#27

"I don't believe in people owning guns, only the police and the
military.  I'm going to do everything I can to disarm this state."

Michael Dukakis, Gov. of Mass, summer of  '87.

Well, this politician is keeping his word.  Here are details of his
proposed AR ban, from today's _Boston Globe_, which "obtained" a copy
of the draft bill.  And yes, the police and military are exempted.  My
comments/opinions are in [].

First thing I should say, the classic "unnamed source" said "given the
buying frenzy" of semi-autos, Dukakis may ask that the bill be adopted
as emergency legislation, banning sales of the enumerated guns
immediately.  The source said a provision could be added to prohibit
anyone from keeping one of the guns that was bought after the governer
filed the legislation.  [Great.  First the gun grabbers create a run
on AR's with their threats, and now they use that as an excuse to ram
through legislation with a minimum of public debate.]

The enumerated weapons are [this is word for word from the Globe, with
the obvious errors verbatim]:

        Russian-made Avtomat Kalashnikov
        Israeli-made Uzi
        British-made Ingram MAC M11
        Italian-made Beretta AR 70
        Finnish-made FN-FAL and FN-FNC
        German-made Steyer AUG
        American-made AR-15

[About the only variety of gun they've left out (beside hunting
rifles) is the M14, which is in the "non-vicious" AR category.  But
look below at the limits on magazine size.]

"Also banned would be: two shotguns with revolving cylinders, the
Street Sweeper and Striker 12 ... and [that] are used mostly by police
in South Africa, where they are made."  [Notice the technique of
demonization, linking these guns to the South African police.]"

And any semi-auto shotgun with "a fixed magazine or cylinder exceeding
six rounds."

[And here is the inevitable catch-all provision:]  'Any semiautomatic
rifle equipped with a "large capacity" magazine or belt, - meaning 10
or more rounds.'  [Not having looked at the bill, I wonder if the
Globe's use of the word equipped is correct....]

[And here we have the perversity that Mass is justly famous for:] "If
the bill is passed, anyone who owns such gun swould have 60 days to
register them,

                but could never fire them again."

                              [*!*]

[Notice how they are cleverly trying to avoid the Takings Clause; The
Mass. state government will be paying for the deficits that Dukakis
swept under the rug during his presidential campaign for a few years,
so they simply can't afford to pay for confiscation.  The state courts
have held that rent control is a taking, so this is a real concern.
Also, I note the Globe article contains a contradiction: this section
implies people can keep their guns if they never fire them; a section
below says possession is banned on pain of a minimum of 3 years in
jail.]

[And here we demonstrate why Councils and Commissioners of Public
Saftey are such a popular concept here.  No doubt we'll soon be seeing
a Committee discoursing on the subject...:]  "Hunters and sport
shooters would be allowed to carry the shotguns and an unlimited
amount of magazines containing five or fewer rounds.  However, the
law would make it unlawful to carry more than one ammunition magazine
containing between six and 10 rounds, except at "regulated shooting"
at a gun club or a place designated by a local chief of police.

Anyone in possession of the (so far) seven banned rifles, as well as
two shotguns, would face a minimum mandatory prison sentence of three
years.

The Bartley-Fox mandatory one year in jail for carrying a gun would be
increased to two years if it is semi-automatic.

In the area of crime control, they are proposing a minimum mandatory 5
years for using a firearm in the commission of a felony, 10 years if
it's an AR.  (Opinion: This is not going to work due to the lack of
prison space.)

[And now for comments by various "sources."  It seems that the only
person in the ENTIRE state willing to go on the record is Michael D. Yacino,
a founder and the executive director of the Gun Owners Action League,
which was created to defeat the handgun confiscation initiative that
did not even carry Cambridge.  He was one of the three people to whom Dukakis
told the famous quote at the beginning of this messages.  Yacino has
the vast majority of the quotes in the article, all of which are
related below, Yacino's first, and then the anti-gun quotes.]

'Yacino called the prison terms provided in in the bill "fluff" aimed
at diverting attention form "the real issue."

"The real issue is Dukakis is chasing people who are not criminals."

"A knee-jerk reaction to a problem that's not there."

"This guy Dukakis is unbelievable.  Lets stop trying to create new
criminals out of people who are law abiding.  The people this will
affect are already properly licensed and registered.  Criminals don't
get licenses."

Yacino said the decision last week by Colt Industries Inc. to
voluntarily suspend production of the AR-15, the only domestic product
considered competitive with the imports, dulls the effect of the
proposed of that gun.  And he acknowledged that the shotguns that
Dukakis wants banned are rare here.  But Yacino said he opposes any
ban of guns on principle.

"The problem is if they ban the gun they get across the notion that the
gun is the problem, and that's not so.  People who use those guns in
criminal acts are the problems, and the system is not addressing them.

The only anti-gun comments were from your classic "unnamed sources",
saying things like "our police are now being outgunned." (Lie: even
the sponsor of a complete detachable magazine semi-auto (rifle and
pistol) ban in Boston admits "there is no problem yet...." (Remembered
from a comment by Councilman Scondras on the radio.)) "The gun lobby
has pulled the wool over the eyes of people, saying liberties are
being taken away." We've got to make a statement that, yes, we need
national legislation, but you have to do this at the state level.  If
we don't take a stand here, we're going to lose control.  It's a
watershed area." (I do have to agree with those two last sentences....
And I think they are illuminating.)

Public safety officials believe there are enough exemptions to
accommodate hunters and sport shooters.  [Ha.  Looks like the M14
service rifle shooters are in trouble.]

And the Globe also said the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police, State
Police and the Massachusetts Police Association, which comprise most
of the rank and file of the state's law enforcement community, are
backing the bill and are expected to lobby for it.


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