This is the bullshit diatribe that was in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, today. We need to let them hear the truth! www.ajc.com

[b]Assault weapons belong off the street, under a ban


Adolf Hitler was so delighted with the lethal capability of the new gun presented to him by his ordnance designers during World War II that he dubbed it the "Sterm Kever" -- or assault rifle.

Today, assault rifles still kill efficiently and quickly, as demonstrated by the Beltway snipers. John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo allegedly wielded a .223-caliber Bushmaster XM15, an assault rifle adapted to evade the 1994 ban on assault weapons.

Even that limited ban will expire next year unless the U.S. Congress comes to its senses and votes to extend it. Most Americans assume that the ban on assault weapons was permanent and comprehensive. It was neither.

The ban lasts only 10 years, and was so slack that gun manufacturers continue to make and market assault weapons by virtue of simple modifications. The ban needs to become permanent, and its provisions need to be tightened so that weapons that are assault rifles in all but name are outlawed.

Assault rifles were created solely to kill people; today, those people are often law enforcement officers. Forty-one of the 211 U.S. police officers killed in the line of duty between 1998 and 2001 were murdered with assault rifles, according to a new analysis by the Violence Policy Center.

To justify assault rifles in home arsenals, the gun industry has created sporting competitions around them and spun the myth that the high-powered weapons are the best guarantee of personal safety. But there is no reason for the average citizen to own a firearm invented to give poor marksmen in the German army a better chance of hitting their targets. If assault rifles provide the ultimate in personal protection, the streets of Baghdad would be the safest in the world rather than the most dangerous.

Despite the deadly threat to police officers and civilians alike from assault rifles, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) wants to let the ban lapse and permit these killing machines to flood our streets. DeLay says he won't let the extension come up for a vote. And President Bush, who claims to favor the ban, isn't pushing Congress for an extension.

The National Rifle Association wants the assault ban lifted. In its paranoid view, the banning of Uzis one day means your Colt will be confiscated tomorrow. The NRA leadership insists the right to own a gun accorded Americans in the Second Amendment extends to any and all guns, even those that fire off 30 rounds in less than two seconds and murder innocent children.

That purported right is more important to the NRA than protecting police officers, disarming street gangs or safeguarding children. The gun lobby doesn't believe it has any moral or civic obligation to the community outside its membership and feels no responsibility for the victims of assault rifles.

But our senators and representatives have an obligation to the larger community. That community -- and that means all of us -- has to tell Congress and DeLay that assault weapons do not belong on our streets.[/b]

Give us some links! [pissed]

[url=http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/index.html]SEND A LETTER[/url]

The more I read it, the more pissed off I get. Our guns are not fully auto and I am not a Nazi!

You effking idiot!  Uzis are already tightly regulated, and you tried to ban my Colt 10 years ago.

Learn how to spell 'Sturmgewehr' before trying to compare me to Hitler.

You are entitled to your opinion, but it is a damn good thing it is meaningless.  Atlanta Urinal and Constipation indeed!

Link the story.  BTW, if you send a letter, its doubtful you will be published unless you are a card-carrying member of the [s]NAZI Party[/s] Brady Bunch

No one signed the 'opinion'. Wussies!! Thought the 'equal time' article was pretty good. Gee, that was signed, hmmm.


ByteTheBullet  (-:

[url=http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0503/21guns.html]AJC Lies and Propaganda[/url]

Byte - COOL avatar!

Um?  Did they ever fire more than one round per shooting?  Wouldn't they have been better off shooting .308 or 30-06?



I think they are mis-quote a bullshit statistic.  I'm pretty sure the VPC said it was 41 "assault [b]weapons[/b]" (using the antis jargon), and I think they took that to mean any gun with a standard ("high") cap mag.



Maybe they're not aware that Colt [b]makes[/b] AR15's?



Maybe you've heard of the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Firearm Owner's Protection Act of 1986, where Machine Guns were almost totally banned?



God knows I need an assault rifle to do that.  Heck, the last kid I tried to steal candy from gave me some lip, so I whipped out my AR and blasted him.  Get it through your head; the "innocent children" (age 13-25, probably) getting shot by ARs are mostly gang bangers who would just as soon kill you as look at you.

Anyone else see the similarities between this and the VPC press release?  

