The New York Times came out today for an assault weapons and high capacity magazine ban. “Mr. Obama should also focus on the weaponry itself, starting with restoring — after toughening — the ban on assault weapons that expired in 2004. Assault weapons are versions of military rifles that are meant to kill people, not paper targets, clay pigeons or deer. They account for only a fraction of the guns sold and used in the United States, but they play a hugely outsize role in the national slaughter; rampage killers love them.” But here’s something you wouldn’t expect: the Times agrees with gun owners who believe in arming teachers . . .

Republicans say they want to end the violence but have been mostly trying to end the discussion. Their attempts at deflection began immediately after news of Newtown spread. To hear them tell it, the slaughter of 20 children and seven adults wasn’t about guns; it was about mental health care. It was Hollywood and video games and the culture of violence. Actually, it was about guns and bullets and the easy access to them.

Correct! It was about the lack of easy access to guns and bullets for the teachers, administrators and adult visitors to the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The rest of the editorial you can guess. Suffice it to say, the Times, which defended itself against rioters with twin machine guns back in the day, exploits its readers’ inability to focus their anger where it belongs.

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45 COMMENTS

  1. no, it was about the media and social networking. Everyone knows who Adam Lanza is. If he blew his head off in his bedroom, he’d be just another nobody. Now he has a Wikipedia article about him, and his name is top trending on Yahoo.
    –
    If I was president, i would have scolded the news networks, and asked the Associated Press to stop publishing these guys’ names. If they can’t get famous, they might not do it.

    The New York Times doesn’t realize that they are part of the problem.

  3. “but they play a hugely outsize role in the national slaughter”

    Yes, the overwhelming majority of the 0.4% of victims of gun crime, are killed with AR15s.

    • And you will notice that they continue to talk about ‘sport shooting’ and hunting, which have nothing to do with the 2nd amendment.

  4. “but they play a hugely outsize role in the national slaughter”

    According to the FBI, hands and feet were use twice as often to murder than rifles. NYT knows it and is a lying piece of sh-t.

      • You can’t comment because one might point out how the NY Times was not just complicit but actually paved the highway for those that drive on the left to get on board with the previous administration’s invasion of Iraq.

        Now how many innocent children died there? Silly me they don’t count nor do those killed by this administration’s drone strikes.

  5. Why punish the majority for the mistakes of the minority?

    Adam Lanza and all the other suspects were clearly individuals with mental issues. The weapons they used are not the problem here. Banning them will NOT stop any psycho’s from doing the same acts of violence in the future, gun related or not.

    Funny thing though, my first AR15 was that exact Bushmaster M4A3 Patrolman Carbine. It was an excellent rifle that was very well made and reliable. I would love to own the same rifle again, but now that is looking bleak. It is a shame that the government is planning to ban such rifles.

    • “Why punish the majority for the mistakes of the minority?”

      Because this is about power and control, not punishment. At least at a political level it is.

  6. I just hope these people who want to go out in spectacular fashion don’t discover explosives like they use is the rest of the world. I’d rather they stick to using guns. I had enough of IEDs and such in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    • Not only that, if an armed person is on scene, they have a good chance of stopping an active shooter at just a couple of casualties. On the other hand, once an attacker hits the detonator on a bomb, no one can limit casualties to just a couple people.

    • That’s my worry. You take away guns and you then get people using explosives. That would be a lot worse. You can dodge bullets and take cover from crappy shooters and return fire but not so much with a bomb. The worst part is that they can get away with it too like the Unabomber did for how long?

  7. For those interested, here’s the NY Times story from 1863.
    At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, one of which he manned. The mob, instead, attacked the headquarters of abolitionist Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune until forced to flee by the Brooklyn Police.

  8. I always love how weak-kneed emotional and spiritual cowards use the implication that guns are “meant to kill people” as some kind of shocking and revolting revelation. If I want a gun for personal defense, why the hell would I NOT want one designed to kill people effectively?

    It’s like decrying Formula One race cars for being designed to go “unnecessarily” fast when they’re purpose is to win a race.

    Then again, this falls back on the effect modern complacency and media brainwashing has had on the masses to make them forget that the 2A is about defense and vigilance, not such trivial BS as sport and hunting.

  9. I saw how Mother Jones posted an article asking claiming that arming people is no answer because armed civilians have not stopped mass murderers. Of course, they fail to mention that police have the same record. You wouldn’t suppose that it had anything to do with these crimes being committed in a gun free zone?

    Another thing I see is how banners complain of arms with “increased lethality.” As Silver said, if my firearms could not inflict deadly force, they would be pretty useless. To say nothing of the fact that you woould also have to ban all pistols if you follow through on the logic. Where was I saw that someone wants to propose a law that would ban all guns with mags of greater than 7 rounds. That would leave us with a bunch of subcompacts and 1911s, right? And this will solve what problem?

    • Guess Mother Jones stopped following the events of the Clackamas Mall shooting once the Sandy Hook Elementary incident gave them all those bloody shirts to wave while coffin dancing.

      • They were all happy to forget Clackamas once news broke about Nick Meli useing his CCW to stop the rampage.

