What media bias?
At FoxNews, a piece on DC skirting Heller begins with:
The Supreme Court’s repeal of the ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., may be a boon for a segment of the firearms industry whose last major windfall might have been in the heyday of the Dirty Harry movies: those who make and sell revolvers.
We’ll not even comment on the lame ass Dirty Harry reference. We will comment on the boon bit. Recently, the firearms industry has experienced three major upticks in sales:
1) September 11;
2) The expiration of the ban on weapons that look like assault weapons and its ban on regular capacity magazines;
3) Hurricane Katrina
So, stop that crap. Anyway, the meat of the article is that DC is looking to say revolvers are OK but semi-automatics are illegal. That’s going to get them into trouble, I think. If, as the supreme court asserts, the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon then the semi-automatic is the quintessential handgun.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:40 am
One interesting point brought up by somebody (who escapes me at the moment) but Scalia said in the decision that the city had to give Heller a license and allow him to register “his weapon.”
He’s a security guard. Does he carry a revolver or an automatic?
Doesn’t the decision pretty much tell the city of D.C. that they have to license Heller’s duty weapon?
July 8th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Don’t forget the part of the article where they explain that semi-automatics are “those in which a bullet clip is inserted into the gun’s grip”
At CNN, I can understand this story being written by someone who has never seen a gun in real life, but Fox News? gimme a break
July 8th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Didn’t Harry eventually go w/ a 44mag Automag?
July 8th, 2008 at 10:34 am
And don’t get me started on the use of the word “clip”.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Incorrect use of the word ‘clip’, incorrect definition of ‘semiautomatic’ (the Mauser c96 is still semiautomatic, as is the Mateba autorevolver), and the assumption that there are no 9mm revolvers.
Wonderful reporting.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:15 am
In thier defence, a S&W rep said that the Dirty Harry films was the #1 seller for Model 29 Revolvers.
But yeah, the other side still doesn’t know a damn thing what they’re talking about….but that doesn’t stop them from talking. There should be “reasonable restrictions” on the 1st Amendment to keep these people from spreading dipshittery.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Harry used a .44 Automag in at the end of Sudden Impact, but went back to his Model 29 for The Dead Pool.
Kevin, I think that was me.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Heller carried a 9mm Smith as I recall.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Then they are already in contempt of the SCOTUS.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
DC doubtless has a number of laws about firearms, and if one simply bans semi-auto handguns it would probably noy survive challenge.
But among others, don’t forget that DC bans machine guns. Part of that law supposedly includes in definition any weapon which can, or can be modified to, fire twelve or more times without manual reloading. So (please pardon mistaken terminology), since a 1911 may be fitted with a fifteen-round capacity, it is bannable as a “machine” gun, just like a Gatling.
Come to that, is there a semi-auto that cannot be modified to fire more than eleven without re-loading? Heck, there was a thirty-round government-issue “snail drum” for the Luger.
July 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Depending on the definition of “manual reloading”, a lot of bolt action rifles could be modified to hold twelve or more rounds. A tube magazine .22 bolt rifle wouldn’t even require a modification (don’t know if such exist).
July 8th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
There are some odd ones, like the Mateba Autorevolver, that could not be modified to fire more than eleven rounds without reloading, short of basically building a good portion of the gun’s parts from scratch. Most fixed magazine pistols would probably fall into that definition, as well, but not all and not many. You probably could mod a Mauser heavily enough to fit twelve rounds, while still having a few parts of the original gun left, but it wouldn’t be easy.
That law’s a stupid mess, and the sorta thing you’d expect out of a place like DC.
July 8th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
I don’t know about DC’s definitions, but by federal definitions, isn’t the Gatling Gun specifically not a Machine Gun because it’s crank-operated, rather than trigger-operated?
July 8th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
As long as the motive force is hand-power, rather than an electric motor, a gatling gun is not contained under the federal definition of a “machine gun”, according to the ATF. For how long that’ll stay the case… I dunno.
Under the DC ban, though, it’s a “machine gun”. So are nearly all semiautomatics, and even some revolvers.
Fun stuff.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
my 45+ year old sears and roebuck .22lr rifle with a 17rd tube is a machine gun in DC… just like it is an assault weapon in NJ…
nevermind that at the time of its original sale it was able to be purchased by almost any age child and even convicted felons…
but remember, gun control isnt about the guns… it is about the control…