Reply #20: I didn't say to drop the background check law, or the ban on automatic weapons,

[benEzra]

Then drop all the laws on any ban No permits for parades or protests. No reservations for campgrounds or picnics. No laws about what anybody says, anywhere they say it, regardless of the consequences. Let's just have a free for all out there.

I didn't say to drop the background check law, or the ban on automatic weapons, or the ban on Kevlar-piercing handgun ammo, or the requirement for a license to carry a gun in public, or the requirement for a hunting license in order to hunt, or the restrictions on the use of force in self-defense, or the laws preventing criminals and the mentally incompetent from buying or possessing guns.

I said drop the misguided attempt to outlaw the MOST POPULAR CIVILIAN RIFLES IN AMERICA. Not "repeal all existing restrictions", or "drop attempts to identify and prosecute gun-using criminals," but stop trying to ban lawful and responsible people's favorite guns.

You're a bunch of NRA stooges.

You are hiding behind the "stooge" comment because you are stuck with ad hoc rationalizations of a nonsensical position, and since you can't defend that policy, you have to resort to name-calling--because you can't defend rifle bans on any rational basis whatsoever.

Fact: Rifles are the least misused of all firearms. Fact: small-caliber rifles with modern styling are the most popular target rifles and defensive carbines in the nation. Hence, banning the most popular rifles not only makes ZERO sense from an anti-violence standpoint, it is supremely idiotic from a pragmatic political standpoint. And it is asinine for an organization that wants to be seen as representing gun owners (AHSA) to make throwing most gun owners under the bus its #1 political goal.

No different than the anti-gay or anti-abortion or any other group that let's the right get them all hopped up over nothing.

Except gay-bashing or outlawing of abortion is NOT "nothing" if you are gay or need an abortion. In those cases, it's an egregious denial of the affected individual's civil rights.

Neither is banning people's gun's "nothing." It is an egregious denial of the civil rights of those who own them, and for no social benefit whatsoever.

FWIW, I'm pro-civil-unions and pro-choice. Are you?