From: Terry Wintroub Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2004 18:24:24 -0500 Subject: [firearms-alert] Sometimes I think I'm prescient [Terry wrote a letter in response to some highly inaccurate claims in two anti-rights letters. The day after he sent them his letter, the paper published a highly erroneous "news" article about the same topic, and with many of the same falsehoods.] http://www.nj.com/news/times/mercer/index.ssf?/base/news-10/1076322958146841.xml *********************************************************************** Dear Editor: Aimee Goldstein ("Support the ban", 1/27/04) and Joanne Sheehan ("Defend the law") think there is a federal Assault Weapons Ban and that it bans military assault weapons. Both beliefs are false. First of all, there is no ban. There is a 10 year old prohibition on new manufacture of certain guns that politicians labeled "assault weapons". But ownership, sale, and use of these firearms are common and are perfectly legal as long as the gun was made before October 1994. Second, these guns are not military assault weapons. They are run-of-the-mill semi-automatic guns that fire one bullet each time you pull the trigger. They are used for hunting, target shooting, competition, and self defense just like the hundreds of other semi-automatics that are not "banned". They operate just like these other semi-automatics. They use the same ammunition as these other semi-automatics. But most importantly, they are NOT military firearms. Real assault weapons such as those used by the military are automatics, machine guns. Machine guns, all but prohibited to private citizens since 1934, are not affected AT ALL by the "assault weapon" "ban". This "ban" has had no effect on crime rates or on firearm accident rates. It has not removed these guns "from our streets". All it has done is raise the prices on the guns that were already around in 1994. The guns that were "banned" were selected because they LOOK LIKE military guns. They were labeled with the invented term "assault weapon" because supporters knew they couldn't push through a Big Ol' Ugly Gun "ban". Sheehan believes that the Brady bill requires gun sellers to keep records on gun sales for 90 days. It does not. Dealers are required to keep their sales records for 20 years. This 90 days figure refers to how long the FBI keeps ITS records of gun purchasers who passed the FBI's background check. The Brady bill did NOT specify 90 days. It did not specify a time frame at all, so the FBI took it upon itself to hold onto this information for 90 days, after initially proposing 180 days. In the interest of an informed public, let's hope that the Aimees and Joannes of the world will now recognize that anti-gun propagandists like CeasefireNJ's Bryan Miller, the marching mommies, New Jersey politicians, and The Times of Trenton are not reliable sources of information about guns. Terry Wintroub