HERE WE GO AGAIN - ANOTHER USELESS GUN LAW.

President Obama has been publically calling for the renewing of the Assault Weapon Ban. The original Ban was approved by Congress in 1994 for 10 years. It banned 19 types of military-style assault weapons. He said, "AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities." The civilian version of the AK-47, though it looks like a machine gun used by the military, is the same as a deer-hunting rifle. Compared to a deer-hunting rifle, the civilian version uses similar bullets, fires at the same rapidity, and does the same damage. His support of the Ban is not unusual; he supported banning semi-automatic guns, which includes most of the guns in the United States, as a senator for Illinois in 1998. However, no published peer-reviewed studies by economists or criminologists find that the original federal or state assault-weapons ban reduced murder or overall violent crime. Actually, since the federal ban expired, in September 2004, murder and overall violent crime rates have fallen. President Obama's policies, the Assault Weapon Ban, along with other gun-control legislation, are threats to law-abiding, gun-carrying citizens.

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH GUN CONTROL.

Because of the recent Colorado shooting, many anti-gun advocates are now calling for more gun control legislation. However, the proposed legislation does not resolve the supposed problems they are trying to combat. For example, on July 30, Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy introduced a bill that would ban the sale of ammunition online and by mail. However, the implementation of this bill would not have prevented the shooting that sparked it. The proposed bill would make the rules for buying ammunition the same as those for buying a gun. However, the shooter in Colorado was able to legally buy a gun from a dealer and would still have been able to buy the ammunition, even if this bill was in place. In addition, the bill would "mandate licensed ammunition dealers to report the sale of more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition to an unlicensed person within any five consecutive business days." The shooter in Colorado allegedly planned his attack well in advance, which means he would have been able to spread out his purchases of ammunition over time to conceal his purchases. The bill is a danger for gun advocates because it makes the process of buying ammunition much more difficult and people would be reported if he is buying more than 1,000 rounds, but these laws do not resolve the issue of mass shootings, like in Colorado. Gun advocates need to let their voices be heard and oppose this detrimental legislation. In an interesting side note, besides the shooting in Tucson last year, every public shooting in the U.S. since, at the latest, 1950, where more than three people were killed, have been in places where citizens are not allowed to carry their own firearms.