It’s time for the assault weapons push again
Cheap, available assault rifles, which closely resemble the Kalashnikov AK-47s brandished by Iraqi insurgents and African rebels alike, have become the weapons of choice for gang members and other violent criminals in Palm Beach County.
Sorry, but most data I’ve seen indicates that cheap handguns are the weapon of choice of criminals. It is, after all, difficult to tuck a Kalashnikov into your pants.
Growing numbers of criminals are favoring these powerful semiautomatic weapons, which, authorities say, have greatly enhanced their capacity for indiscriminate violence. In the past six months, assault rifles have been used to maim or kill dozens, including bystanders such as a 50-year-old father of three and an 8-month-old baby.
These weapons are no more powerful than any other rifle of the same caliber. And their calibers are substantially less powerful than most hunting rounds.
There’s some interesting info in the article, though. Seems the Florida gangs are loading up with WASRs.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:55 am
The press is definitely turning the heat up. I doubt they can back up any of the crap that’s flying around in this article with actual facts. Haven’t Norinco AKs been on the import ban list for years?
In Palm Beach County, 76 of 124 assault rifles confiscated and turned over to the sheriff’s office armory in the past 15 years were AK-47-style rifles, inventory records show. Of those, NORINCO manufactured more than half.
124 Assault Rifles in the past 15 years? Oh yeah… that’s a real epidemic.
January 29th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
“In the past six months, assault rifles have been used to maim or kill dozens,”
Seems a pretty easy ‘fact’ to disprove. “Dozens”, plural, means more than two. Accordingly, that means at least 25 people. Anyone have access to the real numbers?
January 29th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
This is the kind of reporting we can expect to see, and expect a lot of this to be used in MD.
Never mind that even if it’s more than 25 people, how many people total were murdered in Florida in the same time period. 2000? 3000?
Assault rifles are still less than 1% of the problem.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
It’s always assumed that so-called “assault weapons” are useful only for criminal assaults or military offensive tactics (from whence the name). Military assault weapons are full-auto and have been illegal to citizens since 1934 without an expensive and intrusive fed permit.
But the semi-auto legal weapons are great for personal self defense. They should be called self-defense rifles (or weapons) and those of us who believe in, defend and exercise the RKBA should focus on that aspect and point out repeatedly that armed self -defense is a basic human right.
August 19th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
[…] on a comment at Uncle’s site, Ron W Says: It’s always assumed that so-called “assault weapons” are […]