More on Ceasfire MD study
Prior coverage here and see Pro-Gun Progressive’s excellent coverage here. Here’s the study. First, guns traced aren’t always crime gun, despite what they tell you. Here’s the rifles they found:
21 Colt AR-15s
46 USA Military Surplus M1 Carbines*
55 Ruger Mini14s*
92 HiPoint 9mm carbines*
294 North China Industries SKS variants*
First, none of those are assault rifles because they are not machine guns. Those with asterisks beside them weren’t even classified as assault weapons under the ban. The AR-15s could have been pre or post ban models. And the Rugers and M1s could have been altered to a banned configuration.
Any way, they’re full of it as usual. Could be worse, they could do like the VPC did and classify a jeep as an assault weapon.
Update: From Jay’s comment:
From the Ceasefire press release:
According to the tracing data, the most common assault rifles traced to crime by make and model include: 21 Colt AR-15s; 46 USA Military Surplus M1 Carbines; 55 Ruger Mini14s; 92 HiPoint 9mm carbines; and 294 North China Industries SKS variants.
Note the inclusion of “Ruger Mini14s” as “assault rifles.”
Yet these rifles were specicifically exempted from the 1994 assault weapon ban as “Hunting and Sporting Firearms.”
Senator Feinstein, the author of the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, says on her web site:
Hunting Guns and Other Recreational Weapons Exempted in the Legislation:
Ruger Mini-14 Autoloading Rifle (w/o folding stock)
The Brady Campaign says on their web site:
The amendment specifically lists 650 sporting rifles that would not be affected by the ban.
Then-President Clinton said in “An Open Letter to Hunters and Sportsmen” on April 29, 1994:
“High-paid lobbyists argue that the assault weapons ban will infringe on our right, as hunters and sportsmen, to own guns. But what they don’t tell you is that the proposal I support specifically safeguards hunter’s rights. It explicitly protects more than 650 hunting and recreational rifles from the ban.”
Why is Ceasefire describing as “assault rifles” guns that were described as “hunting,” “sporting,” and “recreational” rifles by Senator Feinstein, the Brady Campaign, and President Clinton?
September 7th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Other things I noticed:
The SKS was the predecessor to the AK, they are neither “post ban” versions, nor are they “high capacity”, in their original form.
I thought Harley made “Sportsters”.
They say there are no significant differences between military and civilian versions of these weapons. I’d have to disagree, as firing full auto/3 round bursts is pretty significant in my book. Of course, you’d have to actually know something about guns to think this.
The whole spray firing thing is laughable.
The number of SKS mentioned is way out of whack, and I’d wager there are more than one technicality based crime included in those numbers.
September 7th, 2006 at 11:00 am
M1 Carbines, HiPoint carbines, and the SKS were never banned in the original AWB nor in most regional AWB’s, either by name or definition, although anti-gunowner advocates have voiced their displeasure with that situation and their desire to ban them. Any ban would have to be by name due to the difficulty of a definition that would not ban all semiauto rifles, a goal that they are not yet willing to acknowledge.
The inclusion of the Ruger is particularly outrageous. There is no banned variation except for the long-discontinued folding-stock model that is rarely encountered. They are referring to the standard Mini-14, described and exempted in the original AWB and by Senator Feinstein, the Brady Campaign, and President Clinton as “hunting,” “sporting,” and “recreational” rifles (see my comment to your original Ceasefire post).
September 7th, 2006 at 11:52 am
I had wondered what an Armalite M151A was since that came out. A jeep, man thats good.
Anyway, if Ceasefire Maryland is using the same logic as the VPC did in their Officer Down report on Assault Weapons, you don’t go by what the law on assault weapons says or said, you go by what you wish the law assault weapons says. That way you can include models that are specifically exempt like the Ruger Mini-14, and also you can assume that every gun had more than 2 AW features so you can include guns like the SKS as well.
Also to continue with what Rustmeister said, The VPC in Officer Down said this about the SKS
My guess is that Ceasefire is the same way, they list what they wish the law would say is an assault weapon, not what the law says or said.
September 7th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
As usual, they lie and make up stuff for the general public. And the sheep swallow it, hook, line, and sinker…
September 7th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
All the excuses about which guns they’re gonna let us have is just cover for and the incremetnal waiting for the real agenda of totally disarming us. Hunting is a minority group of people who use their guns in a GOVERNMENT LICENSED activity–so that’s why Bill Clinton was so gracious to the peasants and serfs regarding aloowing them to keep their “hunting rifles”.
Think about it: only an enemy wants you disarmed. And guns, ANY GUNS in the hands of free, self-governing citizens are only a threat to criminals and tyrants.
September 7th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
While Bill “father of the full capacity magazine ban” Ruger may have lobbied to ban other brands of firearms while having the law exempt his own, sooner or later the brady bunch was going to go after them too.
Why everyone went after S&W and not S R & Co Inc, is a mystery to me. Perhaps all that cash he dropped on the NRA helped somewhat. They had a puff piece in The American Rifleman on the occasion of his retirement that nearly made me puke.
Unfortunately, he never lived long enough to see his company “hanged separately”.
November 1st, 2006 at 10:50 am
[…] They classify hunting rifles as assault weapons. […]