My Feinstein Ban, "Oh Shit!" Emergency Letter

Sorry, I wish I had something entertaining, gun porn, or something better to report.  I've also broken my rule of keeping language clean, because this shit is really fucked up.

Contact Your Federal Officials

Read about the gun ban that Feinstein is proposing, on her website.

Feinstein talking about her new bill.

Here's what I e-mailed my congressman, and the president (for all the good that'll do).

I've been working on a more detailed letter, however, time seems to be of the essence, and Senator Feinstein's 2013 "assault weapons" ban would affect far more gun owners than the 1994 Clinton "crime" bill.  The new bill requires grandfathered firearms to be registered with the ATF, and that registration will likely cost the taxpayers, all taxpayers, billions of dollars.  This registration requires fingerprinting and FBI background checks that will tie up local police departments and the FBI for many months.  Canada spent over two billion dollars on their gun registry, before finally admitting that it just wasn't working, and they just gave up on it.

The guns covered by the proposed 2013 ban are NOT machineguns.  Sales of real machineguns have been taxed, registered, and subject to serious FBI background checks since 1934, and further restricted by the manufacture ban of 1986.  The new Feinstein ban would cover ALL pistols of the type carried by police officers, and essentially all other semi-automatic firearms.  Basically every type of rifle, pistol, and shotgun designed since the beginning of the 1900's would be banned from manufacture, and the ownership and sales of existing banned firearms being heavily controlled.

There are times when great expense is justifiable.  This will not be one of them.  The 1994 ban expired in 2004 because "assault weapons" were used in less than 2% of crimes to begin with, and no amount of legislation on these guns will have a significant impact on crime.  A University of Pennsylvania study, commissioned by the National Institute of Justice, wrote of the 1994 Clinton "assault weapon" ban,  “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”  Crime rates have actually dropped since the expiration of the 1994 Clinton "Assault Weapon" ban.  The 1994 ban didn't stop the Columbine school shooting, and it didn't stop the North Hollywood bank shootout.  The problem with gun laws is that criminals break laws, by definition, and the gun laws only affect the law-abiding citizen.

Gun owners took note of who voted for the 1994 ban.  Thirty-three of the congressmen that voted for the Clinton ban in 1994 were defeated in the elections of 1994, and 6 more were defeated in 1996.  Bill Clinton and USA Today, to name two, largely blame the NRA advocacy in the wake of the the 1994 ban, for Gore's defeat in the presidential race of 2000.   Don't get yourself defeated in the next election, think of what that means for the rest of your personal agenda and objections to current policy.

Sign the petition to impeach Sen. Feinstein.  We're almost there folks.  Please take 4 minutes and sign it!