Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Now <i>this</i> is appalling:
According to [1]ABCNews.com,
Nothing gets Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton more
impassioned than talking about the impending expiration of the
10-year-old assault weapons ban.
"Nobody has an inalienable right to run around with a machine gun,"
he said. "I'm sorry, that's insanity!" . . .
As I mentioned [2]below, the assault weapons ban is not about machine
guns. Check out [3]the text (secs. 110101-110106, which repeatedly
refers to "semiautomatic" weapons.
Now surely a police chief knows the difference between a machine gun
and a semiautomatic, even if [4]the Chicago Sun-Times editorialist
might not. Did ABC misquote him? (I just called LAPD Media Relations
and left a message asking whether that might have happened.) Does the
chief just have no idea what the statute he's publicly praising really
does? Did he know that the statute was about non-machine-guns, but
said machine gun in any event, either because he somehow misspoke
(though it's an odd slip to make) or for some other reason?
Thanks to reader William Steinberg for the pointer.
References
1. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/US/assault_weapons_ban_040908-1.html
2. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_09_07.shtml#1094743729
3. http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/laws/majorlaw/h3355_en.htm
4. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_09_07.shtml#1094743729
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