Liberals announce ban on military assault weapons

September 8, 2008

“A new Liberal government will make our cities, our communities, and our schools safer by getting military assault weapons off our streets.” said Mr. Dion at an event at Dawson College. “Military assault weapons have no connection to hunting or sport shooting, and serve absolutely no purpose in our society. No one outside the military needs these weapons and we would be safer without them in Canada.”

In a pathetic attempt to toss some crumbs to gun owners Mr. Dion added that semi-automatic rifles with a legitimate connection to hunting or sport shooting would not be included in the prohibition.

Comment by John Orth

Once again the Liberals have proven that they will never tire of crapping on gun owners, never fail to exploit a tragedy for cheap political purposes, never stop their shameless pandering to urban voters, and never stop lying.

To begin with, Mr. Dion is lying when he claims guns with legitimate sport shooting or hunting uses will be exempt from the proposed ban. Both the Beretta CX4 Storm (used in the Dawson College shooting) and the Ruger Mini-14 (used in the Ecole Polytechnique massacre) are firearms intended for sport shooting or hunting. Yet these guns are at the very top of his “assault weapons to be banned” list.

Mr. Dion has demonstrated clearly that he is utterly clueless about firearms. He has also shown why a person who knows absolutely nothing about guns should not be allowed to design gun control legislation.

An “assault rifle” is defined as a select fire rifle using an intermediate cartridge. To be “select fire” a gun must be capable of fully automatic fire. The term “semi-automatic assault weapon” like a “two wheeled tricycle”, is therefore a self contradictory phrase. It is something that only exists in the confused minds of Liberal politicians, not in the real world.

In addition, the Beretta CX4 Storm, which Dion claims is a “military assault weapon”, is not used by the military of any nation on earth. To understand why, one need only look at the results of the Dawson College shooting. Twenty people were shot at close range, some of them multiple times, but only one died.

The reason such a small percentage of the victims died is no doubt due in part to the fact that the police (for once) acted quickly. However the principal reason only one out of twenty died is because the CX4 fires a relatively low powered 9mm pistol round. No army on the planet is going to adopt a rifle so underpowered that an enemy soldier who has been shot several times continues to fight back.

What would have happened had the shooter gone on a rampage with a bolt action .338 hunting rifle instead? Certainly, fewer people would have been shot, since a bolt action takes longer to operate than a semi-auto. However, almost every person who was shot would have died. A .338 can easily bring down a thousand pound moose at a range of one hundred yards. What happens when a 150 pound human is shot point blank with the same round? He dies almost instantly. It wouldn’t matter how quickly the police responded, or how well the paramedics did their job, if most of the victims were dead before they hit the floor.

So what is the preferable result – twenty shot and one dead or fourteen shot and twelve dead?

If Mr. Dion is successful with this ban, then the next time a nut goes nuts he might use an ordinary hunting rifle, and the carnage will be much worse than the results at Dawson College. In other words, Mr. Dion’s solution will make the problem worse.

This is hardly surprising. Almost everything Liberals do tends to make things worse.