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Welcome back to another installment of the Watercooler, RedState’s daily Open Thread! Today, we’ve got…

A History of Foolishness and Failure Banning Inanimate Objects

“For organized crime, cocaine dealers and LA gangs it was business as usual and they discovered they could import Uzis and AK-47s as easily as a kilo of cocaine. Despite the fact that the domestic machine gun ban found within FOPA (a machine gun ban regulating imports was part of the 68 GCA) seemed to have little or no impact on criminals, that didn’t prevent then Drug Czar William Bennett from declaring that “only drug dealers use semi automatic weapons like HK-91s and FN FALs” so they were promptly banned by Executive Order in 1989. This of course actually changed nothing as criminals continued to obtain unregistered Uzis as easily as they obtained cocaine.There is perhaps no better example of the futility of these efforts as the North Hollywood Bank Robbery where two bank robbers took on the LAPD with an HK91 modified to select fire and AK-47s that were either illegally imported full autos or modified semi autos almost a decade later in 1997. Laws regarding importation and illegal modification to select fire didn’t prevent that incident any more than laws against bank robbery and murder prevented those things from happening.

But despite the obvious, politicians still keep trying to find a way to prevent these incidents by regulating inanimate objects that they believed, or simply tried to convince others to believe, facilitated these kinds of crime and that the problem could be controlled if only the specific firearms in question could be controlled.

So with the problem still unsolved Bill Clinton signed into law the domestic Assault Weapon Ban which came with a ban on high capacity magazines for a period of 10 years starting in 1994.

Not only did it fail to prevent the North Hollywood Bank Robbery and shootout it also did not prevent the Columbine shooting in 1999, the DC snipers in 2002 nor did it prevent any other significant criminal misuse according to FBI statistics.

…

So there is NO reasonable restriction be it Saturday Night Specials, sawed off shotguns, street sweepers, tommy guns, semi automatic assault rifles, cheap military surplus or sniper rifles. If you took us all the way back to muzzle loading flintlocks criminals would still misuse them and obtain illegal “regulated” firearms. The only people who would actually be “regulated” are those law abiding individuals who by definition are not the problem. The end result is potential victims are those who lose access to the best means of defending themselves and their families. These are exactly the people who NEED the advantage of modern firearms to attempt to counter the determination of violent criminals.

As a result gun owners need to STOP making these “reasonable concessions” because they didn’t work the first time they were tried and they haven’t ever worked.

–from “Why There Will Always Be Gun Ban Efforts… And What To Do About It” by user “SteyrAUG” at M4Carbine.net, reprinted by author permission. Readers are strongly encouraged to check out the article in its entirety.

This Week In History

• Sunday, 10/1: Louisiana transferred from Spain to France, 1800; Yosemite Nat’l. Park est’d., 1890; Walt Disney World first opens, 1971
• Monday, 10/2: Bill of Rights submitted to States for ratification, 1789; Texas Revolution begins, 1835; The Twilight Zone premieres, 1959
• Tuesday, 10/3: Edgar Allan Poe last seen alive, 1849; Wally Schirra and Sigma 7 launched into space, 1962; Battle of Mogadishu, 1993
• Wednesday, 10/4: Battle of Germantown, 1777; Mt. Rushmore sculpting begins, 1927; SpaceShipOne takes X Prize for first private spaceflight, 2004
• Thursday, 10/5: American troops kill Tecumseh, 1813; murder of Wake Island POW’s, 1943; Dr. No launches 007 film franchise, 1962
• Friday, 10/6: Germantown, PA founded, 1683; American Library Association founded, 1876; John Paul II makes first visit to White House by a pope, 1979
• Saturday, 10/7: Catalina Island discovered, 1542; USS Wachusett takes CSS Florida, 1864; NASA “Man In Space Soonest” renamed Project Mercury, 1958

Today’s Birthdays: Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes, 1822; actors Buster Keaton, 1895, Charlton Heston, 1923, Armand Assante, 1949,and Liev Schreiber, 1967.

Holidays Around the World: It’s National Taco Day. It’s Cinnamon Roll Day in Sweden, Independence Day in Lesotho, and the first day of World Space Week.

This Week In History is compiled with assistance from History.com and Wikipedia. Something interesting not listed here? Please share in the Comments section–this is an Audience Participation Encouraged featurette.

Gratuitous Gun Giveaways

• *American Handgunner magazine, for a Glock 19 Gen 5 9mm pistol package: http://americanhandgunner.com/giveaway/
• *Guns Magazine, for a Coonan Arms .357 Magnum 1911 or EAA Tanfoglio pistol package: http://gunsmagazine.com/giveaway/
• Davidson’s Gallery of Guns, for a CZ Scorpion EVO 3 9mm carbine or CZ 527 7.62×39 bolt-action carbine: https://ggg.galleryofguns.com/
• GrabAGun, for an IWI Galil Ace 7.62x39mm rifle: http://grabagun.com/giveaway

*Note: FMG Publishing giveaways require you to provide an FFL dealer’s info at entry.

Discussion Fodder

Since it’s National Taco Day, what’s your favorite place to get these tortilla-wrapped treats or your favorite homemade recipe? Soon after this posts, I’m off making the arduous trek from this hole in the sticks into town to go hit Qdoba and bring some back for myself and the Old Crab, since their Champ-level Rewards perk for the month is 1000 bonus Rewards Points today only.

Quote of the Day

Television – a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor well done.–Ernie Kovacs

As always, the Watercooler is an Open Thread. And as so eloquently coined by ntrepid, “Thanks for the click! Your effort helps fund future posts of this nature.”

“It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.”–Voltaire

Copyright Diamondback (with contribution by SteyrAUG), 2017; publication license granted exclusively to RedState. If you’re reading this anywhere BUT RedState, you are seeing STOLEN PROPERTY.