  12. “Suffice it to say, the Times, which defended itself against rioters with twin machine guns back in the day”

    Never heard that story.

    • Here’s where I flex my elementary school teacher muscles and Google-fu:

      New York draft riots
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots#Riots

      People were not happy about the draft for the ongoing Civil War, nor the fact that the wealthy could dodge their service by paying the sizeable sum of $300 (back in the day). The NY Times was threatened and a mob was turned back after they saw a pair of manned Gatling guns.

  13. “They account for only a fraction of the guns sold and used in the United States”

    I remembered there was a NSSF data dump posted here some months ago which had a rough break-down of sales by categories: modern sporting rifles (including the AR) outsold all other rifles combined. So while they are technically a “fraction” it is a fraction to be respected: 1/4th.

  14. RF quit reading the sewerage from Liberal jer New York scum or Washington CC scum either we all know where they stand.

  15. In reality, assault weapons aren’t designed to kill. They’re designed to wound. Kill someone, and they’re a corpse. WOUND someone and 2 of his comrades are out of the battle tending to one wounded. This has been US Policy since Viet Nam, if not before.
    Hunting rifles are designed to kill. That why police and military snipers use them.
    I have multiple firearms. Not one has ever shown a desire to attack or kill anybody.

      • That, Bobbicus, is a distinction without a difference. The US military did, when adopting the 5.56mm cartridge, consciously decide in favor of enabling soldiers to carry more rounds and bear less recoil upon firing…despite the admission that the round would be less lethal then the .308 cal and its predecessor, the .30-06 Springfield. They also did note that a serious wound (not to say intentionally fragmenting or tumbling bullet) would tax enemy logistics near the battlefield even more than a death would. This isn’t rumor, and the info is easy to find. Yes, they did not say “OK, lets try to just wound the bas…ds.”

  16. Something odd …

    In all I’ve read (tons) on this subject since the CT shooting, I don’t recall seeing any mention that at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui managed to kill 32 people and wound 17 with just a 9mm Glock 19 and and a .22 caliber Walther P22. All in the span of 9 minutes.

    All with no “assault rifle,” no “high capacity” magazines (10-rounders for the .22), no shoulder things that go up. Pretty basic stuff.

    Something like 170 shots fired, around 17 empty magazines found at the scene. Apparently reloading just wasn’t that much of a problem.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung-Hui_Cho#Weapons

    First, it’s odd that I haven’t see this mentioned. Second, I see nothing in the proposed AWB that would appear to impact, in the slightest, a repeat performance by another goblin.

    Am I overlooking something?

    • (Forgot to click the checkbox to be notified of follow-up comments by e-mail. Nothing to see here, folks.)

  17. I’ve never had a use for a 5.56 AR but it’s exactly what I would want for dealing with a mass murder attempt in a school.

  18. Is anyone clear on what defines an assault weapon? DiFi is not going public with the details of that definition.

    I legally own a DMPS A-15 rifle in the state of NJ. Assault rifles are prohibited here as are magazines with a capacity greater than 15 rounds. It is not an “assault rifle” because it lacks a collapsable stock, threaded barrel capable of a flash hider or suppressor, and bayonet lug.

    None of these “features” that define an “assault rifle” would have made a hill-of-beans difference in the connecticut shooting.

    They guy would have had to reload a bit more often, but since the entire school was without armed security, it would not have made any difference in the body count.

    If the ban includes all self-loading “semi-automatic” type rifles, then the supreme court will toss this one faster than you can say “fast and furious”.

    In the end, I think we will get a law that makes the entire country like California or NJ. It’s still not clear that the supreme court will even allow that.

    This will cost the Democrats dearly in the next election cycle. Lots of moderates are more purple than red or blue – and they own guns.

  19. You know, I could understand (maybe) the antis ignoring the evidence / conclusions showing that the first AWB had little to no measurable effect on reducing crime if the NRA presented the conclusion. Not saying ignoring would be right, just that the opposition always looks at the NRA as the boogeyman and ignores their infomration, regardless of how factual. But in the case of the AWB it was a *.GOV* body / non-pro-gun groups (the NIJ, DOJ, CDC, or whomever it was) that said the AWB was useless in meeting the intended goals. Instead, the politicians ignore the evidence from perfectly reputable sources (their own agencies) and instead rely on folks like the VPC and the Brady Campaign. That’s like having your family doctor tell you that taking regular vitamins won’t kill your cancer and you ignoring his advice and going with something some dude on the internet told you, based on nothing more than someone’s opinion and misguided beliefs. And when the cancer gets worse, yo uturen around and sue the vitamin maker and pass laws banning vitamins.

  20. “They account for only a fraction of the guns sold and used in the United States, but they play a hugely outsize role in the national slaughter; rampage killers love them.”

    Outright lie. The don’t account for only a fraction of the guns sold and used in the United States, they are in so much demand that they are constantly back-ordered.

    • Not to mention the Virginia Tech loon used a couple of 9mm Glock handguns (probably needed only one) to snuff 32 young ADULTS. Bans are INSANE.

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