Saw it in a Google news search but you have to be registered to see the article. Anyone got it?

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www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edpmyword19081904aug19,1,4246203.story?coll=orl-opinion-headlines

MY WORD
Assault weapons: The NRA's view

By Chris W. Cox | My Word
Posted August 19, 2004

The 1994 semi-automatic or so-called assault-weapons ban is set to expire Sept. 13. The drumbeat has begun in the media to "reauthorize" the ban, and some politicians are dancing to the familiar beat.

In addition to a "reauthorization" of the earlier ban, New York Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy's legislation (H.R. 2038) seeks to ban more guns and implement a national registration scheme. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, the assault-weapons ban sponsor, stated on CBS's 60 Minutes, "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them -- Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in -- I would have done it." The gun-control agenda has never been stated more honestly, and this new legislation is one step toward that agenda.

The "assault-weapon" debate is ruled by emotion, not by fact. That's why in the elections following enactment of the ban, gun owners went to the polls in great numbers, and for the first time in 134 years, unseated the speaker of the House. That's why Bill Clinton told the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "The fight for the assault-weapons ban cost 20 members their seats in Congress." That's why in March 1996, 239 members of the House of Representatives voted across party lines to repeal the Clinton gun ban.

The debate is not about so-called assault weapons. It's about banning guns. Anti-gun advocates claim, without any credible evidence, these guns are the "weapons of choice" for criminals. It's a lie. A day after this gun ban was signed into law, a Washington Post editorial admitted, "Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control."

The radical Violence Policy Center states, "The public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons -- anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun -- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." Fully automatic machine guns were, of course, effectively banned in 1934.

As the drumbeats roll, and attempts to dismantle the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans continue, the National Rifle Association will continue to fulfill its 133-year-old tradition of preserving freedom for law-abiding Americans.

Chris W. Cox is the executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action.

Someone printed this in a newspaper?!@?!?!?!?!?!

Fantastic. Thanks, Airwolf.

Interesting that a couple years ago we were hearing all these stories about how the NRA supported the ban, or at least did not intend to fight it.

... in the Orlando Socialist Sentinel no less.