An, ahem, "interesting" AWB article.

Link: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04088/292671.stm



Neither rifle is labeled correctly in this image. The top image is an M4 carbine. The bottom one is a Bushmaster XM15 E2S, which is not what was used in the sniper shootings.

"You don't see them like you used to," said Mullen. "And we don't have shootings like we used to, where someone pulls up to a corner and sprays it with an AK-47 and hits innocent people."

I find it odd that the AWB, which only applies to semi-automatic weapons, has somehow had an effect on machine guns that "spray fire."

"There are still AK-47s around," said gun dealer Calvin Hoover, owner of Hoover Outfitting & Supply in Somerset County. "There are numerous guns on the market that fall into that assault-weapon category."

Actually, "assault weapons" were pretty clearly defined in the 1994 legislation. If people have a problem with cosmetic features being banned, perhaps they should turn their ire to the people who wrote the impotent law in the first place.

Now some Pennsylvania legislators are wading into this fight, saying a state law banning assault weapons is necessary in case the federal ban is not renewed.

Actually, this is the "right" way to get such a ban done. Firearms regulation shouldn't be done at the federal level in the first place.

The AR-15 and its clones are copies of the U.S. military's M16 weapon. The AK-47 and its look-alikes are copies of the Russian Kalashnikov military rifle.

Actually, "AR-15" is the original designation for the weapon, after Armalite, the company that developed it. The "M" designation was given by the military later. And "AK" stands for "Avomat Kalashnikov"...so it's a little redundant to say that an AK resembles a Kalashnikov when it is one. On top of that, an AK-47 is a fully-automatic machine gun, and therefore not affected by the AWB. Great research.

A much larger loophole is what the Brady Center calls the "copycat" problem, which explains why gun shops are still stocked with all kinds of assault-style weapons.

Again, it is somehow the gun makers' fault. The law bans certain model names and certain features. The manufacturers removed the offending features and changed the model names in complete compliance of the law. Period.

One example of a copycat cited in the report is a rifle called the PCR, made by Olympic Arms of Olympia, Wash. PCR stands for "Politically Correct Rifle." After the ban, Siebel said, the company redesigned its guns to evade the law. The weapon is essentially an AR-15 copy, but he said Olympic made a few cosmetic changes, such as removing the bayonet lug, to "skirt" the ban.

More garbage. They make rifles. A law was passed saying that certain names and features are not illegal. They complied with the law. I don't know what these people expect, mind reading?

The TEC-DC9 was the gun used in the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado. After the 1994 ban, Intratec changed the name again, this time to the "AB-10." AB stands for "after ban," but it was largely the same gun.

"Largely"...the only things missing were the illegal features called out in the AWB. Minor detail.

"My legislation addresses that loophole," he said. "Our bill has a broad, generic definition of what an assault weapon is."

I'd like to know what this "broad" and "generic" definition is exactly. Sounds to me that the only way you can "address the loophole" is to ban all semi-auto firearms.

According to the figures, weapons banned by name in 1994 have dropped from 4.82 percent of the crime-gun traces collected by ATF from 1990 to 1994, to 1.6 percent since then.

Is this Benchley's famous "AWB is great" statistic? Looks like it!

The ban "reduced" assault weapon crime because the assault weapons' defined names were changed. Fucking stellar!

He cited a Pennsylvania state police data base showing that out of 3,494 gun crimes between 1989 and May 1994, only 88 involved assault-style weapons.

But Siebel said assault-weapon crimes were out of proportion considering so few are around.

Nice rationale. There are so few "assault weapons" that the low crime numbers with them should be disregarded. That's fantastic!

...Yogi Berra?
But Siebel said assault-weapon crimes were out of proportion considering so few are around.

Nice rationale. There are so few "assault weapons" that the low crime numbers with them should be disregarded. That's fantastic!

That place is so crowded no one goes there anymore.

That first rifle looks more like a CAR-15. The profile of the barrel is wrong for an M4A2.

The bottom rifle does looke like an M4. (or M4gery).

...but looks like a carbine with a 16-inch barrel, not an AR-15.

Edit: also notice how they shrunk the image of the Bushmaster to make it "line up" better with the Colt.