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Dems Reintroduce ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban (and List Shows It’s Not Just Rifles): ‘Purpose Is to Dry Up the Supply of These Weapons Over Time’

Jan. 24, 2013 12:39pm Jason Howerton

Dems Reintroduce Assault Weapons Ban (And Its Not Just Rifles)

Vice President Joe Biden administers the Senate Oath to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. during a mock swearing in ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, as the 113th Congress officially began. Credit: AP

Congressional Democrats are reintroducing legislation to ban assault weapons but the measure faces long odds in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

The measure being unveiled Thursday is authored by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who wrote the original assault weapons ban. That law expired in 2004 when Congress refused to renew it. There’s much disagreement about the effectiveness of the original assault weapons ban.

“The purpose is to dry up the supply of these weapons over time,” Feinstein said on Capitol Hill Thursday, flanked by several “assault” weapons. “Therefore there is no sunset on this bill.”

Feinstein’s sweeping legislation includes a ban on weapons with any “one military characteristic,” and bans the “import, export, manufacture, sale and transfer of hundreds of semi-automatic rifles, handguns and some shotguns,” Townhall’s Katie Pavlich reports.

In other words, the ban doesn’t just cover the “scary” AR-15 and AK-47 semi-automatic rifles. Here’s the list of more than 150 guns that would be banned under Feinstein’s plan. Freelance journalist Jonathan Krohn told TheBlaze that the list was handed out at Thursday’s announcement on Capitol Hill, which he was covering. It looks even more sweeping on paper.

(Twitter)

Watch Feinstein’s Thursday announcement via the Washington Free Beacon:

The National Rifle Association promptly responded to Democrats’ proposed gun ban on Thursday and called on Congress to “reject” Sen. Feinstein’s bill. The NRA released the following statement:

Senator Feinstein has been trying to ban guns from law-abiding citizens for decades. It’s disappointing but not surprising that she is once again focused on curtailing the Constitution instead of prosecuting criminals or fixing our broken mental health system. The American people know gun bans do not work and we are confident Congress will reject Senator Feinstein’s wrong-headed approach.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released his own statement in response to Feinstein’s gun ban proposal on Thursday afternoon:

Washington politicians shouldn’t be taking advantage of recent tragedy to try to push an aggressive gun control agenda. Real assault weapons—machine guns—are already functionally illegal, and they have been since 1934. This proposal would have done nothing to prevent the terrible murders in Newtown, but it would limit the constitutional liberties of law-abiding citizens. And gun control doesn’t work – the empirical data overwhelmingly demonstrate that strict gun-control laws consistently produce more crime and more murders.

The Second Amendment exists to ensure that law-abiding Americans can protect their homes and families, and I look forward to helping lead the fight to defeat this bill and to protect our constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

An assault weapons ban is among the measures supported by President Barack Obama, who unveiled a package of gun safety proposals last week. But because of concerns among moderate Democrats it’s seen as a heavy lift in Congress, with measures such as beefed-up background checks more likely to pass.

At the heart of the debate, President Barack Obama and Democrats are claiming that banning so-called “assault weapons” will make Americans more safe.

The truth is much more complicated. The use of handguns in gun-related homicides is roughly 70 to 80 percent in most states, 24/7 Wall St. notes. Meanwhile, the use of rifles is under 5 percent, and use of shotguns about 5 percent. Knives are nearly always used in more murders than rifles or shotguns, according to FBI data.

24/7 Wall St.’s Douglas A. McIntyre suggests the federal government should make more of an effort to gather data on gun violence from local authorities in order to take meaningful action.

“The problem that the lack of data causes is about how to determine which guns might or might not be regulated more carefully,” he writes.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story has been updated

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. Find out more HERE.

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Comments (482)

right-wing-waco
Posted on January 28, 2013 at 11:02am
If guns cause crime, the penises cause rape and pencils cause misstakes. Lets make up a bill called the penis & rape recovery act aimed at removing them or taxing them

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gsreagan
Posted on January 27, 2013 at 7:07pm
It’s time for this old gal geezer fart to go the retirement home or ride off into the sunset. AAADD has set in and it’s bye, bye time. For someone that has/had a weapon for self protection or uses armed body guards, yet want’s to forbid private citizens of the same, doesn’t deserve to be a servant of and for the people.

