From: [m--lb--t] at [aol.com] (MuzzlBlast)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: DiFi, 60 Min. and WSJ
Date: 6 Feb 1995 19:19:52 -0500

t.p.g.'ers,

With all of the lively banter that this last Sunday's 60
Minutes has engendered, I though it a good time to
bring back out the Wall Street Journal editorial titled
"What Is an Assault Weapon?" from the 8/24/94 issue.

A few of my comments are enclosed in []'s.  It was good
then, its even better now.  Enjoy ...

(copied without permission under "fair-use" guidelines)
8/25/94
Wall Street Journal
What Is an Assault Weapon?

	"The World's Greatest Deliberative Body has tied itself in knots
over the crime bill.  The bill's opponents worry about the $33 billion
cost,
but its defenders say that's all a smoke screen for the National Rifle
Association.  The most important business of the Republic, they say, is
banning assault weapons.  So, it might be fair to ask, what's an "assault
weapon," anyway?
	Now, the weapons in question are not machine guns; automatic
weapons have been illegal [restricted and taxed, really] in this country
since 1934.  Rather, they are semi-automatic, capable of firing shots as
fast
as the shooter can pull the trigger.  But most modern rifles are semi-
automatic, and no one yet admits a desire to confiscate hunting rifles
[DiFi
did during the 60 minutes interview!].  So someone has to decide which
semi-automatics are dreaded assault weapons.  They tell by looking at the
weapon; an assault weapon is in the eye of the beholder.
	If you thing we jest, we refer you to Senator Diane Feinstein, the
WGDB's leading expert on aesthetics and semantics.  The Feinstein
amendment, passed by the Senate last November and now part of the
pending legislation, spelled out which weapons to ban.  She and her aides
riffled through their picture albums, picked out  19 weapons they
especially
didn't like and banned them by name.
	One is the Colt AR-15, picture here along with the Ruger Mini-
14, which would remain legal.  The two are both semi-automatics firing
the same 5.56mm ammunition.  In the hands of a criminal, they could each
do the same damage; no more, no less.  The difference between the two?
The AR-15 looks more menacing because it has a plastic stock and a pistol
grip; that's it.
	After listing the 19 aesthetic offenders, the Feinstein brain
trust
apparently cross-tabulated its critical judgments to draw up a checklist
of
five aesthetic markers; a folding stock, too large a pistol grip, a
bayonet
mount, a flash suppressor and a grenade launcher.  Two strikes and it's an
assault weapon, the WGDB decided; either a grenade launcher or a
bayonet mount is OK, but not both.
	Now, we'd agree that ordinary citizens don't have much need for
bayonet mounts, but on the other hand, do you know anyone who was
mugged with a grenade launcher?  Statistics from around the country
suggest that few criminals are deranged or dimwitted enough to call
attention to themselves by lugging around military looking paraphernalia.
	So-called assault weapons are used in only a tiny, tiny fraction
of
the violent crimes.  In 1990, Florida's Commission on Assault Weapons
reported that over the previous three-year period, assault weapons were
used in 0.14% of violent crimes.  In New York City, police confiscated
16,378 firearms in 1988, only 80 of which could be called assault weapons.
Even a liberal such as Richard Cohen pointed out in a recent Washington
Post column that according to the 1992 Uniform Crime Report, "more
people were beaten to death that year (1,114) than were killed by rifles
of
any kind (698)."
	But perhaps the best commentary came from Joseph Constance,
deputy chief of police in Trenton, New Jersey.  He told the Senate
Judiciary
Committee last August: "Since police started keeping statistics, we now
know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of
1% of crimes in New Jersey.  This means that my officers are more likely
to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an
assault
rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets."
	The real question is why the Senate wants to tie itself into knots
over so frivolous an issue.  Both sides of the gun-control debate see an
assault weapons ban as the first step toward confiscating all firearms, we
suppose, and that in turn evokes the ultimate liberal-conservative
division
over whether the root cause of crime is original sin.  This remains in the
realm of symbolism and perhaps the WGDB wants to spend its August
evenings striking postures.  But in protecting the public from crime, it
could scarcely be clearer, the assault weapons ban would fire a blank."

Dances with Muzzle Blast