President Calls for New AWB

The President in yesterday's debate called for a new "Assault Weapon Ban (AWB)" because, as he said, "Weapons that were designed for soldiers in war theaters don't belong on our streets." Robert Farago has the report at Truth About Guns.

Prefacing his remarks, he said he supported the Second Amendment. Now, anyone who has read that amendment, and knows the history of it, knows that if he really took his support seriously, then fully automatic M16s, M4s and AK weapons would be available to every peaceable citizen, as well as various handguns, shotguns, and other small arms typically used by our armed forces. That is if anyone took the Founders at their word when then wrote the Second Amendment. But those are already effectively banned. Anything of the type built after 1986 is banned, making fully automatic weapons, or NFA weapons, very expensive for the legal buyer. The $200 tax is simply adding insult to injury.  Frankly, I am not so sure of Romney either, but so far he has indicated he wants no new gun laws.

What the President calls "assault weapons" are in fact semiautomatic weapons that look like the military equivalent, and that fire relatively small rounds as the military equivalent does, but that are no more powerful or dangerous than your average deer rifle.  Further:

President Obama did indicate that he understood that “assault weapons” were not the real problem, noting that in his home city “They’re not using AK-47s [to kill each other], they’re using cheap handguns.” But that’s not stopping him from going full speed ahead with the new AWB.

So, why the AWB then?  After all, we have had an AWB from 1994 to 2004, when it expired. It expired in part because nobody could show that it had had any effect whatsoever on crime.  It didn't have any effect on crime because, surprise, surprise, criminals don't obey the law.  In any case, they also don't typically use assault weapons as the President indicates.

First off, I think the President was trying to fire up his Left wing, Marxist/Socialist base.  They have been trying to get rid of guns-all guns-for years.  They know that if they banned them all, all at once, that they would have people up in arms, pun intended.  That would be too much, even for a Supreme Court that found ObamaCare constitutional.  So, Alinski style, they cut off a group of guns, target them, demonize them, and then ban them.  In the process, they hope to cut off some gun owners who don't own that particular style of weapon, and don't yet feel their own ox being gored.  People like Jim Zumbo are examples of the type who would throw assault weapon owners under the bus in hopes of keeping their own guns a while longer.  Of course, when the gun grabbers are done with the so-called assault weapons, they will come for another batch, perhaps teaming up with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the Humane Society of the United States, both groups wishing to ban hunting, to ban hunting rifles.  The one thing they won't do is leave peaceable armed citizens alone.

Then there is the President's own motives.  Now, I can't look into the President's head and determine what he thinks.  I have no such powers, and neither does anyone else.  So, this is just speculation.  But we do know that he is a Marxist/Socialist.  We also know that free people will only stand for so much, despite the distractions of football and beer.  So, he must project as much power internally as he can, and take as much power away from the people as possible.  The lessons of Syria should not be lost on him: that despite having only small arms against tanks and bombs, the rebel forces are winning.  Bashar Assad is in the fight of his life.