First, I reccomend that you visit this link to get the gist of what's being talked about: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/01/eveningnews/main3316672.shtml
Second, I reccomend that you watch the video because it's very informative about the misinformation that's being treated as the truth.
Alright, the police are making various claims about semi-automatic rifles, among them being that AK-47s are flooding the streets and putting them in jeapordy and that's why that they need to be banned; to keep the officers safe.
That's all well and good, if you want to take things at face value and believe everything that's told to you and you want to drink the purple koolaid, but in the real world that just doesn't fly.
In the video they have this scene pictured clearly:
Now in this picture I'm seeing a ton of handguns, several semi-automatic rifles, a pump-action shotgun, one muzzle loading firearm, and not a single AK-47 to be seen. There are two SKS rifles and one AR-15, but not a single AK-47 anywhere.
Wouldn't you think that if the AK-47 was flooding the streets, they'd at least have one pictured here amongst the confiscated firearms?
Next, the video also shows fully-automatic weapons being fired. What's the problem with this? Semi-automatic firearms can't fire like that no matter what you try; you can't even convert one to automatic firing capabilities because the internal components are made entirely different and they're not compatible.
Besides, automatic weapons fall under an entirely different jurisdiction and are controlled in a very strict manner. To this date there's only been one murder with a legally owned machinegun, and that was carried out by a police officer.
Then you've got the claim about these weapons being powerful enough to penetrate police body armor. While that's true it's because of physics. Standard police body armor is nothing more than several layers of a kevlar weave fiber formed into a vest, designed specifically for handgun rounds that travel at a much slower velocity. They were never designed to work against rifle rounds of any caliber, from any firearm.
There's also the claim that AK-47s are being sold on the street for as little as $200 a piece. While it's true that the black market does illegally sell guns for low prices, I've yet to see any evidence to support this claim about the price.
Then there's also the statement about the UZI being able to fire 600 rounds with just a flick of the trigger...I don't even want to touch that one, otherwise I'm going to have to go into the details of how long it would take to change the magazines to actually fire those 600 rounds, and how for each new magazine you'd have to pull the trigger again, and how this UZI owner is already violating Federal law with no concern for anything.
And then there's the most obvious fact that nobody seems to want to address; at least nobody who's in office right now. Since when did a law banning something do anything to impede criminals one bit? Did Prohibition stop the bootleggers? No. Did bans on crack cocaine stop the criminals and their drug wars in the late 80s and early to mid 90s? No. Did the "assault weapons ban" and various trade embargos stop the two gunmen responsible for the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout? No.
Even more, they've admitted that the black market is selling guns illegally, so they've basically shot themselves in the foot when they claim that they need to ban lawful ownership of these weapons.
1 comment:
Great commentary. The only thing I'd add is that CBS is totally wron in stating that the SKS is a version of the Ak-47. It was actually designed before the Ak-47 and was the first gun to use the 7.62x39 round that both guns use
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