Soap Box

One of the reasons I decided to go back to the well on gun control so soon after devoting an earlier column to it was a Twitter conversation I had with a very nice lady who was tweeting about her opposition to assault weapons and large ammunition magazines.

I politely asked her what she would define as an assault weapon and what size magazine would be acceptable to her.

She just as politely replied, although she didn't tell me what firearms she considered to be assault weapons, she did say that she thought we should limit it to the "standard six round clip". Evidently she was talking about a six shot revolver which is not even a semi automatic much less a full automatic that defines an assault weapon.

I had another Twitter conversation with an antigun lady whose knowledge seemed limited to an AR-15, which is also a semi-automatic weapon and should not be classified as an assault weapon, unless Obama has changed the definition.

For the sake of the few people who will read this who don't understand the difference between full and semi-automatic, I will briefly preach to the choir.

A semi-automatic weapon fires only one round when the trigger is pulled, to fire another round you have to pull, or hopefully squeeze, the trigger again. The fully automatic weapon requires depressing and holding the trigger only once to empty the entire magazine. 

You cannot go into a gun store and buy a fully automatic weapon, it requires special permission with qualification requirements akin to applying for an alcohol license in lobby of the First National Bank, there's a slim possibility but it ain't apt to happen.

I don't own a fully automatic weapon and neither do any of my shooting buddies. The only fully automatics I ever shot were a .50 and .60 cal, tripod mounted, machine gun with the Marines at Guantanamo Bay, that's the same day I fired a tank, but that's another story.

Now they are true assault weapons because you can take down a whole room in a few seconds without taking your finger off the trigger, kind of like pointing a garden hose and making the water splash in whatever spot you choose.

With semi-automatics you have to reacquire the target every time you pull the trigger and, with the recoil of high-powered weapons, unless you're an accomplished shooter, it takes some time. Of course if you're standing in a room full of people and everybody is a target, it's hard for even the worst shot to miss.

I don't know of any issue since the UFO sightings in the 70's that has been the subject of as much misinformation and how many well-meaning people have been scared to death by Obama's antigun rhetoric and think that anything bigger than a pellet gun is an assault weapon and that all gun owners are walking time bombs and that a few new laws would do away with the violence.

The truth of the matter is, if you want to take the time to check it out, there are enough laws on the books, state and federal, to paper the Texas Panhandle, some good, some bad, some downright silly (Attn: Governor Cuomo).

The truth of the matter is, Mr. Governor, that while seven rounds may be enough to "kill a deer", it would be a totally different situation if someone had to face an armed human being. Nerves would very likely make your first few shots go wild or only inflict minor wounds and after seven shots you would have to ask your attacker for a time out to reload your magazine, which - by the way Mr. C. - you left out of your law. You didn't include a timeout provision. Better get right on that.

But seriously speaking, as much as I enjoy hunting and target shooting, if it would mean that there would never be another school shooting, home invasion, attack on women who are alone, no more convenience store robberies or gang violence, no more insane people roaming the streets, and if the bad guys would do the same, I'd gladly throw every gun I've got in Old Hickory Lake and never look back.

But it doesn't work. The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban signed by Bill Clinton did little to curb mass shootings; they actually went up during the period that the ban was in effect.

What President Obama wants us to do would be tantamount to America going up against the Soviet Union and giving up our nuclear weapons while they had full use of theirs.

What do you think would happen?

This is a fact. English citizens are barred from having handguns or rifles and there are super strict laws governing the ownership and use of shotguns.

Now that works fine for the law-abiding citizens who never caused any trouble before the guns were banned, but for the bad guys it only meant a change of weapon.

Knife violence in the UK is at an all-time high. They had over 15,000 stabbings in 2012, something like 6 people a week are dying from knife attacks, and there have been over 22,000 crimes with knives committed last year, and that's in a nation of a little over sixty-three million inhabitants, roughly 1/5th of the population of the United States.

Background checks don't bother me; I've already had one. Not making full automatic weapons readily available doesn't bother me; I don't need one. Busting illegal gun sales and giving heavy prison sentences for those who commit crimes involving any kind of gun has my whole-hearted support.

But let's be sane about this.

Should good citizens have less firepower than the criminals and nuts who would harm us?

Obama seems to think so.

What do you think?

Pray for our troops and for peace of Jerusalem.

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels​