If you, like me, were dismayed about Obama's support for the Assault Weapons Ban, and feared an NRA-driven election loss, you might find this interesting.
All references to the Assault Weapons Ban have disappeared from Obama's site, change.gov.
Current site:
http://change.gov/...
Google cache:
http://74.125.95.104/...
Deleted verbiage:
They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.
Now, I know that there was a lot of fighting going on internally in Democratic blogs, as pro-gun Democrats debated what to do with respect to Obama's support for the assault weapons ban and other anti-gun policies. We knew that even Bill Clinton himself said that things like the AWB have caused Democrats to lose Congress in 1996. We knew, like Bill Clinton said in 2004, that Obama's gun control policies might cause either a close win or a close loss because of on-the-fence gun owning independents and conservative blue-collar Democrats.
Obviously, enough of these people made the right decision and voted Obama (I did as well, despite owning many "assault weapons"). We knew that Obama would likely have a lot of other things on his plate to deal with, and probably wouldn't want to spend any political capital on resurrecting failed, divisive policy like an assault weapons ban.
We already know several things about assault weapons: they are simply semi-auto guns that happen to look like military rifles, they aren't used in crimes in any appreciable way, that they are much less powerful than single-shot bolt-action hunting rifles, the previous assault weapons ban failed to reduce crime in any real way, there are several tens of millions out there, that it is a divisive issue among Democrats, many of whom own guns that would fall under a future ban.
So, some talking points for my fellow Dems, on why this should stay off Obama's site and out of the political dialogue:
Assault weapon crimes are virtually nonexistent
According to the BATFE manufacturer database, semi-auto rifles with pistol grips that can take detachable magazines are the #1 selling rifle type in America. Yet all rifles combined (including hunting rifles) are only used in 3% of murders nationwide, and it's estimated that military-style semi-auto rifles "assault weapons" are used in less than 2% of murders (source: Kleck). Additionally, only 0.18% of violent crime offences include the use of an assault weapon. The number one long gun used is the shotgun, and the number one handgun is the .38 revolver (source: BATFE gun trace data).
Going after an assault weapons ban would squander Obama's political capital
Obama will enter office with a decisive electoral vote victory. Pushing for new gun control laws like the assault weapons ban will disillusion Obama's base ("Why aren't you focusing on the economy like we elected you to do?"), turn off independents ("Hey we didn't elect you to go after our guns! Why aren't you ending the Iraq War like we elected you to do?!?"), and strengthen the neocons ("See, we TOLD YOU SO!").
We need to come together as a country to fix the economy and other problems, not fight over this
Assault weapons bans for most Dems fall somewhere on the ninth page of our respective priorities. Obama himself didn't talk about them much during the elections, despite it being in the DNC platform. Despite a Field & Stream interview in which he indicated support for it, it really reinforced the view that he didn't consider it a priority. We need to unite to solve our other problems.
The assault weapons ban is a politically dead policy and shouldn't come back
Besides being divisive, the political environment has changed. The AWB renewal failed in 2004 (and probably caused a Kerry loss too), and a resubmittal in 2007 and 2008 also failed to even get out of committee. More and more Dems with an A rating from the NRA are getting elected to both houses of Congress, and they won't support an AWB because they remember 1996 and want to keep their seats. Additionally, gun owning citizens are buying assault weapons by the hundreds of thousands in just the last week in anticipation of a future ban - so the threat of a ban actually increases the number of assault weapons in circulation.
We should focus on gun safety and enforcing existing law instead of gun bans
Given that Heller vs. DC affirmed that bans on classes of guns won't fly, it's obvious that we should be focusing on gun safety and enforcing existing laws instead. One potential federal law could be that all purchases of gun safes and gun locks are now tax-free. I'm sure you can come up with others.
Assault weapons bans might cause a repeat of 1996 in 2010
Incumbent parties always tend to lose seats in Congress anyway, but 1996 was a comparative rout of the Democratic bloc from Congress. Obama staying neutral on a new AWB would prevent this from happening, or at least mitigate the damage.
Conclusion
All of us need to remain neutral on new gun control laws, and focus on enforcing existing laws. We need to unite to solve our current set of problems.
Please go to change.gov and tell Obama to keep the assault weapons ban and other divisive gun control laws off the table, so we can unite the country and solve our present problems.
References
The Truth About Assault Weapons (video)
Kopel, David. Rational Basis Analysis of "Assault Weapon" Prohibition