Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Speaking of gun control...

One of the last vestiges of the Clinton era died yesterday as the "assault weapons" ban expired. If there was every a piece of legislation that deserved to be let go, this was it. It did nothing to stop crime. A very informative article in today's Cincinnati Enquirer quotes a gun dealer, referring to the sale of the liberal bogeyman, AK-47's....

It never outlawed the sale of AK-47s and SKS assault rifles - Denny (Karen Denny, owner of Land, Air & Sea Inc) said she has sold those every week. Rather, the law restricted the manufacture and importation of new ones.

It is informative that while police chiefs support the ban, the actual cops on the street who are allegedly threatened by these weapons are ambivalent...

The International Association of Chiefs of Police called for members to urge their congressional delegates to extend the ban. But local police officers say they don't expect anything to change.
Gun owners who legally buy the weapons aren't usually those who cause problems with them.


You could buy (and I have) Ruger Mini-14s legally and places like Cabelas had a large stick of high capacity magazines. I have several 30 round magazines for my Mini-14, all legally purchased.

Ultimately, gun control doesn't work because the people who committ crimes are already willing to break the law, so what does one more mean to them? People like me get punished and haven't committed any crimes.

Instead of focusing on the legal gun owners, let's look at the criminals. Rather than letting criminals back on the street after vacations to Federal penitentaries where they worked out, played basketball, watched cable TV and surfed the 'Net on our dime, let's keep then locked up and lets make it less pleasant. Forget having ESPN, get them out working on roads picking up garbage, breaking rocks, digging ditches, doing SOMETHING. Instead of punishing criminals we are warehousing them. Rather than discouraging them from committing crimes, we get them off the street for a couple of years and give them little disincentive to not go back. Prison should be humane but it ought not be comfortable, places for criminals to work out with weights and get proselytized by Muslim extremists. They are being PUNISHED for crying out loud.

No comments: