I have a new theory on fighting gun control. That is, I post most of my political views on non-gun forums, in an attempt to convert those folks who are currently on the fence (obviously I'm preaching to the choir around here). Nevertheless, here's what I posted on another forum regarding this story, after another forum member mentioned assault weapons bans:
"Yet we all should already realize that these so-called assault weapons are rarely used in crime, statistically speaking. We are in a country of nearly 300,000,000 people, with a news media that feeds on carnage. But, the fact remains that these firearms do not contribute significantly to violent crime. After the last AWB expired, certain members of congress were claiming that our neighborhoods would turn to war zones, and our streets would run red with blood (or something to that effect); four years later this is still not the case!
An issolated incident in the projects does not mean that we need tighter gun laws, though I could still see it being used as fodder for the cause. For that matter, at least based on my experiences in law enforcement, the shooter was probably already a restricted person to begin with, and was therefore committing a felony just by having the gun in his possession!
Besides, let us not ever forget that a certain type of person is responsible for these mass killings/attacks, not a certain type of weapon. Yet, we know that crimes with certain types of weapons get a bit of extra media attention. "If it bleeds, it leads":
1) Andrew Mathis:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090109_298_0_hrimgs453588
Andrew intentionally drove his car into a crowd of people in Tulsa, OK, just a couple of months ago. He killed two people and wounded five. Did you ever hear about this? Most folks did not, despite the fact that it was about on-par with the killing in Miami this week!
2)Charles Whitman:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman
The famous tower incident. All told, he killed 14 people, and wounded 32 others. It might be noteworthy to mention that he used a knife, a shotgun, and a Remington 700 ("hunting rifle"). None of which would fall under ANY type of constitutional weapons ban.
3)Naked 26-year-old:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/540387.stm
Wounds 11 people, 4 critically, as he attacks a church congregation, naked, while armed with a sword.
4)Tonya Bell:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19005509/
Wounds 40 people as she drives her car through a crowd in the city with the most restrictive gun laws in the entire nation!
As a final note, you may have noticed that I refer to the "so-called assault weapons" earlier in my post. I think it is important to make this distinction, specifically because none of these legally owned weapons are true select-fire "machine guns", and therefore are not the 'weapons of war' that certain politicians like to claim they are. They will NOT fire in a fully-automatic fashion, nor will they fire in burst mode. They all operate in a manner that is identical to any semi-automatic hunting rifle, whereby one pull of the trigger results in only one single bullet being fired.
Simply put, a civilian "AK-47" is not really an AK-47! A civilian AR-15 is not the same as a military M4/M-16. And, a civilian M1A is not the same as a military M14. None of the civilian weapons in question allow for fully automatic fire. None of them function in a manner that is any different than, say, the Ruger 10-22 (.22 caliber) or Marlin model 60 (.22 caliber) that many of us would have fired at Boy Scout camp, or while hunting small woodland creatures as kids.
The true assault weapons are held by the military, certain police units, and a very few number of civilians with Class III permits (unless you have $25,000 laying around, don't count on obtaining a machine gun this way... even then, it would have had to have been manufactured in the 1980's, or earlier). The remaining true assault weapons that might be found on the streets of America are already VERY illegal, and possessing one would result is severe federal penalties! "