I was just thinking how much I liked living here in Atlanta. Oh well. I even work near the AJC...maybe I should take a walk.


ByteTheBullet  (-:

Here is what I sent.

Editor,
About your article titled "Assault weapons belong off the street, under a ban".

First John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo could have done what they did with a single shot rifle of just about any caliber.

Second "Forty-one of the 211 U.S. police officers killed in the line of duty between 1998 and 2001 were murdered with assault rifles, according to a new analysis by the Violence Policy Center."
The 41 officers shot does not subtract the number of police officers shot by there own selves/weapons, or shot by other officers. Also if you take more years before or after those listed the percentage drops drasticly. I am not saying that police deaths are not relevant, but look at how many are killed during trafic stops, by automobiles, how do they compare?

Third: Taken from your article. "The National Rifle Association wants the assault ban lifted. In its paranoid view, the banning of Uzis one day means your Colt will be confiscated tomorrow. The NRA leadership insists the right to own a gun accorded Americans in the Second Amendment extends to any and all guns, even those that fire off 30 rounds in less than two seconds and murder innocent children."
Because I am a member of the NRA and own a so-called "Assault Weapon" I am a baby killer. I think there is a slander law out the somewhere.

Fourth: More kids, per year, "under 18" droned in pools in the USA than are killed, per year, by firearms in the USA.
Where is the call to ban pools?


I'm trying.

The AJC can rant all they want.

People will long forget about this opinion. After all Georgia has some of the least restrictive gun laws around.

CRC

I sent a letter today.  Told them the article is a lie and a sham.  Furthermore, as a Police Officer, don't even think you are standing up for me as I don't support the ban and neither does any LE officer I know (personally).

I wrote them a nice little letter pointing out some of the misconceptions and untruths of the article. I had to laugh at "Sterm Kever" which is supposed to be Sturmgewehr and the idea that the rifle was issued to the German Army to compensate for poor marksmanship. The sad part is that some of the idiots that read the article might even believe it.

Here is my letter to AJC.

...


That he could ban Jews from having firearms....that he tried to wipe them out.


How F-ing dare them bring him into this.

God, I'm pissed!!

That's bullshit on so many levels. One of them being that the StG44 (or MP43/44, as it was known initially) had to be developed against the explicit wishes and orders of Adolf Hitler, who still thought that the Mauser 98-based rifles were sufficient enough.
And "Sterm Kever"? Puh-leeze. Another one: the responsible engineers didn't design what became to be known as the StG44 because of bad marksmenship, but to deal with overwhelming numbers. According to an OSS assessment, one average German soldier was the equal or better of any 20 Russian soldiers. Too bad there where 40 Russian soldiers for every German one. You just can't reload fast enough.

They sure wasted a lot of words. They could have saved time by just printing the truth:

[b]"We don't like guns. We will say any lies and twist any half-truths about subjects
we don't fully understand to scare those who know even less into supporting our agenda."[/b]

Response sent.

Shoot them.....

BTT

Yup.

Bide your time gentlemen

Sgtar15

It's good to know exactly where the AJC stands on this subject. How odd that the author didn't put his name to his work. What seems to escape everyone's attention about the VPC's research regarding the officer's killed in the line of duty [http://vpc.org/press/0305officer.htm] is the little fact that:
1)The weapons in used in most of the cases were were either not encompassed in the '94 AW ban, or were purchased before the ban and therefore would not have been kept "off the streets".
2)How were the other 80% of the officers killed? A rough count would reveal that the bulk were killed by their own weapons being used against them.
What would they suggest we do about those situations? Ban officers from having guns? Perhaps Smartgun technology? If they continue the AW ban it will tough for some mfg's to continue R&D without a civilian market to support their efforts. If only more Americans would wake up, analyze the available data and make an informed decision regarding their elected officials this crap might actually get curtailed.
My .02 cents worth......

''I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is
trying to please everybody.'' - Bill Cosby

This really infuriates me. This is typical leftist liberal thinking if it can be called thinking at all. All these liberals are a bunch of screaming pussies, do you honestly believe they think that way of are they just anti-conservative and willing to let whatever shit roll off their pens as long as it contradicts we the conservatives know is right?
I know why that coward didn't sign his editorial... would you sign that? I'd be afraid that one of those evil gun toters would come for me.. I'd be right.

