More Foaming-at-the-Mouth from the GFWs™

One of the posters at AR15.com linked to this lovely little op-ed in the online version of the Arizona Republic:

Bullet-riddled rifle ban explained

Peter Aleshire
Sept. 16, 2004 01:51 PM

I finally figured out why President Bush and the Republican Congress let the ban on assault weapons expire.

Initially, I thought Bush was just so afraid of the foam-at-the-mouth National Rifle Association that he was willing disagree with two thirds of the voters and flip-flop on his four-year-old campaign promise.

But then I read about the federal court case in New York that established that Osama bin Laden's boys bought 50 sniper rifles in the U.S. and shipped them to Afghanistan right before the U.S. invasion. Snipers can down helicopters and kill you at a range of half a mile with these .50 caliber rifles, which aren't included in the assault weapon ban.

So, obviously, Bush let the loophole-ridden assault weapon ban expire so he can quickly introduce a meaningful ban on the weapons terrorists, gang members, drug smugglers and general all purpose nut-cases could use to spread terror and mow down cops. Granted, the now dead ban did prevent the nutcases from buying 30-clip magazines, but left most of the most deadly weapons freely available. Clearly, we needed tough restrictions in these terrorist-tainted times.

I feel so bad for having doubted the President.

So expect that meaningful crackdown to protect American this week.

Next week at the latest.

Right?

George?

Are you there?

Mr. Aleshire's email address is Aleshire@cox.net, so I sent him the following response:

Mr. Aleshire:

I read your short op-ed piece with interest. It's good to know that Dan Rather's excursion from truthfulness isn't an isolated case, I suppose.

First, President Bush did keep his campaign promise, inasmuch as he could. No bill ended up on his desk to sign. Not even the Democrats in Congress wanted to seriously consider renewing the "Assault Weapons Ban" during an election year. It cost them too much the first go-around, and they knew it. You do understand the function of our government, don't you? The legislature legislates, and the President either passes or vetoes? He doesn't do much introduction of new legislation. It's not in his job description.

I'm curious, do you have a reference to that "federal court case in New York that established that Osama bin Laden's boys bought 50 sniper rifles in the U.S. and shipped them to Afghanistan right before the U.S. invasion"? I'm really interested in that, seeing that the only reference to Bin Laden and .50 caliber sniper rifles I could find had to do with twenty-five (not fifty) .50 caliber Barrett rifles shipped to Afghanistan in 1988 (not 2001). According to the manufacturer, Mr. Barrett, he was in full compliance with the law at the time, as the U.S. government was providing material assistance to the mujahadeen (read: "our bastards") then. (See this link: http://www.barrettrifles.com/news/ltr_laden.htm.)

The case you're referring to must be U.S. v Usama Bin Laden et al., Feb. 2001. So there are two errors, right there: the quantity, and the date, but since there's no attribution to the actual case, you're just hurling unsubstantiated accusations. You're quite good at fearmongering! Good thing your journalist friends have editors to keep the media on the straight-and-narrow! Instead, they just publish tripe like this.

Also, I was fascinated to read that "the now dead ban did prevent the nutcases from buying 30-clip magazines," especially since when I bought my "post-ban" AR-15 a couple of years ago, I was able to purchase - perfectly legally - functional 30-ROUND magazines for it that had been manufactured before the ban. What, I'm not a nutcase, then?

You've been drinking the Violence Policy Center's kool-aid, haven't you?

I'm one of the "pajamahadeen" Mr. Aleshire, one of the bloggers who fact-check and expose the bias and outright lies of the "old media." Your peice, and this rebuttal, are now up on my site where about 400 people a day will see it - and will pass it on to others. There's a lot of us "gunbloggers" out there. Together, we have quite a readership!

Tag! You're it!

I also copied the Corrections department. And if you liked that piece by him, read this one, Vote Bush: Employ Bloggers.

Hey, you other gun-blogging pajamahadeen! FIRE MISSION!