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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wayners who wrote (19211)	8/17/2004 3:26:57 PM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Yes, its a spoof site. However this addresses the issue a bit more clearly: Assault-weapons ban is expiring: Don't let it If you think streets awash in Uzis, AK-47s and other military-style firearms are just what the country needs, then you'll love the game that President George W. Bush and House Republican leaders are playing. They're about to let the 1994 assault-weapons ban slip into the dustbin of history without so much as a vote in the House. The law that prohibits the manufacture or distribution of 19 kinds of semiautomatic weapons will sunset on Sept. 13. It should be extended. If Bush and his cohorts really want restrictions to lapse on those weapons of war, they should stand up and be counted. Instead, they're doing nothing and pointing fingers. Bush says it's up to the House to take action. Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) says reauthorization will go nowhere unless Bush pushes it. And Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) has indicated a vote is unlikely. A nudge by any of them would probably be enough to get a vote. It's the least they could do. But that would infuriate the gun lobby. Risking that would take political courage, always in short supply in an election year. Allowing a vote would also mean taking a chance that the ban would be extended. That's what a majority of the public wants, according to polls. So do nationwide associations of police, doctors, nurses, teachers and other groups. So does a majority of the Senate. It voted 52 to 47 in March to attach an amendment reauthorizing the ban to a woeful, and ultimately unsuccessful bill that would have given gunmakers and gun dealers immunity from lawsuits. Bush says he supports extending the ban, too. But the words ring hollow. He has gotten pretty much everything he wanted from the Republican-controlled House. If Bush really wanted a vote on reauthorization, he'd get that, too. That alone wouldn't guarantee that the ban survives. The issue is not strictly partisan: Support and opposition cross party lines. And election years are unpredictable. Some supporters could be scared off, concerned that a vote for reauthorization would hurt their bid for re-election. But without a vote, come midnight, Sept. 13, the ban will die. Congress is scheduled to be in session for just five days before that clock tolls. One gunmaker in Hastert's home state of Illinois can't wait even that long. ArmaLite Inc. is offering a "prepaid-preban" rifle program, urging shoppers to pay now for semiautomatic assault weapons that it will ship immediately after the ban lapses. Bush and the House could stop the madness, if they only would. newsday.com