Reply #137: Fighting to outlaw civilian rifles with handgrips that stick out [View All]

[benEzra]

Dems have had a moderate policy since 1992. Did you know that?

Fighting to outlaw civilian rifles with handgrips that stick out, and to limit civilian guns to Civil-War-era magazine capacities, was NOT moderate. In the eyes of many gun owners, that was extreme, particularly since rifles of any type are rarely misused. All rifles COMBINED account for less than 3% of homicides, and many states report zero rifle homicides in any given year.

The gun-ban lobby hatched the "assault weapon" bait-and-switch to make sweeping gun bans sound moderate to those unfamiliar with guns or Federal gun law. That doesn't make the bans themselves moderate.

And what has this "moderate" ban-more-guns stance done to the party's fortunes since '92?

Party leaders managed to get the "assault weapon" bait-and-switch passed in 1994, by a single vote in the House. Since then, the party has lost the House, the Senate, and two presidencies over it, races that would arguably have been won by significant margins were it not to the ban-more-guns agenda.

Had Gore won TN and WV in 2000 (which he lost on the gun issue), he would have won the Presidency WITHOUT Florida. Kerry's cosponship of the draconian S.1431 in 2004 hurt him badly among gun owners, whether the gun-ban lobby considered it "moderate" or not.