http://www.examiner.com/a-534495~Frank_Keegan__Legislators_must_ban_assaults_on_thinking.html
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Frank Keegan: Legislators must ban assaults on thinking
Frank Keegan, The Examiner
Read more by Frank Keegan
Jan 29, 2007 3:00 AM (3 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 290 of 13,927 articles
BALTIMORE - Once again the gun nuts and anti-gun nuts will fire
volleys of misinformation for and against the proposed "assault
weapons" ban in Annapolis this year.
And again, the first casualty will be truth. The second will be reason.
Freshman Montgomery County Sen. Mike Lenett introduced this session's
assault on assault weapons because: 1. All freshmen senators must
introduce some kind of righteous, feel-good bill, and 2. He thinks a
shift on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee might actually give
him a shot at getting his bill out for a vote.
The committee should kill it, as it did in 2004, 6-5.
If by some chance committee members move this bill, the full Senate
must stop it. If senators do not, and somehow the General Assembly
passes it, Gov. Martin O'Malley must exercise his veto.
Why? Because of all the pointless, feel-good, propaganda-based
deception legislation foisted on the public, this is one law that
actually can cause harm.
It will delude uninformed citizens into thinking their government is
acting to reduce violent crime.
It can injure the greater common good by turning otherwise law-abiding
residents of Maryland into criminals.
And it can put us all at greater risk by disarming the only people we
don't have to worry about committing crimes with guns while doing
nothing more to prevent those who do.
Some politicians know "assault weapons" laws are shams, but cynically
support them pandering to a thin, fuzzy majority that thinks "assault
weapons" are fully automatic machine guns. Every state and Congress
made those very illegal almost a century ago. Existing law can put you
away forever merely for possessing one.
Other politicians support these bills because they're simply afraid
for show-business reasons to oppose them. Who wants to take a chance
on being "for assault weapons"?
And others back them out of pure well-intentioned misunderstanding.
A political reality in this country is that there is a strong
prejudice against guns, a prejudice based — as are all prejudices — on
abysmal ignorance.
Both sides in the gun debate rack up statistics as ammunition in a
debate both sides can prove depending on where they aim.
The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics provides the best and most
objective data. One study of state and federal prisoners shows only
about 2 percent used a "military style semiautomatic gun" — the
accepted definition of assault weapons — when they committed the
crimes that put them behind bars.
The same study found that of all guns used by these criminals, 80
obtained them from "family, friends, a street buy or an illegal
source," effectively putting them outside the restraint of any law.
So, at best these misguided assault weapons bans might impact 20
percent of only 2 percent of violent gun crime, while turning millions
of honest Americans into criminals.
The fact is, even though the much-interpreted 2nd Amendment says
"Congress shall make no law . . . ," Congress and the states have made
thousands of laws limiting our right to keep and bear arms.
No one can prove conclusively that armed citizens reduce crime — and
despotism — but where is it written that a legitimate role of
government is to make us easier prey?
Ban proponents argue no one needs an "assault weapon." No one needs a
fast car, either. No one needs alcohol, tobacco and a host of other
things that are not banned, but licensed and regulated as are
firearms, though not to the same degree.
The worst thing about such bans, other than their absolute failure to
effect positive change, is the fact that they let politicians pretend
to be doing something about crime.
Statistics cannot tell us accurately how much gun violence involves
the weapons they seek to ban. What statistics can tell us is how many
crimes, such as murder, criminals commit with guns and who their
victims are.
In Maryland, according to the latest BJS data, murderers kill more
than 74 percent of their victims with firearms, and almost 72 percent
of those victims are African American males.
What are our leaders doing about this plague, this self-inflicted
genocide? It obviously is not the result of lawful ownership of
semi-automatic military style firearms, which Lenett seeks to ban.
So let him and those who support his misguided measure explain what
their true motives are.
Frank J. Keegan is editor of The Baltimore Examiner.
