I’m not a gun owner and probably never will be, but I’m all for people having them. While talking election choices with a coworker, he educated me on how the asault weapons ban was useless and how all the hype about W letting it expire is bullshit.
It goes something like this. When passing the law to make anti-gun people happy, the definition of assault weapons was changed [and I’m paraphrasing here] to be
“…any firearm with more than 2 of the following characteristics: threaded barrel for silencer/flash surpressor, bayonette knob for mounting a bayonette, more than 5/15 round clip semi or full auto for hand/rifle, and a hand grip stock instead of the rifle like shoulder stock”; or an AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947)…"
So what happens when the law went into effect? Well, the company changed their name and the gun name to WASR-10.
AK-47 != WASR-10Not only that, but the company removed the threading since silencers and flash supressors have been banned for years and the bayonette mount.
So, that leaves us with a WASR-10 what has (1) the hand grip, and (2) the automtic with 15+ clip. That’s 2 characteristic of the “assault weapon” definition, but not more than 2 characteristics.
So what does this really mean? The assault weapons ban that just expired meant jack shit. You can, and always could run down to your local bullet shop and purchase a WASR-10. Even more so, any stistics about less violence or deaths due to ban on assault weapons is a complete crock of shit.
In this case, W did the right thing. Let the worthless ban expire so they can try and push through a ban with a better definition of “assault weapon”. Any election FUD about the ban expiring is just that FUD.
Just goes to show you that people making those kinds of law don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.