The truth is that a number of us have been saying for quite some time that it was only a matter of time until someone went to a gun show, bought a military-like semi-automatic assault weapon with a large capacity magazine, and did enormous damage.
Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.
When you have got military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, they're intended for one purpose. And that is to inflict as much damage on human beings in as short as time as possible.
Now, Florida laws do not regulate assault weapons or large capacity ammunition magazines. Doesn't even require a permit to purchase a gun or register it or be licensed. So if we don't have action on the federal level that would have set off the alert, it will be difficult to interrupt the plans of someone like this who clearly, by the time he went and purchased these weapons.
Semi-automatic rifles, like semi-automatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses.
Antiwar protestors actually sabotaged and caused a huge amount of damage to military installations and military property during the war. I'm related to someone who caused some of that damage. I mean, it was real. I mean, there was a reason. I'm not defending it, but I'm saying it was not because they didn't like the politics of the protesters. The protesters were violent in a lot of cases.
When asked by Glenn Beck if people should be allowed to own semi-automatic weapons, Dr. Benjamin Carson said: “It depends on where you live. I think if you live in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it.
We're not saying 'no guns.' We are saying we want to regulate semi-automatic weapons and the accessories that make them fully automatic because fully automatic weapons are banned.
I know people get upset and go, 'They're going to take away the assault weapon'. But who needs an assault weapon? Like, really, unless you're carrying out an assault.
The people that are proposing banning assault weapons, well, first of all they're already banned. Assault weapon is a fully automatic, those are already banned.
We would get rid of assault weapons. There would not be an assault weapon in the United States, whether it's for a show or someone having it in a collection.
About the only gun law we have in Vermont is during deer season. If you have a semi-automatic, you can't have more than six rounds in it.
I shot a gun one time in New Zealand. An entertainment news program there thought, since the band was called Semi Precious Weapons, they would bring us to a gun range.
This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety ... While we recognize that assault-weapon legislation will not stop all assault-weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals.
We need to digitize gun-sales records, mandate universal background checks, close gun-show loopholes and straw-man purchases, ban high-capacity magazines, and push for a comprehensive assault weapons ban with an extensive buyback system.
The irony is that it was tougher to rent a car from Cerberus when it owned Alamo than to buy a semi-automatic. To rent a car, one had to provide ID, a drivers' license, and get insurance coverage. To buy a gun? Cash and carry, from the back of a station wagon at a gun show. No concerns about downstream liability or risk.
As soon as you define what an assault weapon is, you know, you can't sell a weapon, and here's how we describe it, gun manufacturers just make one adjustment or two, and they say, 'See, this isn't subject to the limitation.'