Today the United States of America becomes a much deadliercountry.
After ten years of safer ways the federal assault weapons banexpires today, leaving behind a record of safety and enteringAmerica into an uncertain world of Uzis, Kalashnikovs andTEC-9s.
That's right: as of tomorrow, your right to bear arms includesan AK-47.
For some, it may be comforting to know that citizens will beable to protect themselves with a gas-operated, 7.62 millimeter,800 meter sighting range rifle.
However, history has told us that it may not be the brightestidea.
The ban went into effect in 1994 in the fallout of threehorrendous California mass shootings. Backed by former PresidentsGerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, it was written toexpire exactly 10 years from signing if Congress did not renew itprior to that time.
That time is today, and Congress has not made their move.
President Bush never pushed them for it, either.
In a reelection year when every vote counts and the mudslingingstarts early, Bush is attempting to walk the line in hopes ofpleasing all despite his prior promises.
According to a CNN.com archived story, in May of 2003 then WhiteHouse Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, "The president said inthe 2000 campaign that he supported the assault weapons ban becausehe thought it was reasonable." He added, "He stated then he wouldsupport the reauthorization of it, and he states that againtoday."
Yet, Bush never really spoke publicly of the ban, and today itsexistence will become nothing more than a record in the historybooks.
What those books show, by the way, is remarkable evidencesupporting the ban's place in the US.
According to a National Institute for Justice survey released bythe Department of Justice in 1999, there was a "20 percent declinein the criminal use of guns banned by the 1994 Crime Act." Thestudy also said that the ban may have had a factor in decreasingthe gun murder rate and murders of law enforcement officers bythose with assault weapons.
Of course those numbers would fall because of the very fact thatthere were less weapons circulating, but it does not negate thefact that it decreased the death count.
It just serves as a reason for why these weapons should be outof the general public's hands. The banned weapons are not small byany stretch of the imagination. They are meant to kill ... in massquantities.
The reasoning behind circulating in volume such weapons arebeyond us, especially in this day and age of "elevated" terrorstatuses and random attacks.
Some may argue personal protection, but that AK-47 in yourcloset can just as easily get turned around on you, your loved onesand anyone else in the vicinity.
And is that really that comforting of a thought?
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