Anti-gun groups calls for end of assault weapons 'loophole'

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Anti-gun groups calls for end of assault weapons 'loophole'

By Associated Press, 12/28/2000 17:35

BOSTON (AP) Anti-gun activists Thursday called on lawmakers to close what they say is a loophole in the state's toughest-in-the-nation gun control law.

Pointing to Tuesday's shooting rampage in a Wakefield office building that left seven dead, the activists asked legislators to ban the sale or possession of all assault weapons in Massachusetts.

Current law only bans the possession or sale of assault weapons made after September 1994.

Investigators say Michael M. McDermott, charged with the first degree murder of seven co-workers at Edgewater Technology Inc., used a semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun in the killings.

Investigators are still trying to determine how McDermott obtained the weapons, but said they do not believe he had permits for the guns.

John Rosenthal of the group Stop Handgun Violence called the killings ''our worst nightmare'' and said the state needs to redouble its efforts to crack down on assault weapons.

''What use is an AK-47 other than to kill a lot of people very quickly,'' he said at a Statehouse news conference.

Critics said the state should not rush through more legislation while the investigation into the Wakefield shootings is under way.

''A complete ban on the sale or transfer of assault weapons ... I'd be opposed to it,'' said state Rep. George Peterson, R-Grafton.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/363/region/Anti_gun_groups_calls_for_end_:.shtml
 
Once again, they are redefining "assault weapons" to include more rifles.

I'm still trying to figure out how a bayonet lug with out a bayonet attached, or a barrel with threads on the end of it makes a rifle more deadly.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know off the top of his head if linked ammo qualifies as a "high capactiy magazine"?

If a bar is attached from the bottom of the grip on an ar-15 that extends to the rear of the stock, would it then become a "thumbhole" stock instead of a "conspicuously prodtruding pistol grip"?
 
At least in California, linked ammunition, over 10 rounds, is considered a "high capacity ammunition feeding device" and is controlled in the same manner as a "high capacity" magazine.
 
Current Mass law ALREADY

bans mere POSSESSION of post-94 assault weapons?! No gradfathering or registr. like Kalif? Wow, the bans are HERE, folks! When the bans come, so must the revolution, no? Or is that a mis-report?
 
This is what we need to respond to:

"What use is an AK-47 other than to kill a lot of people very quickly?" - John Rosenthal of the group Stop Handgun Violence
Click to expand...

I think that we should encourage Mr. Rosenthal to push for a complete ban on all semi-automatic rifles, all bolt-action rifles with scopes, all pump shotguns, and all semi-automatic pistols. After all, that is what this 'Mucko' nutcase had with him the day that he killed all those people. We should insist that he not compromise on just banning newer guns, or guns with a threaded barrel or a bayonet lug. Like RHarris says, those features don't do anything to make a gun less deadly. No more half-fast Brady laws, no more 'features' checks, no more pre-ban/post-ban.

Just ban them all and then order their confiscation by the members of HCI, SHV, CPHV, MMM and others.

Then it's just a case of "MOLON LABE!"
 
I'm not sure that we can't beat their logic this time :)

37 rounds in 8 minutes? Hardly pray and spray. Seems like a well trained civil war era Infantryman could get that rate of fire with an 1861 Springfield rifled musket.

Time to counter attack with: This shooting spree lasted 8 minutes. At some point someone ran out and called 911. How much time elapsed from the time the 911 call was received until the first unit arrived on the scene? What would the outcome have been if this had happend in a "Shall Issue" concealed carry state? Why must we insist that no one take responsibility for their own safety? Why am I (as a police officer) taught never to give up, to fight to my last breath for my life, but the average non-sworn citizen is counselled to meekly meet his/her fate? The problem here isn't guns, it isn't police response times, it's that we refuse to accept responsibilty for our own safety. In the 1920s the Federal Government provided surplus military weapons to banks to enable them to deal with the plague of heavily armed bank robbers roaming the midwest. Today we tell people that their lives and property are too valuable to be entrusted to their own care, better to leave it to the professionals, then we don't assign professionals everywhere they need to be. The problem is mindset. People need to accept the fact that they live in a dangerous world and that bad things sometimes happen. They need to be allowed, even encouraged to look after their own safety.

Jeff
 
Jeff, there you go again with that logic stuff.

Logic has nothing to do with controlling guns. The issue is who has the ultimate monopoly on the use of force. Is it the citizens of our republic, or is it the government?
 
PUT THE BLAME ON MAME, LIBS

http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/seese/seese_040.htm

Liberal Answer Again the Easy One: Blame the Guns

BY Dorothy Anne Seese
dottie@politicalusa.com

Sure, the day after Christmas the nation was shocked that a bearded, long-haired cybergeek walked into his office at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield Massachusetts and killed seven co-workers. The guns did it.

Commentators noted that Massachusetts has the strictest gun control laws in the United States and yet this killing took place in Kennedy territory. The guns did it, of course.

The liberals, eager to defend their state and its gun control laws against those conservative freakouts who like their second amendment rights immediately put the blame on neighboring states without such strict gun control laws, citing New Hampshire first. It was almost as if the guns walked in and started firing.

Never mind the gunman was a tad strange and on medications, had a gripe with the I.R.S. about a back-tax garnishment and flipped out. Never mind that materials to make explosives that could have leveled the entire building or maybe the entire block were found in his residence. The guns did it.

(In case you're wondering about the title of this article, "Put The Blame On Mame" is the name of a song from way, way back in the 40's or 50's when the idea of blaming someone else for one's own actions was considered ridiculous.)

Naturally, Michael McDermott put in a plea of innocent. I don't know that his plea involved insanity as the reason. The fact is, the guy is nuts. People who kill at random are crazy sociopaths. However, this man apparently had no record that would have precluded him from buying a gun in a gun-control state. It doesn't matter ... the guns did it.

Or maybe New Hampshire did it. It couldn't have been Connecticut, Joe Lieberman is there defending his state from the Senate. It couldn't have been New York, Hillary is there about to defend her carpetbagging digs from the Senate. Wherever the AK-47, the shotgun and the semi-automatic pistol came from, they are the culprits. The guns did it. So do we put the guns in jail, or give them the death penalty?

It is understandable that the families of the victims would be outraged against both the killer and the weapons. What is not understandable is the reaction of those who think guns or weapons of murder will ever be kept out of the hands of people who are crazed sociopaths bent on destruction.

Nero didn't have guns. Genghis Khan didn't have guns. Alexander the Great didn't have guns. The history of mankind is one of a bloodbath, and while we in the United States would like to think we have such a civilized country with such prosperity that there's no need for guns and no reason for people to go crazy and kill, they're wrong.

Sane people need guns to protect themselves from criminals, sociopaths, crazed drug addicts and plain old thugs.

If it isn't terribly obvious, laws don't prevent crime and prohibition proved that making something illegal or difficult to get doesn't stop people from getting it. That goes for drugs today, and it would apply to guns if guns were outlawed.

First, we stop blaming others and get our thinking straightened out.

Then, we just might be able to figure out how to prevent sociopathic killings, including road rage, school shootings and workplace massacres.

It isn't the guns (or the explosives), it's who has them and how they intend to use them!

© Dorothy Anne Seese, 2000
 
It's Time Logic was Applied

Waitone,

For some reason my Command Sergeant Major used to tell me the same thing from time to time :).

I really do believe that if we can start getting this word out we can beat them at their own game this time. Sure he used an evil AK-47, but he fired it at a rate that was comparable to having a civil war era muzzle loader. So the fact he used an AK is immaterial.

Jeff
 
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