A Must-Read Post from the Violence Policy Center

So we went from instant blizzard to instant spring..it's sunny, warm and beautiful up here, and, yes, it's taking the 4 feet of snow a bit of time to melt off. I'm looking forward to some time at the range this weekend T&E'ing guns...including one of those FNH bullpups that everyone hates. I always thought a bullpup would make an excellent car gun. I'm also going to put some rounds through the coooooooooooooool Spike's Tactical 9mm AR-based pistol. Naw, it's not "tactical," but then neither am I.

Here's some reading for the day. Eugene Volokh over at the Volokh Conspiracy rounded up the Violence Policy Center statement on the Clinton AWB made in 1998. Every gun owner needs to read this statement (and make sure it gets plenty of circulation!) because it shows the duplicitous center of the antigun movement. Here's a sample from the VPC report: 

[A]ssault weapons are quickly becoming the leading topic of America's gun control debate and will most likely remain the leading gun control issue for the near future. Such a shift will not only damage America's gun lobby, but strengthen the handgun restriction lobby for the following reasons:

* It will be a new topic in what has become to the press and public an "old" debate.

Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. The reasons for this vary: the power of the gun lobby; the tendency of both sides of the issue to resort to sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments when discussing the issue; the fact that until an individual is affected by handgun violence he or she is unlikely to work for handgun restrictions; the view that handgun violence is an "unsolvable" problem; the inability of the handgun restriction movement to organize itself into an effective electoral threat; and the fact that until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons -- just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms -- are a new topic. 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. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons....

So in the end a new AWB of any kind is only a step toward banning handguns...indeed, all guns. At the time of the Clinton Ban, the Washington Post made the comment than the AWB in all probability would have no effect on crime — and of course it didn't! — ""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."

Oh no, I forgot! Maximum Barry has "too much on his plate" to pay attention to us! That's why we're fending off one antigun "probe" after the other.