The gun-grabbers do have one arrow in their quiver and that is full confiscation.
This is a yes and no thing. No, they can't, not now, not until they can get a future court to overrule
Heller. Then, perhaps, they could. One of the things we got clearly stated in the
Heller decision, they cannot completely ban an entire class of firearms.
They can, however, and will try to make things so heavily regulated as to make it difficult and expensive, in the misguided hope people will decide they don't want the hassle and expense of LEGAL gun ownership. Won't do a barking thing about illegal gun ownership, though...
I recall when they they started talking about Assault- Rifle ban, they ended up with a list of Over 200 firearms. It's easy for them to make that measure.
Because they got to write the definitions, and ignore established usage, the entire thing was quite the boondoggle.
It is somewhat interesting seeing how they twisted terminology, and when that prooved too cumbersome, simply made up a new term and defined it to include guns that had never before been defined that way.
They played on the ignorance of the general public and some ignorance in the shooting community as well. It began with the Stockton CA schoolyard shooting, which was done with a semi auto rifle (an AK-47 variant) and since the killer killed himself, the press was left with only the weapon to focus on.
They called it an "assault rifle". We said, "no, its not an assault rifle", and gave them the proper definition, which had been in use since 1944. Since naming it an assault rifle was a proven lie, they countered by calling it, and all other military style semi auto rifles "semi-automatic assault rifles"
Since that was a cumbersome term, not well suited to the sound byte era and didnt' generate the fear and loathing they desired, they dropped that term (for a while) and created a new term entirely of their own devising,
"ASSAULT WEAPON"
and by their definition, assault WEAPONS were SEMIAUTOMATIC (NOT select fire, just ordinary semi auto rifles, shotguns, and pistols) became "assault weapons" if they had certain cosmetic features.
The 1994 Assault Weapon Ban did not ban a single assault rifle. Assault rifles are, among other things select fire, and under US law, being capable of full auto fire classifies them as machine guns, under the 1934 National Firearms Act.
I find it amuzing, in the abstract, that the gun ban people are only active and vocal in times of relative peace. After the Sept 11 terrorist attack (done without ANY guns involved) the gun ban people essentially shut up and sat down and were very very quiet for several years.
Now, here we are, almost 20 years later, and they are yapping again.
