Bill's big lie: The 1994 gun ban
My good friend Tony is an intelligent man, fairly typical of Americans residing in the Northeast — he's a compassionate, fair-minded, moderately liberal guy who loves his country and his family. But decent folks like him occasionally and innocently will support a designed agenda that relies heavily on feelings of compassion overriding objective thought.
I mean, come on ... It is difficult for anyone NOT to succumb to such feelings rather than clinically analyze an issue when catch phrases are incessantly thrown about like "We're doing it for cleaner air," or "We need these restrictions because we want clean water for our children," or "We want to end gun violence in the streets." Who do you know that craves or enjoys foul air, polluted water, or murder? Chances are excellent that you don't know anybody like that, and neither do I.
Which brings us to my friend's email correspondence about constitutional rights in general and firearms in particular. And rest easy, calm down ... we'll get to the 1994 fiasco shortly.
Decent people are being misled — with malice aforethought
My friend stated that he strongly supported mandatory gun-owner licensing, banning of "assault weapons," enacting more gun laws, and more stringent restrictions on who may legally purchase and own firearms. After point and counterpoint exchanges about the Bill of Rights and indisputable statistics on firearm descriptions, laws, sales, and violent crime, my friend honestly (that's why he's my friend, folks) admitted that he didn't know enough about firearms, the 30,000 existing gun laws, or guns used in violent crime to support his stance.
In a way, this past election stands out as an example of true voter fraud, where Democrat Party bigwigs selected and ran congressional candidates who professed to be pro-gun — knowing full well that when it comes time to vote on future anti-gun legislation, the newcomers will vote the way they are told, or else. However, America's saving grace is that regardless of what Democrats say they stand for or falsely promise during a campaign, they always, always act as liberals and govern as liberals — thereby negating whatever they have attained through deception.
One can only hope that the damage to come during the next two years in the House is not chronic and can be remedied. The next six years in the Senate, however, is another, darker matter entirely — the damage to America's federal judiciary alone will be long-lasting indeed.
For you moderates out there, please try to remember today's little chat come 2008, and for you conservatives, please try not to be so wrong-headed ... which brings us to 1994.
The public safety and recreational firearm use act of 1994
Perhaps the most significant infringement upon American liberty this century was the Clinton Gun Ban or Assault Weapons Ban as it was commonly known. Bill Clinton, who never met a lie he did not embrace, used repercussions stemming from two shootings that shocked the nation in 1989 and 2001 as a springboard to advance his ultimate agenda of disarming American citizens.
Mustering the Democrat Party congressional leadership, Drive-By Media lapdogs, and anti-gun organizations and financial supporters, Clinton succeeded in passing a bill that was fictitiously labeled as a deterrent to "assault weapons" but in reality banned an entire class of conventional firearms from use by law-abiding citizens.
Clinton's use of the phrase "assault weapon" was important to his scheme because although it was a lie, to the average citizen who didn't know any better it sounded as dreadful as the equally egregious "cop-killer bullet." The ban outlawed 19 firearms by name and approximately 200 others that were manufactured with certain characteristics. Included in the "assault weapons" ban were .22 caliber target rifles (tens of millions of Americans owned them at 12 years of age), many magazine-fed firearms (semi-automatic target and hunting firearms), and guns that merely looked like military-style weapons.
These civilian sporting firearms were portrayed as "machine guns," "high-powered" death machines capable of "spraying a barrage of bullets" and being the weapons of choice for "violent criminals."
The truth is, true machine guns and true military assault weapons (capable of continuous fire as long as the trigger is held down) have been all but banned to civilians since the passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934. A semi-automatic firearm, portrayed by Clinton as a "machine gun" or "assault weapon," can shoot only one bullet each time the trigger is pulled — in the same manner as a cowboy revolver.
Mind you, this big lie was perpetrated with the willing assistance of the Drive-By Media and anti-freedom organizations, despite FBI reports detailing statistics that flatly proved all of the millions of newly-banned guns were not "typical crime guns," and fired rounds less powerful than a common deer rifle.
Sunset of the big lie
And so for ten years, Americans were denied their constitutionally-mandated rights, several American firearms manufacturers went out of business or curtailed their operations and much-needed jobs, and the number of frivolous lawsuits against firearm manufacturers exploded. All because of a lie.
However, freedom-loving Americans were truly fortunate that there were several congressional members who, although not having enough votes to stop the madness, were able to insert a "sunset provision" into the law. The provision stipulated that if the new law proved to be a failure, it would become null ten years after its passage.
Of course that is exactly what happened. The law did not deter any more crime than Clinton's other boondoggle lie, the Brady Bill. Not one government or private-sector study, even the anti-gun data where statistics were manipulated, could come up with evidence that supported the gun ban's touted raison d'etre of "violent crime reduction." In fact, study after study confirmed what the FBI made public before the Big Lie — that the banned firearms did not contribute to violent crime.
A Justice Department study of the Clinton Gun Ban (Clinton's own appointed officials) clearly outlined the "relative rarity with which the banned weapons were used in gun violence even before the ban," and concluded that "the ban's short-term impact on gun violence has been uncertain."
Clinton's own Department of Justice told the world that the Big Lie was just that and had no substance or reason for being. Further, this single act in September of 1994 is believed by many to be the last straw that led to the now-famous Congressional Revolution.
It is unfortunate but proven that when a particular party wrests control of the government, American freedom and individual rights suffer. It is also unfortunate that historic, law-abiding American companies, an entire industry, thousands of American jobs, and 100 million law-abiding American citizens had to suffer as well.
Keep your powder dry and stay vigilant — the Party of Lies is in power again.