I'm a coworker of Matt's, so please don't flame him if you don't like what I say. I’m replying on his account because I'm a competitive shooter and have some knowledge about this issue. Please bear with me, and I’ll try to fill you in on some things.
I would say that the NRA does in fact represent the views of most gun owners on this issue, particularly those who know the facts.
One of the problems with the “assault weapons” ban is that it doesn’t actually have anything to do with assault weapons. This is another case of congress tacking on a provocative name to a law in order to rally public support.
Marwan mentioned “Uzis, Tec-9s etc.”, and understandably so, because this is what some deceptive politicians have repeated time and again, and what the media has parroted, without properly checking facts. This ban has nothing to do with these weapons, since the assault weapons ban has nothing to do with machine guns. Yes, you read right - the assault weapons ban has nothing to do with machine guns. Machine guns have been heavily regulated since the National Firearms act of 1934, and were effectively banned in 1989 by George Bush Senior. The 1994 law makes no mention of machine guns, and misrepresents an entirely different class of firearms.
What the “assault weapons” ban does is ban auto-loading, or "semi-automatic" rifles with certain cosmetic features. For those of you who don’t know, with semi-automatics, you pull the trigger once, and the gun fires once - if you want to shoot again, you pull the trigger again. These are not assault weapons. In fact, they are functionally identical to many more firearms not covered by the ban.
As I mentioned, I’m a competitive shooter. I’ll soon be traveling to the national championships as a member of the New Hampshire state team. The rifle I use in competition is regulated by this ban. Uzis, Tec-9s, AK-47s, M-16s, etc. are not.
These rifles are indeed used for hunting, and they are used for competition. What they are not used for is crime. In fact, these firearms were used in less than 0.25% of all violent crimes before the ban was put into place, and this hasn’t changed (this is what is refered to as "statistically negligeable"). It’s simply impractical for criminals to carry rifles to commit crimes – they are large, and hard to conceal. Of course there have been some highly sensationalized crimes committed with these firearms, but they are actually extremely rare.
Obviously I strongly oppose this ban, but I would encourage people to write to your representatives, regardless of how you feel about the ban, if only to express that you hate being deceived.
BTW, below is a pretty good fact sheet I found on this issue, for quick reference by those of you who haven’t been dealing with this for the last ten years:
http://www.clintongunban.com/FactSheets.aspx?i=160
If you’ve actually read this whole thing, thanks for your time, and I hope I’ve been able to help inform, regardless of your views.
Best Regards,
Jeff Lindblom
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