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msjoe43
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:38pm
For their feel good legislation . . . Gun Control . . . The Assault Weapons Ban Bill of 2013.
President President Obama, Vice President Joseph Robinette “Joe” Biden, Jr. and Democrats in the Senate and Democrats in the House of Representatives throws law abiding gun owners UNDER THE BUS.

The Criminals won. Evil won.

All gun owners will be victims.

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BOUGHT YOUR SILO YET?
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 12:41pm
If the liberals are right, guns, or more specifically, assault weapons, kill innocence on a mass scale, and if the US has the largest citizenry gun ownership, and if those gun owner’s weapon of choice is the assault-style, why do we not see mass murders every single day? Why do I not see mass shootings in my neighborhood every single day? Why do we not have a death toll, linked to guns, in the hundreds of thousands every single day?

They claim that banning guns, banning certain weapons and limiting ammunition will cut down gun violence and mass-scale murders.

For their stance on guns to even be remotely true we would see gun violence on every single street in every neighborhood every day. They believe that it is just a matter of time before anyone who owns a gun will “lose it” and go on a shooting spree.

The fact is, most people don’t “lose it.” Throughout history, even during the “wild west” period, most people just wanted to be civil. They wanted to live their life in peace. Otherwise, we would just shoot people for disagreeing with our opinion. We would shoot people for ordinary, mundane atrocities such as cutting us off on the highway or driving slow in the left lane.

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Stew
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 10:18am
First, just how do the Democrats plan on stopping me from giving my “assault rifles” to my so, daughter, or whomever I choose if they do not know I have them? Can you say registration….?
Second, any statistics obtained locally in most large cities will be skewed to the left due to liberal politicians who tend to be in the majority in these urban areas. So the data reported will not be accurate and tend to further the gun controllers agenda.
Third, the “assault rifles” of today are functionally no different than the “assault rifles” of 1993 and Diane Feinstein is lying about this. All these guns are based on designs that are 50 to a hundred years old. As usual liberal politicians will do or say anything it takes to get what they want.
The fact is this is a State’s Rights issue and the federal government needs to butt out.

-Paul Stewart

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Dawgnabox
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:29am
I remember when you could smoke on airplanes. It all started with banning cigs on short hops, now look at it.

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thomaspain
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:19am
Make no mistake, absolutely none of these illegal, immoral, actions would have stopped the one-in-a- million attack on children that happened in December, but the shedding of phony tears by the president, the creation of instant polls and outright lies by the puppet media, and the chorus of sycophantic screams from his extremist supporters and their masters, must be considered in context of the fact that literally tens of millions of honest Americans would be made felons by this attack on our most basic right. Such madness must stop by any means necessary. This is not Republican or Democrat issue; it is an unprecedented attack on all of us, far over shadowing 911 or any other small scale aberration in our country’s peace. Self-defense from individuals or governments is a GOD GIVEN right, a right that dictators do not accept except when they want to defend themselves from those that they control!
No other aberration of morality, no war and no foreign enemy, has ever attacked all the American people at one time like these proposals do.
If we had a just and intelligent government that was not on its way to bankruptcy, did not have its Justice department chief under contempt of Congress for releasing guns to foreign drug cartels (guns that killed American government employees), a government building up stockpiles of hundreds of millions of rounds of pistol ammunition for non-military agencies, a secretary of State that looked the other way as our diplomats were killed an

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thomaspain
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:14am
Sanity and Insanity in Washington DC
The very same day that North Korea promised to “target the USA”, “the sworn enemy of the Korean People”, with “nuclear weapons”, the mad Senator from California, (Feinstein) introduced an anti-gun, anti-second amendment bill in Congress that would; tell us what guns we can own, stop production of all modern guns (rifles, pistols or shotguns using detachable magazines), begin a nationwide gun registration process, abolish the free sale of property (firearms) for life, and include a provision that all such guns would be turned into the US Government upon the death of their current owners. This would be the same week that gun owners who trusted the state government of New York with private information on gun ownership had their names published in newspapers and to date, several of those trusting, law abiding families have had their homes burglarized for guns! One can only imagine what could happen when that process is repeated on a nationwide scale, either by purposeful release of that information or by illegal government action!
While such an attack on the Second Amendment could only be called treason in a normal USA, the signing of 23 illegal, “executive orders” a few days before by the Marxist president can only lend credence to such madness. Impeachment and prison time should follow for these mad “rulers” before they destroy this country from within.
Make no mistake, absolutely none of these illegal, immoral, act

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- Stew
  Posted on January 26, 2013 at 10:58am
  I agree with what you are saying, but if the issue of gun control must be discussed it should be done at the state level. I don’t want the likes of Diane Feinstein dictating to me what I can and can’t own or do. The federal government has forgotten who created it and what it is permitted to do under the Constitution. 13 states have introduced legislation to effectively null and void anything Obama unilaterally decides to do affecting gun rights after 1 Jan. 2013. I hope this number grows and sends a clear signal to the powers that be in D.C.
  
