let it die.

This is all part of the same theme - Bush lies, pretends to be the good, straight shooting, tough guy while he lets other people do his dirty work.

But, of course, the press was too busy talking about whether the "th" in the memos could have been made by a typewriter, so there was no time to focus any attention on how Bush actually governs.