This just in from the Playing On Our Fears Department...

Kerry Links Assault Weapons to Terrorism

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- John Kerry linked U.S. assault weapon sales to worries about terrorism Friday and said President Bush was bowing to the National Rifle Association by not pushing to keep alive an expiring ban.

If Bush is serious about fighting terrorism, the Democratic presidential candidate said, he would extend the 10-year ban on sales of 19 kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons, due to expire on Monday.

"In the al-Qaida manual on terror, they were telling people to go out and buy assault weapons, to come to America and buy assault weapons," Kerry said.

What an utter load of horsecrap. Why in the name of all that is good and tasty in Odin's beard would terrorists schlep over to the US to buy non-assault weapon assault weapons when they can easily acquire really real assault weapons in Africa, the former Soviet Union, or the Middle East?

Senator Kerry is, to paraphrase former VP Gore, playing on our fears!

For those not in the know, the assault weapons that the so-called "assault weapons ban" banned were not assault weapons at all. Assault weapons, by definition, are rifles capable of automatic fire that fire intermediate-powered cartridges.

That is to say, they fire rounds more powerful than a pistol cartridge (like a .45ACP), yet less powerful than a rifle cartridge (like a .30-'06) and do so in a manner that one pull of the trigger continues to fire the weapon until either the trigger is released or the ammunition is expended.

The so-called "assault weapons" the so-called "assault weapon ban" banned covered firearms firing both pistol and intermediate-powered cartridges. And they only banned semi-automatic firearms. That is to say, one pull of the trigger means one round fired. Fully-automatic firearms have been heavily regulated since 1934. The sunset of the AWB will not change that one bit. You will still need a Class III license (with the thorough FBI background check and transfer tax etc.) to purchase a fully-automatic weapon.

Furthermore, the so-called assault weapon ban only focused on cosmetic aspects of firearms. Things like folding/collapsing stocks, magazine capacity and placement, bayonet lugs and flash-suppressors were deemed too dangerous for John and Jane Q. Public to own. Nevermind that these features did nothing to enhance the lethality of either the 5.56mm or 7.62x39mm rounds (the two most commonly used intermediate cartridges).

Also, nevermind that these weapons constituted less than 1% of pre-ban crimes involving firearms.

The AWB was, and is, a useless bit of feel-good legislation that does did little more than infringe upon the law-abiding citizen's right to keep and bear arms.

The point that more often than not gets lost in the whole "gun control" debate is that the people who are the most in need of controlling (ie. criminals) are the least likely to adhere to gun control legislation.

One last parting shot (no pun): al-Qaida didn't fire a single round, from an assault weapon or otherwise, on September 11th, 2001. Not one. They used knives, box-cutters and civilian airliners to murder 3,030 and wound another 2,337.