Alphecca

Weekly Check on the Bias...

Welcome to the September 27th edition of the Weekly Check on the Bias by media against guns and the Second Amendment. It's been a rather quiet couple weeks. Most of the liberal "outrage" against the demise of the phony "assault weapons" ban has died down as news turned instead to the self-destruction of Dan Rather or John Kerry's dissing of Iraq's new president.

My buddy Robert is a firearms trainer for the military. He's always sending me great photos (and one of these days I really have to put up a page for all of them) but I'm sure some of you will like this one:

Robert writes: "Four Tampa Bay Cheerleaders with plenty of calendars and photos came to visit the Small Arms Readiness School during the Mark 19 Class." Anyway...

One guest op-ed that did catch my eye was by Carlos A. Cuevas and came from The (SC) State:

The assault weapons ban finally ended Sept. 13. Discussing the ban’s demise with friends on both sides of the issue during the past months, I grew less and less surprised by the pro-ban crowd’s arguments.

It came down to two groups supporting the ban. One is vehemently anti-gun, and no amount of discussion ever will change that. The other based their support on lack of information or a steady diet of pure misinformation by the anti-gun zealots. They had been duped, and once enlightened, a few were genuinely embarrassed.

To those who were willing to listen with an open, analytical mind, I offered some truth. One of the most common pro-ban arguments I heard was that it would keep machine guns off the streets. Actually, the ban had nothing to do with machine guns (fully automatic weapons). They have been strictly controlled by the National Firearms Act since 1934. In 1986, new machine guns were banned from private possession.

Another argument is that the ban’s end would start a flood of AK-47s and M-16s. Surprise! The semi-automatic — non-machine gun — versions of these guns have been for sale legally throughout the ban.

If, as the anti-gunners will argue, the ban has somehow equated to a decline in murders committed with the assault weapons — though they have actually been on sale the whole time — then it could be argued the ban actually was ineffective. In fact, a 1999 report by the National Institute for Justice concluded, “the banned guns are used in only a small fraction of gun crimes; even before the ban, most of them rarely turned up in law enforcement agencies’ requests to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to trace the sales histories of guns recovered in criminal investigations.”

Exactly right. See? See?! I can start off this feature with something good when I want to...

Alas, then we have another column by Rowland Nethaway which makes so many asinine statements that, well, read for yourself:

My proposal is to regulate guns the same way we regulate cars, planes and other motor vehicles.

We should register all guns, old and new, and license the owners. No exceptions. No loopholes. Then we should crack down hard on gun crimes.

As a lifelong gun owner, my rights would not be infringed, but the licensing and registration would better protect society in the same way it does with motor vehicles.

Well now, Rowland, with all of our automobile registrations and driver licensings and road regulations and millions of cops deployed on our highways looking for violations, we still (in the US) average 45 thousand accidental automobile deaths per year. That's far more than are killed by guns, even if you include suicides. Apparently all of that regulation isn't protecting society after all.

But let's somehow assume that you "got" your way. With universal registration and licensing, that means that anyone with a license can take his gun with him/her to any city in any state, even Chicago and Washington DC (which both ban handgun ownership.) So I have to assume that you favor a national law that overrules "home rule" in regards to gun ownership. Right? After all, my Vermont driver's license allows me to drive my car in all fifty states (I have to keep the windows rolled up while driving to Hawaii.) How about it?

About the only thing Rowland gets right is his call for stricter enforcement of gun law violations. If you enforce the laws, criminals get the message or are taken off the streets, the same as most drunk drivers who (mercifully) are becoming slightly less frequent with stricter enforcement of DWI laws. It doesn't take more laws, just enforcement of the ones we have.

As for your gun owning rights not being infringed, yes they would be. Unlike a driver's license, which is a privilege, owning a gun is a guaranteed RIGHT encoded in our nation's Bill of Rights. The registration and license fees would constitute an unfair TAX on that right. Just as the First Amendment shouldn't be taxed, neither should the Second. And I'll tell you folks right now, I consider those states that do register guns or license owners that their fees are an anti-Constitutional tax (and infringement too).

