NEWS
Browning announces that the X-Bolt bolt-action rifle has been selected as the 2009 NRA Publications Golden Bullseye award winner from American Rifleman for Rifle of the Year. The X-Bolt was introduced a year ago and has been the subject of significant testing by members of the NRA Publications staff during the past year.
Trijicon, Inc. announces new optical variations to its renowned Trijicon ACOG® models - compact telescopic sights with dual-illuminated reticle patterns for use in low light or at night. Additionally, Trijicon has announced a brand new Trijicon ACOG line of scopes, measuring just four inches long.
FEATURE
Like We Were Saying Before....The email yesterday morning summed it up pretty well "looks like the lights in the boxing ring just got turned up!"
Wednesday, during a press conference trumpeting the arrest of 700 in connection with Mexican drug cartels, Attorney General Eric Holder rolled out the Obama administration's position that the so-called "assault weapons ban" should be improved and re-instituted, this time permanently.
Not surprisingly, Holder said he felt the "AWB", closing of the so-called "gun show loophole" and banning of "cop-killer bullets" would all be allowed under the Supreme Court's Heller Decision last year. The allegedly-historic Heller ruling reasserting the individual right to own a weapon under the Second Amendment. It will apparently have all the influence of a bucket of spit under the new bullet-proof Democratic majority in Washington.
And looking back on the Assault Weapons Ban put into place in 1994 by then-President Clinton, it seems the anti-gun groups have corrected what they felt were "strategic mistakes" in that ban.
This new AWB, as we've written many times in the past, will not contain the expiration/sunset clause and will expand far beyond the nineteen types of "military-style" guns and "high-capacity" magazines - containing more than ten rounds.
Holder, in the fashion that has so far been very effective for this new administration, told reporters that - as President Obama had indicated during the campaign - there were "just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make."
Those "few gun-related changes" would include the reinstitution of the "ban on the sale of assault weapons" and the closing of the gun-show loophole and ban on certain classes of bullets.
The surprise was that the position was slipped into what was supposed to be a congratulatory press conference following the roundup of Mexican drug cartel members. Instead, Attorney General Holder turned the sweep into a reason the US needed to re-institute the AWB.
"The problem of criminals breaking the law to acquire firearms and illegally smuggling them across the border is not remedied by legislation that would violate the rights of Americans to own semi-automatic firearms," said Steve Sanetti, president of National Shooting Sports Foundation, "These types of firearms, which are erroneously called 'assault weapons,' are used by millions of Americans for hunting, sporting and personal defense purposes. We can only conclude that certain officials are waiting for any politically advantageous excuse to announce the intention to seek a new ban on sporting rifles, a ban that would break the president's campaign promise to gun owners that 'I'm not going to take away your guns.'"
Do NOT say this comes as a total surprise.
Late last year, even prior to Obama's spanlomg the McCain/Plain ticket in the presidential elections, Democratic operatives were all over Washington, making preparations to begin what was characterized as a "smooth transition of administrations". One day, we may see that was, in reality, preparations for the complete assumption of power over the federal government.
Hyperbole? Gosh, I hope so.
But I didn't think legislators would be so weak-kneed as to pass trillions of dollars worth of spending without slowing down to read the 1,000 pages or so of fine print.
There are no effective brakes on this juggernaut.
If the Democratic legislators that Wayne LaPierre said were "cringing" at Holder's words on Wednesday don't play along, they'll find their roles as diminished as their Republicans colleagues.
Despite House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi's backing away from a new gun ban ("On that score, I think we need to enforce the laws we have right now," said Pelosi) there's not much curtailing the hubris of the Obama administration.
As Mr. Obama so succinctly explained to Republicans only days after taking office, the answer to a lot of questions today is summed up in two words: "we won."
"It appears gun owners' fears were well-founded given Attorney General Holder's comment that the Obama Administration will seek new restrictions on gun owners," said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel in a statement released yesterday by the industry organization. "A new gun ban would fly in the face of last year's Supreme Court decision in the Heller case that reaffirmed the Second Amendment right of all Americans to keep and bear arms."
The NSSF statement repeated what has been statistically demonstrated time and again - the so-called "ban" did nothing for crime. Neither have gun crimes increased since the expiration of that piece of feel-good legislation. It was never designed to do anything but make anti-gun people feel good about themselves. They were taking action, and to them style and emotion will always trump fact and substance.
Yesterday my conversations with a wide variety of people in the firearms and shooting industry were focused on a common theme: now what?
Depends on who you ask. Pro-gun observers tell me that it's going to take a tremendous outpouring of protest to slow a new ban - despite Madame Pelosi's protestations for reason. Democratic officials tell me they don't believe there is any slowing of the administration because their position really is that "a crisis is too-good an opportunity to waste".
Disturbingly, they're also telling me that the administration strategists have dismissed the first step - the AWB's resurrection and implementation - as a foregone conclusion and have already moved into the second phase of a strategy that is designed to bring the United States into compliance with the "enlightened" position on firearms ownership as set forth the United Nations. Seems they feel they have time as well as power on their side.
There are still lots of details to be filled in, but the conclusion we had all best draw from this latest action - trial balloon or not - is that we can pay no attention to what some members of this new administration say - we should judge them by their actions.
We'll keep you posted.
--Jim Shepherd
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