I have to go now, I have to go kill some innocent childern.

horses asses


gilfrd

Ummm, wasn't the Bushmaster used in the Beltway [s]snipper[/s] murders a [b]STOLEN[/b] gun? I guess the ban(read LAW) will stop criminals. sheesh.

ByteTheBullet  (-:

Staff editorials are rarely signed.  Typically, all the editors will get together in a meeting and discuss what to write the editorial about.  Then they have a vote and one of the opinions writers, or the opinions editor will write an argument supporting whatever the board of editors voted on, whether he agrees with the view or not.

So don't write to the AJC challenging them because their writer didn't have the "guts" to put his name on, or you will look like you don't know what you're talking about.

BTW, that opinion sucked.  Assholes!

I would write to them and tell them I'm cancelling my subscription for the New York Times because at least the Times is accurate.  HAW!

-Nick Viejo.

[url]http://i2i.org/SuptDocs/Crime/Are_Assault_Weapons_a_Threat_to_Police.htm[/url]

Dave Kopel answers this claim.  He pursues some interesting questions such as "did the killing involving a gun with a high capacity magazine require more than 10 shots?"  etc.

Anyway, they're way off and lying as usual.

Jawol?

[url]http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0503/21equal.html[/url]

Here is another story, which SUPPORTS the sunset...

Reply sent. I hope they can get a clue from all the hate mail they recieve.

It is beyond comprehension why you people continue support these "Isreal First" organizations. They scream and cry for more and more money to be sent to make their foreign nation "free" and then repay the generosity by trying to  destroy the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. You people say these are our friends????

I know!  Right off the bat, they get it wrong. Hitler thought Schmeisser SMG's were good enough for the Wermacht. Hitler always thought he knew better about war than his generals, and his disdain for the Sturmgewehr was keeping with his tradition of poor leadership.

Much like how Hitler thought he was a master of war and strategy when he was actually incompetent and responsible for major blunders that lost him the war, liberal politicians and journalists think they know more about firearms and their place in American society than gun enthusiasts/owners or the Founding Fathers.  The deluded arrogance that some politicians and journalists hold in common with Adolf Hitler leads them to think they are qualified to write or advocate laws dictating which guns Americans may or may not have, despite the clear language of the Second Amendement which states "...the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".  

The result are ridiculous and ineffective laws like the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, and laughably stupid editorials like the AJC's supporting it.

The AJC owned by Cox Communications (the multi-billionaire Cox sisters) doesn't give a rat's petooty what you think.  They, like the Dem. party, have moved constantly lefward for the last 30 years.  Even the sports section is nothing more than political rhetoric and constant leftist indoctrination.  Furman Bisher is an exception.

I stay in constant e-mail battles with the writers. I keep it civil.  Any communication with the editorial board of the AJC is a waste of time.  They are a monopoly and they don't care what you think. Their only goal is to indoctrinate the young and gullible.

I checked [url=http://www.vpc.org/studies/officetwo.htm]VPC's site[/url] for the claim that "Forty-one of the 211 U.S. police officers killed in the line of duty between 1998 and 2001 were murdered with assault rifles."  

It seems that they consider SKSs to be assault weapons.  They also consider Mini-14s M-1 Carbines "assault weapons" even though they;re listed in the appendix to 18 U.S.C. 922 as non-assault weapons.  

It curiously doesn't seem to matter whether they're pre-ban "assault weapons" or post ban rifles lacking the requisite evil features.  (The VPC's figures also include a bunch of things like M-11s that aren't assault "rifles" in anyone's book)  Do you suppose that means having a pistol frip or a flash suppressor or a collabsible stock doesn't really make any difference?

Hmmm...

Then I went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics website to see if the numbers added up.  Guess what?

The article says 211 U.S. police officers killed in the line of duty between 1998 and 2001.  The [url=http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm]FBI[/url] says 142 police officers were feloniously killed in 2001 alone (72 of which were 9/11 related), 51 in 2000, 42 in 1999, and 61 in 1998.  Total: 296.  Who's surprised it doesn't add up?

Over the same time period, even assuming all the non-assualt weapons (under 18 usc 922) are assault rifles,  twice as many cops were murdered with airplanes and other vehicles vehicles than with "assault rifles."