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M24
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 7:03am
That Is One Evil Parasite You Progressive Bastards Make Me Sick ,You Really believe that Taking The Guns away Is Going To Stop The Killing ,Really Liberals Are The Most Ignorant Beings On The Planet . It Doesn’t Matter What Bans You Have On Anything ,If People Want It They Will Get It And There Is NOTHING You Can Do About It ,You See What You Libs Think Should Be Aganist The Law ,Normal People Think It’s Acceptable. Libs Do Not Have The Ability To Think Rationally Therfore Considerd In Society As A IDIOT! Oh By The Way You People Moving From California To Texas ,Go Someplace Elese We don’t Want You And Libturd Ways!!

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RDavis49
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 1:26am
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote”. -Benjamin Franklin

“I think in 2012 we are seeing evidence of what Franklin was trying to tell us. Just because a majority of people may support certain ideas it does not mean that those ideas are just. In simple terms, just because most Americans love our president and voted for him, it does not mean that he has the power to go against our constitutional rights.” – Dean Garrison

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RDavis49
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 1:22am
“This is a case of right and wrong. As of now the 2nd amendment stands. It has never been repealed. If Feinstein or Barack have a problem with the constitution then they should be removed from office. They are not defending the constitution which they have sworn an oath to protect. It is treasonous to say the least. They would likely say the same about me, but I have the constitution, the founders, and the supreme court on my side. They only have their inflated egos.” – Dean Garrison

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obiwanbartobi
Posted on January 26, 2013 at 12:30am
How can she stand there and take an oath to defend the constitution when we all know she doesn’t give a damn about it.

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iwontell
Posted on January 25, 2013 at 11:52pm
I got a better idea Feinstein – cars kill more people in a week that guns in a year – SO we will take away your car and then you can’t do as much damage in DC since you can’t get to work and plague us “normal citizens”. Next you’ll want my kids BB Gun and Sling-shot huh? Oh, forgot, how about his “pea-shooter” it’s really dangerous… he can hit a bulls-eye at 20 feet….whew

Get real you OLD HAG and just go home and leave us all alone – we’ve made it for over 200 years
without you

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LeoNine
Posted on January 25, 2013 at 10:15pm
Ms BlindStein. I must wonder what it is about reality that you think you can change by passing a new law against a civilian owning a weapon. The ONLY times. Again, THE ONLY TIMES, that a government has decided to take weapons out of the hands of civilians, is just before DER TAG. Either you are too emotionally imbalanced to see what you are doing, or, you DO KNOW what you are doing. You DO fantasize about those you have reduced to unarmed, ignorant peasant status, screaming, “Long Live Big Sisterr”. You deliberately seek the degradation of American Freedom.

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ENIGMA28724
Posted on January 25, 2013 at 7:58pm
Feinstein is just about as stupid as she is ugly. Does she really think those who own weapons on the list are going to just smile and turn them in? I have heard some say those who own them should bury them so the government doesn’t get them. If we do that, haven’t they accomplished what they intended to do, which is get them out of circulation. I maintain if they come to confiscate them, then we need to bury not our guns, but the dead stupid enough to try to take them. I don’t think the liberal left realizes how close they are to starting a civil insurrection over this matter. Or perhaps that’s what the 450 million rounds of pistol ammo Homeland Security ordered is for. MOLON LABE

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- iwontell
  Posted on January 26, 2013 at 12:01am
  GLAD YOU MENTIONED THE 450 Million rounds – guess you didn’t hear about the other 160 million or so that somehow seems I heard was going to the Maine forestry service….
  
  .I’m waiting for someone to tell us all what’s the “DEAL” with all those BULLETS….seems they were high-caliber too…
  What does the GOV know that we don’t….hmmmm? Who’s the planned Target? Someone actually Know????? Tell us…….Oh, maybe they are going to sneak them across the border for the “Fast and Furious” to use……on somebody. Just a thought.
  
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