The year of the great "assault weapons" scare

Shooting Industry, August, 1989 by Jim Schneider

The Year of the Great "Assault Weapons" Scare!

Never has the political battle over the gun issue seen a period like the past 12 months!

Political victories and a major defeat for pro-gunners at the ballot box! A presidential candidate who campaigns against any additional federal gun laws, wins the election and then proposes new laws within 90 days of taking office! An anti-gun movement that's becoming ever more sophisticated--and better financed! Signs across the America that gunowners and pro-gun police officers are waking up to the threat!

Yet, there can be no question that the great assault on semiautomatic gun ownership has been the dominant story of the year and shows no signs of dying down as this issue of Shooting Industry goes to press.

Although it's a tough call, I would rank the six most important gun-related stories during the past year as follows:

* the "assault weapons" scare;

* gun control an issue in the 1988

presidential race;

* anti-gunners win in Maryland;

* federal waiting period rejected;

* pro-gun police starting to organize;

and

* America's gunowners waking up.

"Assault Weapons" Scare

I guess we shouldn't have been too surprised that the anti-gunners decided to target semiautomatic firearms. I had heard a pro-gun activist from Britain predict that was coming back in 1981. And even before the Stockton schoolyard tragedy, several California state agencies had launched a coordinated effort to push the state legislature to ban assault rifles.

But I don't think any of us were prepared of the anti-gun blitzkrieg that followed the Stockton incident. For weeks the hysterics over "assault rifles" filled the newspapers, dominated radio and television news broadcasts. It were as if the nation were in immediate peril from some foreign invader.

No one was surprised when the standard anti-gun choir members, such as Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH), took up the chant. Nor were we too shocked when we discovered that some of those proposals would have banned virtually all semiautomatic firearms.

However, many of us began to sweat as we saw some of our old allies starting to be swayed by the mass hysteria. Suddenly we watched Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ) dropping his own assault weapons bill.

The most alarming metamorphosis was that of President Bush. At first Bush stood tough, saying no additional gun laws were needed--as he had declared during the campaign. Within a few days he was telling the media that, gee, maybe new laws were needed. Then came the ban on imports of so- called "assault weapons."

The rumor among pro-gun groups in Washington at the time was the import ban was something that the crafty old drug czar, William Bennett, had arranged and that George was still with us. Some organizations were even thanking George for providing a "cooling off" period to allow the Stockton hysteria to die down.

However, when the President addressed the National Peace Officers' Memorial Day Service held at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on May 15, he left no doubt that it was George Bush himself who was proposing to make the import ban permanent and to outlaw the importation, manufacture, sale or transfer of gun magazines of more than 15 rounds.

As if to rub salt in the wound, the media was telling us that Bush was taking advice on the gun issue from Jesse Jackson, one of the nation's most anti-gun politicians.

On June 22, the Bush Administration's "Comprehensive Violent Crime Control Act of 1989" was introduced. This bill does contain some excellent anti-crime provisions. Unfortunately, it also bans any future manufacture of "ammunition feeding devices" of over 15 rounds, severely restricts the transfer of those currently owned (providing for registration) and contains some scary language about making it "unlawful for any person to assemble any semiautomatic rifle or shotgun which is identical to any rifle or shotgun prohibited from importation...." (See the August legislative report in this issue for further details.)

As I write this column, the so-called temporary ban on the import of "assault weapons" seems likely to be made permanent.

What kind of "assault weapons" legislation will emerge from Congress this year--if any--is anybody's guess at this time. From Metzenbaum's wholesale bans to Bush's emphasis on magazine size, anything is possible.

At the state level, weve seen semiautomatic bills rejected in state after state--but not in California, where supposedly pro-gun Gov. George Deukmejian signed into law a bill banning the future sale of 55 types of firearms and registering those already owned.

In the wake of that defeat, California gunowners have launched a petition effort to put a right to bear arms amendment in the state constitution.

Bush Runs As Pro-Gunner

What made George Bush's change of position on gun control so surprising was the fact that no presidential candidate before him ever had exploited the gun issue the way he did in last fall's campaign.

Bush began his successful effort to brand Michael Dukakis as an anti-gunner in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Aug. 18, when he said, "Should free men and women have the right to own a gun to protect their home? My opponent says no--but I say yes."