My letter:



On these coordinates, fire for effect:[url]http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/[/url]

For the article,  what do you expect from the typical news media?  There is a reason I don't watch television anymore except for DVD's.

In reference to being called a Nazi.  It may interest you to know I own enough AR's to equip a squad, and the only people who have ever called me a Nazi are fellow gun owners.   Most often on this board.

[b]even those that fire off 30 rounds in less than two seconds[/b]

There is not one gun that is covered by this ban that can shoot 30 rounds in less than two seconds. Those guns were outlawed long before the AWB.

My Letter:

I read your editorial on assault weapons and the ban.  I am not a gun owner, but I support the Bill of Rights.  I must say I was appalled at your story.  It was the most partisan and misleading piece of writing that I have ever seen.  I understand that your editorials are 'your opinion', but that story was as close to an outright lie that one can come.  I must say, the presentation of a cogent and truthful argument is a mature skill.  Apparently you do not possess it.  It is one thing to 'win' a debate through the use of logic and reasoned persuasion, it is quite another to fabricate shrill lies and distortions.  I have respect for the former and nothing but contempt for the latter.  I am sorry your once fine publication has seen fit to sink this low.  I will certainly recommend to others that your paper is not worth reading.  I will also recommend you for the 'Joseph Goebbels Excellence in Propaganda Award'.

This is what I sent to them (warning:  long message)

Greetings,

Please consider this letter for publication in your Letters to the Editor section.

Listening to the AJC's editorial board talk about firearms is like listening to the Amish talk about automobiles (no offence intended towards the Amish).

Such was the AJC editorial of May 21 on the subject of renewing the federal Assault Weapons ban of 1994.  The German name for "assault rifle" was "Sturm Gewehr", not "Sterm Kever", and the suggestion that Adolf Hitler named it himself is apocryphal.  Your fact-checking should extend beyond a two minute web search on Google.

Moreover, all assault rifles, by customary military definition, are fully automatic weapons that fire continuously as long as the trigger is held down.  Such weapons are legally termed as machine guns in the United States, and they have been very tightly regulated since 1934.

The federal assault weapons ban does not apply to such rifles.  Instead, it applies to common semiautomatic rifles that fire only one shot every time the trigger is pulled.  The law bans rifles which have cosmetic features like a pistol grip and a bayonet mount.  To claim that such rifles are capable of firing 30 shots in two seconds is beyond the realm of fact and [b][u]easily rises to the level of misleading your readers[/u][/b], intentionally or otherwise.

The assault weapons ban criminalizes the possession of ordinary rifles by citizens who use them for home defense and sport.  These rifles are light and fire low-recoil ammunition which make them especially handy for women and those with lesser physical strength.  The low power of the bullets helps ensure that they do not travel far and wide when used by a homeowner for self defense, while they still have enough power to stop a burglar or violent criminal from committing acts of violence.  [b][u]And contrary to claims by gun control organizations, the use of these firearms in crime, against police officers, citizens and children, has been miniscule.[/u][/b]

The Violence Policy Center, a virulently anti-gun group has a noted official, Josh Sugarmann who invented the issue of assault weapons and wrote this in 1988:

[i]The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with 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.[/i]

[url]http://www.vpc.org/studies/awaconc.htm[/url] (fourth paragraph)

This is the birthplace of the assault weapons ban - in obfuscation and dishonesty.  And your newspaper is aiding and abetting the disarmament of the citizenry by its support for this dishonest law.

Best regards,
XXX YYY
Austin, Texas

P.S.  The above is what I wish to submit for publication.  Please note, however, that your editorial came quite close to the journalistic fraud that CNN perpetrated last week on the issue of assault weapons.  Unfortunately for CNN, it got caught while doing so.  See these two links:

http://www.instapundit.com/archives/009651.php#009651
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030519-110144-7123r.htm

For your own education on this issue, I would like to introduce you to:

http://www.awbansunset.com

There are many informative resources there, including:
The History of the National Assault Weapons Ban:
http://www.awbansunset.com/history.html

A comparison of so-called "Assault Weapons" to other firearms:
http://www.awbansunset.com/comparison.html

Reasons why law abiding citizens like to own military style firearms:
http://www.awbansunset.com/whyown.html

What the effect of the national Assault Weapons Ban was upon crime:
http://www.awbansunset.com/effects.html

neener - http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=187659&page=1