So, it’s politics as usual?
Watchdog groups say misstatements, distortions by both candidates plague presidential race, making it difficult to separate fact from fiction.
Sounds about right to me. Continuing:
Sen. John Kerry’s supporters leave voters with the impression that President Bush wants to put machine guns in the hands of civilians.
He doesn’t.
Bush backers want voters to think Kerry advocates more abortions in this country.
He doesn’t.
[snip]
One TV ad aired last month by MoveOn.org, a liberal group that supports Kerry, showed a picture of an AK-47 assault rifle and said such guns can fire up to 300 rounds a minute – a challenging feat with the semiautomatic version of the weapon, which requires one pull of the trigger for each bullet fired – then simulates the sound of machine-gun fire. An announcer said Kerry, “a sportsman and a hunter, would keep” the weapon illegal.
“But on Sept. 13th,” the ad announcer continued, “George Bush will let the assault weapons ban expire.”
The message is that Bush wants civilians to own machine guns. Yet the assault weapons ban has nothing to do with machine guns or other fully automatic weapons, which civilians have not been able to own legally without U.S. Justice Department approval since 1934.
I have some good friends who vote straight Republican. Even they thought the ban affected machine guns and they make an effort to follow politics. I explained it didn’t and they were a bit confused. I then explained that the ban is portrayed as such (quite intentionally) for shock factor. I’m not sure I convinced them as I haven’t heard about since but at least they thought about it. I should have printed off this handy information packet, I suppose.
