Ohio AWB
There’s a push in Columbus to ban weapons that look like assault weapons. This bit is particularly scary:
The proposal is geared toward taking high-powered, semiautomatic assault weapons off the streets. Anyone who bought the firearms before the ban took effect would have 90 days to register them.
Why on earth would they need to be registered? And here’s their criteria for a weapon that looks like an assault weapon:
The new Columbus proposal defines an assault weapon as a semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine with any of these five components: a protruding pistol grip, a grip for the nonshooting hand, a thumbhole stock, a shroud covering a hot barrel and a muzzle brake to reduce recoil.
That may be the stupidest definition I’ve seen. The NRA convention for 2007 is in Columbus. They’re threatening to pull out.
June 16th, 2005 at 11:26 am
My guess is that the reason for the registration requirement is to avoid a swearing match every time someone is caught with an “assault” weapon and argues he possessed it legally before the ban. Of course it could be a prelude to confiscation, but it needn’t be. Registered pre-1989 “assault” weapons are still legal in California, for example.
June 16th, 2005 at 1:48 pm
I’m going out on a limb and saying it’ll never pass.
June 16th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
Our stupid attempt at an AWB didn’t come close to passing (Washington State) and it was a scarry MF.
Hey, the shroud covering a hot barrel thing… if you keep the barrel cold by limiting your rate of fire or some other measure, are you ok?
June 16th, 2005 at 5:26 pm
A grip for the non-shooting hand? Doesn’t that cover 99% of long arms and all pump shotguns? Can you even think of a long arm that DOESN’T have a grip for the non-shooting hand?
Then again, if it is a grip, doesn’t that make the hand on it a shooting hand? You are shooting with both hands, aren’t you?