I dunno if anyone caught it, but Ron Smith (WBAL 1090) gave me about fifteen minutes airtime this afternoon to talk about the pending AWB in Annapolis.
We talked about the fact that the bill doesn’t just ban evil black rifles, but essentially every gun in the state of MD. Ron likened SB43 to the DC gun ban, and I suggested that he’s largely correct. If it passed, essentially everything but a breech loader shotgun for pheasant hunting is banned! I further stipulated that the single biggest problem we have is the misinformed gun owner–all too many think SB43 is merely banning machine guns. Even otherwise pro-gun folks are being duped into thinking SB43 is no big deal. For instance, Ed Norris’s show today was a load of baloney about “what do you need with a machine gun, what sporting purpose do they have, etc”. We need to fight that mentality constantly and educate people.
Ron’s a big supporter of our pro-2A efforts, and you should write him to thank him for his efforts on our behalf (he’s at rsmith AT wbal.com).
Some talking points:
Myth–The AWB only covers evil machine guns you don’t need.
FACT: It’ll ban any semiauto pistol that’ll accept a threaded barrel, which is essentially every pistol made since John Moses Browning.
Myth: You don’t need a fully auto weapon.
FACT: Since the NFA of 1934 (which, in a great civic compromise, even the NRA accepts as legit), access to machine guns and fully auto weapons is incredibly tightly regulated.
This bill isn’t banning street sweeping fully auto weapons. It’s banning single shot per single trigger pull semi auto weapons. If you take one thing away from this debate, it’s that anyone talking about how you don’t need a machine gun is a misinformed jackanape who you should not trust with your freedoms.
For the last galldarned time, this bill is NOT about banning machine guns. It’s about banning single shot rifles and pistols that 80 million law abiding Americans own and use legitimate for sport and self defense, EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Besides, it ain’t about needs. You don’t need a big screen TV, a cruise vacation, or an SUV (which, BTW, kill way more people than all rifles combined, not just so-called assault rifles), either…but you do have the right to own property in this country.
It’s about rights, and the right to self defense is the right that makes all other rights possible.
Myth: We need to reduce the supply of these weapons.
FACT: Baloney. That’s like saying the solution to global warming is getting us all to quit using lawn mowers. You’re ignoring the actual root causes of the problem and considering only a miniscule fraction of the actual issue. Even the very anti-gun folks at the BATF will tell you that so-called assault rifles are used in about 1% of gun crime. Crooks do NOT use assault weapons, they use handguns, and to a lesser extent, shotguns. They use cheap, concealable, readily available guns, not super exotic, expensive, $1300 rifles that are rare and impossible to conceal.
The ban won’t reduce the supply–they’ll still be for sale elsewhere. Even when we had a Federal AWB, the bad guys still found ways to find these types of firearms. Manufacturers will find ways to build ban compliant weapons, and you’ll simply create a black market for the hundreds of thousands of rifles already produced, or the rifles found in other countries.
You can NOT make guns simply stop existing with SB43.
Myth: Yeah, but there are no sporting or self defense purposes for AR15s and semiauto variants of other “assault rifles”.
FACT: The AR15 is the most commonly used rifle for sport target shooting in the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people compete with AR15s, M1A, M1 Garands, etc.
Rifles like the AR15 and M1A are actually excellent self defense tools. They’re reliable, easy to handle, have low recoil compared to hunting weapons, and are much easier to shoot accurately than pistols.
Myth: Yeah, but these are assault rifles, man! Join the army!
FACT: Wrong. Assault rifles are select fire weapons with full auto capability. The weapons we’re talking about are NOT assault weapons and lack fully auto fire capability. You’re simply misinformed if you think otherwise (this means YOU Ed Norris–as an ex cop, you damn well ought to know better).
Myth: Sebastian Sassi, you’re a jerk who’s insensitive to the fact that my daddy was shot with an assault pistol in front of FBI HQ ten years ago.
FACT: No, I’m not. I’m sorry for your loss, but taking my personal freedoms away won’t make your family any safer, it’ll just make easier victims of us all. You don’t solve drunk driving by taking everyone’s car away. You don’t solve substance abuse and addiction by telling me I can’t have a glass of wine with dinner.
And you don’t solve violence and criminality by taking guns away from law abiding citizens, especially in light of the fact that depriving me of my personal freedoms isn’t going to stop crooks and maniacs from finding a way to source the guns they want. We can’t disarm them all, but we can prepare ourselves for when the fit hits the shan.
Myth: You use your guns to compensate for your sexual inadequacies and should try Cialis instead.
FACT: I’m so tired of reading that kind of drivel I could scream. The sure fire sign of a hoplophobe who’s run out of logical, cogent, and concise arguments is his incessant foaming at the mouth about genital dimensions and similar psychobabble that likely reflects his own fear, paranoia, and insecurity. If you can’t make a rational, logical, and coherent case for banning guns, I guess you resort to casting juvenile, scatalogical aspersions about my personal life. If guns are proxies for our phalluses, how do you explain the 5-foot-2 Jewish female president of the NRA’s fondness for them? I can assure you she doesn’t use guns to feel better about her penis. Nor does my wife.
Spread the word!
