It must be the New Math

Yesterday my daughter came home and asked me about the Assault Weapons Ban (The Federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994). One of her middle school teachers had decried the lifting (or expiration) of the ban in class.

This teacher told the students that now any criminal could buy an assault rifle and use it to commit a crime. He pointed out the high rate of fire and the fact that there was no logical use for such a weapon outside of the military and law-enforcement.

Before I explained to her the fallacies of this argument, I asked her, "In which class did you discuss this topic?"

Her answer surprised me, "Math." she said.

It must be the New Math. Now, I am not opposed to teachers discussing current events in their classes. Any teacher who challenges their students to think whether in math, English or P.E. deserves our praise. My daughter was certainly thinking about gun control and it gave me an opportunity to sit down with her and explain some history, common sense and let her read the Second Amendment.

I first asked what an Assault Weapon was. Her teacher had explained that it was a military style gun that could shoot really fast hust by holding down the trigger. I told her that what she was describing was actually a machine-gun whose civilian ownership is already covered by the National Firearms act of 1934.

I further explained that the so-called Assault Weapon ban was really only symbolic. According to the ban and Assault Weapon is a rifle with a detachable magazine and two of the following.

• A folding stock
  
• A pistol grip
  
• A bayonet mount
  
• A flash supressor
  
• A grenade launcher
  

This law did not really deal with gun crime, rather it made it a criminal offense to have certain types of guns. I heard Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry say that now anyone could go to a gun store and buy an AK-47. The fact is that after the ban manufacturers simply removed the bayonet mounts/flash supressors or pu non-folding stocks on their weapons and sold them even under the ban.

During the ban you could buy a military style high-powered rifle at your local gun dealer. Now that the ban has been lifted you can still buy a military style high-powered rifle at your local gun dealer.

The teacher also pointed out that such weapons had no hunting or sporting use. While the statement is false, I told my daughter that even if it were true — it would be irrelavent. We looked up the Bill of Rights and found the Second Amendment which reads:

A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

I pointed out to my daughter that the text never refers to sporting or hunting use. If anything it seems to indicate military use. It is disingenuous to suggest that citizens may only keep sporting arms.

Why then the fuss? It is a fom of incrementalism. By limiting gun ownership rights in this way, gun control advocates get closer to abolishing gun rights all together.

As a person who has never owned a gun, I am concerned because if we are not vigilant, if we lose one of our rights — what guarantee do we have that we will be able to maintain the others?

(Thanks to http://www.ont.com/users/kolya/ for the information used in much of this article.)