And now it begins!

Obama Wants Gun BansNever mind that the Supreme Court recently declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. The Obama administration plans to reinstate the Clinton administration ban on so-called "assault weapons" that expired in 2004 under the ban's sunset provision. They have other gun controls measures in mind as well. "As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters on February 25. Holder said that re-banning "assault weapons" would not only be good for America, it would help Mexico, which is currently plagued by gun violence among drug cartels. Of course, the certain way to stop such Drug War-caused violence would be to end the War on Drugs, but Holder chose not to explore that approach. Holder also neglected to explain why American freedom should be limited at the request of a foreign nation. Most glaringly, he did not explain how the federal government, utterly unable to stop immigrants or drugs from freely crossing the border, could somehow be successful in stopping weapons from doing so. "Assault weapons" are not the only victim-disarmament measures the Obama administration wants to see, Holder says. "I think closing the gun show loophole, the banning of cop-killer bullets, and I also think that making the assault weapons ban permanent, would be something that would be permitted under Heller," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing. ("Heller" refers to the Supreme Court ruling in Washington, D.C. v. Heller, which declared the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own firearms.) "Assault weapons," "cop-killer bullets," and "gun show loopholes" are all lurid, bogus, deceptive anti-gun propaganda terms. In the past, legislation to "control" these made-up menaces have been Trojan Horse laws -- vehicles with wide-reaching, Draconian gun control elements hidden in their language. The term "assault weapon," as used by Holder, has no real meaning, as such guns are semi-automatic firearms that look different -- sometimes more "military" -- than traditional hunting and self-defense guns, but possess no additional firepower. Thus the guns were essentially banned for cosmetic reasons, and the ban was often derided as the "ugly gun law." The propaganda term "assault weapon" leads the public to often confuse these weapons with automatic weapons, i.e., machine guns, though they are not. This confusion, of course, is often deliberately encouraged by anti-gun forces. "A semi-automatic is a quintessential self-defense firearm owned by American citizens in this country," said Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association, in response to Holder's remarks. "I think it is clearly covered under Heller and it's clearly, I think, protected by the Constitution." "Cop killer bullets" have never killed a cop, and laws to ban them would arguably ban vast amounts of conventional ammunition. The "gun show loophole" merely allows citizens who are not licensed firearm dealers to sell guns at gun shows. It is not a "loophole"; the current law was deliberately written to protect such private exchanges from government control. Check the links above for more information on these topics, which are sure to be widely debated in the days and weeks ahead.