The assault weapons ban of 1994 that recently ended did NOTHING. It simply made it so that companies that were producing said weapons could not produce them with the features mentioned above. The DC Sniper used a Bushmaster XM-15 rifle to commit the murders in the beltway area of the eastern US in 2002.
This rifle is a civilian legal, semi-automatic clone of the M16 rifle (fully automatic) that is standard issue with US Marines and used extensively by police forces and military. This rifle is an assault weapon, BUT the specific rifle Malvo used was produced and manufactured and sold legally to him, a non-law enforcement or military citizen, WHILE the assault weapons ban was active. Prior to the assault weapons ban, this gun would have had a bayonet lug and possibly a threaded barrel and would come sold with 30 round magazines/clips. Upon the setting of the ban, all Bushmaster firearms had to do was simply get rid of these insignificant features and they were still able to sell the rifles that average people wouldnt be able to tell the difference in anyways. This specific gun used did not have a telescoping stock but many of Bushmaster's other rifles do. At the time of the ban passing, all Bushmaster had to do was weld the stock in an open position and that made it pass regulation. The fact is that yes, the BAN did pass, but there were (and still are) still countless numbers of the pre-ban guns in existence, fully equipped with threaded barrels, folding stocks and all that "bad stuff"!!! The prices of these guns just increased because people still wanted them. Government did nothing and still cant do anything about the countless number of assault weapons that existed before the ban passed. Now, lets take a look at another tragedy... The Columbine shootings of 8 years ago. The killers used a number of different weapons including a sawed off shotgun (good luck EVER banning shotguns!!) and an Intratec TEC-9.
(upper right corner)The media wanted you to believe that this Tec-9 was a machine gun like I have mentioned before, but it was NOT. You can go to any gun show to this day and find a number of them on sale to civilians. They are your average ordinary 9mm pistol that just looks mean.
In the 80's they had a shroud around the barrel with holes in it to help with heat as well as a threaded barrel, as shown above, but the assault weapons band deemed that "dangerous" so Intratec just made their guns as you see in the picture above of all the Columbine weapons... No threaded barrel or extension. They also sold them with smaller capacity magazines/clips (do I have to mention the hundreds of thousands of mags already produced before the ban out there that could hold 32 rounds??). My point here is that the gun used in Columbine that the media wants you to think is a fully automatic machine gun, was in fact a semi automatic 9mm pistol, manufactured DURING the assault weapons ban!!!!Then there is the famous North Hollywood Shootout in which two masked bank robbers robbed a bank and walked out with AK-47's and fired at everything in sight for an hour. THESE were illegally obtained machine guns! Not what the media says is "commonly available" and tells you are the types of weapons that are readily avaiable without background checks at gunshows. Oh P.S. it took me MONTHS to pass FBI background checks in order to obtain a license to get my UZI, and /i urge ANYONE reading this to try buying an "assault rifle" at a gunshow without them asking for your permit to purchase!!!My UZI is a SEMI automatic 9mm PISTOL that fires ONE shot with every pull of the trigger. I bought it DURING the assault weapons ban. I have six 32 round PRE-ban magazines for it that were produced before the ban.
During the ban I could have still went and obtained as many 32 rounders as I wanted. There is an EXTREME surplus of the things. Point here: the ban did NOT "ban UZIs and AK47's" (like i keep drilling into your heads) which is what every anti-gun person wants weak minded people to believe!My point is that the cosmetic features that were deemed dangerous and inappropriate on assault weapons are what made the ban, and contrary to what 99% of the public believes, NOT a permanent "end-all" ban on "machine guns" (which, as I have mentioned, have been completely banned since 1934!) Also, no matter what the government tries to ban, there will always be loopholes around it and not to mention the insane amount of already produced "assault weapons" already out there. Oh, and there is no hope in taking these guns away because it is in the constitution, and that is a topic that will be argued about with no results until the end of time! ALSO lets not forget the black market! The bigger the ban, the bigger the black market! (edit: as of this writing, it was noted on the news that the guns used in the Virginia Tech massacre had their serial numbers etched off. A CLEAR sign that they were purchased on the black market illegally!)My other main point is that the media is bringing all of this up when it has NOTHING to do with yesterday at all! There were no assault weapons used at any time! Last thing... If ANY of you try to associate me with the likes of the Virginia Tech killer or even think that i would EVER be that sick in the head just because I own and UZI and play Grand Theft Auto, go choke on a piece of your own shit.p.s. Karl, I dont want to argue about this. This is about the ban and the fact that media keeps trying to bring it up at inappropriate times, not my ownership or the "need" for firearms. That post will come at a later time! ;)
