Pigs fly, Hell freezes over, and the New York Times publishes a letter pointing out a gun mistake
Good for the paper of generally making up the record:
Contrary to your characterization of them as “fast-fire attack weapons designed for waging war, not hunting” (editorial, April 20), the firearms covered by the 1994 Congressional legislation banning assault-style firearms are technically no different from the semiautomatic or self-loading firearms used for 100 years by millions of Americans for hunting, sport shooting, collecting and personal protection. They fire one round at a time with each pull and release of the trigger.
True military assault weapons are fully automatic machine guns capable of firing multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger. Congress banned the manufacturing and sale of new machine guns in 1986 except for military and law enforcement purposes.
The current law scheduled to sunset in September deals solely with certain types of semiautomatic firearms politically profiled as assault weapons. There is a world of difference between the two.
April 28th, 2004 at 6:05 pm
I wonder: After the Blair thing hit, should the New York Times have fired everyone and ceased operations?