Here we go...

They fired the first shot

by Ben Crystal

You had to know it was coming. Wednesday afternoon, House Democrats formally introduced a bill, the Assault Weapons Ban of 2015, to bar the manufacture and sale of something they call “assault weapons.” Although so-called “assault weapons” are, in actuality, merely semi-automatic replicas of actual combat weapons, the Democrats are absolutely committed to making complete and utter fools of themselves.

It’s worth noting that this latest shot at the 2nd Amendment is primarily inspired by the recent terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, and timed just a week after the three-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School. It’s also worth noting that neither attack was prevented by firearms ownership laws already on the books in places like San Bernardino and Newtown, Connecticut — laws that Democrats have sworn for decades would solve the problem of so-called “gun violence.” It’s also worth noting that those laws conclusively failed to do so in either case.

But God love our progressive pals; they’re not letting past failure stop them from more of the same. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I., aka that forgettable state wedged between the people’s republics of Massachusetts and Connecticut, kind of like Mongolia) explained their reasoning, or their facsimile thereof:

Now, let’s remember that assault weapons were first designed for the battlefield by Germans during the second World War.

I own an AR-15. It’s a slightly overly “tacticooled” replica of the select-fire M4. I call it “the M4-gery.” With its pistol-ish looking grippy bits and shoot-ey looking parts sticking out at decidedly sharp angles, it’s clearly not a toy. However, with its inability to fire at a rate any higher than I can flex my trigger finger, it’s clearly not a combat weapon. I can promise you that the Germans to whom Cicilline attributes the advent of “assault weapons” would have thought my darling little plinker to be woefully underqualified for the battlefield. In fact, the entire military world recognized the inferior combat capabilities of one-shot-per-trigger-pull standard-issue infantry weapons during World War II — hence, the development of select-fire and fully-automatic firearms wielded by the overwhelming majority of combat troops since then. There’s a reason the guys on the front lines carry M4s instead of “M4-geries.”

Cicilline had another round in the chamber:

The sole purpose of their existence was to kill as many people as quickly as possible during military combat.

The weapons designed for the battlefield actually are designed to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible. As I noted above, the development of fully automatic infantry weapons was spurred by the inadequacies of semi-automatic rifles during World War II. But the Assault Weapons Ban of 2015 doesn’t have any effect on weapons designed to “kill as many people as possible during military combat.” The Democrats’ latest attempt to put a bullet in the Bill of Rights is way off target. Because they’re afraid of M4s, they’re going to ban “M4-geries.”

Cicilline wasn’t the only Democrat firing blindly into the night. Rep. Janice Hahn (D-Californistan) squeezed off a couple of blanks of her own:

The assault weapons we’re talking about today are not just any guns… They’re not for hunting; they’re not for target practice. These are weapons of war, designed to inflict the maximum amount of death and injury.

I’ve owned my “M4-gery” for quite a few years now, along with a number of other weapons that would be verboten under the Democrats’ planned new firearms reich. I’ve hunted with them and punched holes in targets with them. But I have never so much as pointed the business end of any of them at another human being, and the situation would have to be pretty dire to alter that status. You can imagine my surprise to learn that, according to the honorable lady from Los Angeles’ reasoning, I’ve been using them incorrectly this entire time.

Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-the surprisingly violent, yet “gun-free” state of Maryland), who is old enough to remember the World War II weapons over which Cicilline beclowned himself, got out the old blunderbuss:

I don’t know any hunters who use an assault weapon — and if they do, that’s not much of a sport.

I don’t know any hunters who use an “assault weapon,” either. I do know a number of people, myself included, who use semi-automatic rifles to hunt. A .308 is a .308, whether it’s a Ruger Hawkeye or a Ruger SR-762. And anyone who’s missed a late-season buck knows it’s always a sport. Remarks like Hoyer’s make me wonder how many hunters he knows, period.

And Cicilline, Hahn, Hoyer and the other 90 or so Democrats who affixed their names to the bill brought along a heavily armed posse. President Obama huddled behind closed doors with anti-Bill of Rights sugar daddy Michael Bloomberg this week, in what many believe to be a prelude to Obama issuing some gun control-aimed versions of those executive orders of which he’s so fond. Of course, any such orders would undoubtedly violate multiple constitutional dictates, touching off idiotic court battles that would outlast Obama’s occupation of the Oval Office and ultimately be rescinded by the next president.

With such esteemed firearms experts as these leading the charge, it’s no wonder 80 percent of Americans now oppose the very gun grabbery inherent in the Assault Weapons Ban of 2015. And with a momentous presidential election less than a year away, I hope the Democrats ride the “ban” bus all the way to November.

Link:
http://personalliberty.com/they-fired-the-first-shot/