Again, there wasn't much in the way of actual news stories so I'm concentrating on some of the editorials that came out last week. They're more fun, anyway. Such as one by a "psychologist and former member of the NRA" which reeks of an unbalanced mind. Thomas Withers writes in the Ozarks News-Leader:

Letting the assault weapons ban expire shows what can happen when a crafty Congress and president sell out to the unscrupulous National Rifle Association.

The NRA, arms manufacturers, arms dealers and criminals win. The public loses. Now every criminal and mentally deranged person can have access, albeit illegally, to weapons matching the firepower of a well-armed policeman.

As strange as it may seem, the expiration of the assault weapons ban marks the beginning of the end for the National Rifle Association, but the NRA unwittingly lacks the ability to see its own demise. Nonetheless, it will happen.

I guess he thinks that success breeds demise. As for every criminal and mentally deranged person (such as Withers) having access to equal firepower to a policeman... He admits that would be illegal. Before the demise of the AWB it was also illegal, and that didn't stop them. See, old Mr. Withers, criminals didn't and don't obey gun laws. AWB or not, they obtain guns they aren't supposed to have and sometimes use them. They do that with drugs, too. Mr. Withers then predicts that someone will eventually use one of the formerly banned weapons in a mass murder. I agree, that will probably happen. And the press will make a huge deal out of it. Mr. Withers says:

...When this happens, as it did in Australia, Britain and California, there will be an uprising unlike any we have ever seen demanding common-sense gun control laws we would have except for paranoia in the National Rifle Association.

The laws enacted will require the registration of all gun owners, the registration of all guns owned, and limit the number of guns a person may buy in a year. Mention these three laws, and any NRA member worth his shooter's cap will have a panic attack.

The expiration of the assault weapons ban should be a wake-up call to expose the warped thinking and mendacious actions of the NRA. We don't have to wait for a mass murder. A good place to begin is by showing that the NRA's "patriotic" defense of the Second Amendment is nothing more than hogwash. It uses the Second Amendment as a smokescreen to defend its irrational and illogical proposals under the pretext that legality equals sanity.

Accordingly, we must hold the NRA responsible for its irrational acts and pass sensible gun control laws, ideally before a massacre occurs. The NRA is a seriously flawed organization that will lose its power when sufficiently exposed for what it is, an affliction on society.

I suspect that psychologist Mr. Withers also thinks that people suffering from epilepsy are possessed by demons. I don't know that of course, it's just my opinion based on his rantings in this near hysterical editorial. The NRA does what any good lobbying and advocacy group does, it represents the interests of its members. Same as the Trial Lawyers and AARP and the NEA. As for "an uprising" after some tragedy, I think most normal people outside of the coastal cities realize that the misuse of a firearm by some mutant is not a reason to infringe on the Bill of Rights anymore than Dan Rather's violation of journalistic standards is a reason to end the First Amendment.

Meanwhile a magazine you should ALL be subscribing to, Outdoor Life asks (in the October issue, article not online) the presidential candidates what their favorite guns are? President Bush mentioned his Weatherby shotgun. Senator Kerry, who was in favor of the AWB said... From the New York Times:

"My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam," Mr. Kerry told the magazine. "I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."

Mr. Kerry's campaign would not say what model rifle Mr. Kerry was referring to, where he got it and when, or how many guns he owned. A spokesman for the senator, Michael Meehan, said Mr. Kerry was a registered gun owner in Massachusetts. On Thursday morning, Mr. Meehan said he had not been able to ask Mr. Kerry about the rifle because of Mr. Kerry's hoarse voice; he did not respond to further inquiries.

Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association - which has given Mr. Kerry "F" ratings throughout his career and backs Mr. Bush's re-election - said the Outdoor Life comment made Mr. Kerry's support of the assault weapons ban disingenuous.

"It's O.K. for John Kerry to own these kinds of firearms, but it's not O.K. for John Q. Public?" Mr. Arulanandam said, noting that if Mr. Kerry brought the gun home from the war as a souvenir he could be subject to court-martial. "He certainly owes people an explanation as to why there's a double standard."

Stephen P. Halbrook, a gun rights lawyer who has argued several cases before the Supreme Court, said the most common Chinese assault rifles, known as SKS clones, were not among the 19 models banned under the 1994 law. But some SKS's have magazines holding more than 10 rounds, which violates a Massachusetts law against large-capacity weapons, Mr. Halbrook said. If the gun is fully automatic, Mr. Halbrook said, it is illegal in Massachusetts and would require a federal permit if Mr. Kerry kept it at one of his homes in Pennsylvania and Idaho.

