Posted 9/13/2004 05:43:00 PM by Douglas

My greatest fear about the expiration of the assult-weapons ban is that the idiot anti-gun (redundant?) crowd will think that this so-called heroic piece of legislation Clinton passed was actually meaningful. If they discover it for the paper tiger it was, they they'll really get their dander up.

The decade-long U.S. ban on assault weapons expired Monday. The measure, signed by President Clinton, had outlawed 19 types of military-style assault weapons, banned certain features on firearms such as bayonet mounts, and limited ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.

Well that's just it. It banned certain features on a few rifles, but not the rifles themselves. So all you had to do was, and I know this is a stroke of pure genius, is remove these features! And really, who cares if their rifle has a bayonet lug and/or a flash suppressor? It still shoots just the same.

For one thing, the gun industry says, weapons very similar to those banned have been legally available over the past decade. Also, because of a grandfather clause in the 1994 law, assault weapons or ammunition clips that were manufactured before the ban took effect could still be legally sold over the past 10 years.

So for the past decade, what was known as a "pre-ban weapon", which was still perfectly legal in purchased before 1994, will now go back to just being called a "weapon." Thanks again, Bill. You're groundbreaking work to outlaw inanimate objects has shown to be completely meaningless.

But hardest hit from the expiration? All the gun dealers that were hoarding pre-ban weapons and high capacity magazines that could sell them for sometimes double their face value. These guys are going to have to get a real job now.