Flip-flop? Nah, probably just the usual hypocrisy of the elitest liberals who think that only they should be allowed to violate the law, or at least to own a firearm that their state, or the federal government says they shouldn't. Kerry has supported every single gun control law that he has had a chance to vote on in 20 years in the Senate. Here's the clincher quote -- the ultimate hypocrisy -- by a gun control group:

Bob Ricker, a former N.R.A. lawyer who is now a consultant for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said he was not worried by Mr. Kerry's answer because "he knows a lot about firearms and he's also one of the most credible individuals when it comes to talking about gun-violence prevention and what it takes to keep weapons of war off the street."

Uh, Bob, so do a hell of a lot of other people KNOW about firearms. Why isn't it all right for THEM to own so-called "assault weapons"? Of course, I forgot, they're not John Kerry.

I say liberal hypocrisy because how many Hollywood stars conceal-carry and yet would infringe on everyone elses right to do the same? Rosie O'Donnell doesn't think anyone should own a gun EXCEPT for the bodyguard of her daughter!

Update: Now The New York Times is saying:

Senator John Kerry's campaign said yesterday that Mr. Kerry did not own a Chinese assault rifle, as he was quoted as saying in Outdoor Life magazine, but a single-bolt-action military rifle, blaming aides who filled out the magazine's questionnaire on his behalf for the error.

Michael Meehan, a spokesman for the campaign, said Mr. Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, owns two guns, a double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun and the rifle, which Mr. Meehan said Mr. Kerry "keeps as a relic" and had never fired. Mr. Meehan said the gun had no make or model markings on it and that Mr. Kerry "got it from a friend years ago," adding that such rifles were first manufactured in Russia more than 100 years ago and were used by the North Koreans and the Vietcong.

The clarification came in response to an article yesterday in The New York Times quoting Mr. Kerry's response to a question by Outdoor Life: "What is your favorite gun?"

Oh, right. So Kerry can't respond to questions because he has a sore-throat and his campaign staff answered Outdoor Life's question about a favorite gun without checking with Kerry... Ya. Sounds like damage control to me, and just more BS from Kerry and his minions. I think the Massachusetts State Police should search his home.

I suppose this is a shorter than usual edition. There just wasn't a lot happening in the media although if you look through my posts for the past week you'll see some other interesting things. Just hit "main" at the top of the screen and start scrolling...

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Here's what some pro-2A bloggers are up to:

Posse Incitatus has thoughts much like my own on Kerry's gun choice. Great minds think alike. Kevin at The Smallest Minority gives his thoughts too. And, by golly, so does The Professor. And Pervasive Light piles on too. Boy, nothing gets past my circle of friends!

Matt Rustler at Stop the Bleating! doesn't think much of the pro-2A coverage at the Washington Times. I don't think the Washington Times is as bad as he makes it out to be but he provides valid examples. My personal favorite newspapers that support the right to bear arms (at least that I regularly read) are the Union Leader (NH) and the New York Post. If you readers here have other suggestions, please post them in the comments and I'll put them on my regular reading list.

Persnickety at Ordinary Galoot wants to know what to do with wet ammo? Throw it out! Ain't nothing else you, er, I mean your friend can do...

Backroad Blog looks at the double standard eBay uses in prohibiting ivory and gun parts. I don't know how you define a scope as being for an "assault weapon" but I sold one once on eBay. Got good money for it too!

Say Uncle makes a good point about how a newspaper will declare that "all law enforcement" supports the AWB when in fact, NOT all do. I've often posted about various police officials or sheriffs who were against it.

Publicola suspects the big push to have another AWB will come after the election.

James at Hell In A Handbasket went on a road trip and found that highway reststops are hostile to gun owners.

Kim du Toit knows that all you need is a roadster, a rifle, and a resplendent woman. Beauties one and all.

Speaking of beauties, long-time pro-2A supporter and blogger Les Jones is a daddy. Just head there and start scrolling. Congratulations to Les and Melissa. L'Chaim!

And on that happy note, I'll end this week's report. Thanks for stopping by! See you soon.

Posted by Jeff Soyer at September 27, 2004 12:01 AM