Kerry - Assault Weapons Ban Part Of War On Terror

The Saturday Times tells me that John Kerry has linked the assault weapons ban to the war on terror:

ALLENTOWN, Pa., Sept. 10 - Senator John Kerry said on Friday that the refusal of Republican Congressional leaders to consider extending the assault-weapons ban showed that the president and his party were not serious about fighting terrorism.

...Both in St. Louis and at a sunset rally of 10,000 people here, Mr. Kerry accused Mr. Bush of "trying to scare Americans" by focusing his campaign on terrorism, and cited reports showing that Al Qaeda manuals captured in Afghanistan urged members to go to the United States to procure high-powered guns.

"If you're going to make America safe and you mean what you say about fighting the war on terror," Mr. Kerry said at the fairgrounds here, "you've got to stand up for homeland security, you've got to stand up for police officers and keep those weapons off the streets."

Matt Yglesias, who places probity past partisanship, deals with this.

MORE: I feel like the Times is stretching a bit here - where is the text of the speech? No "Allentown" or "St. Louis" for Sept. 10 at the website. Ahh, here is a press release with the terrorist linkage as described:

...“Four years ago, George Bush said he’d stand with and protect America’s police officers by extending the assault weapons ban – which keeps the most dangerous assault weapons off our streets. The same weapons that America’s police officers want off our streets, not just to fight ordinary crime but to take on terrorists. In fact, an al Qaeda training manual recovered in Afghanistan included a chapter urging terrorists to get assault weapons in the United States. Why is George Bush making the job of the terrorists easier and making the job for America’s police officers harder?

UPDATE: Cats and dogs sleeping together.

Comments

[Kathleen A]

I heard that the other day and laughed. How does he think criminals are able to buy weapons that are banned? They don't go to Bob's Gun Shop. What an idiot. Maybe we should ban the sale of pepper spray too. Just to be safe.

[Thomas J. Jackson]

Yes ban all guns so that when terrorists take a school they can do as they please without fearing an armed citizenry. We all know the government will protect you, just as they did in Russia.

[Jim Glass]

Yes, as the Romans used to say...

"Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultas habebunt."

(When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults.)

Of course, on occassion they also used to say...

"Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabris, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam."

(I have a catapult. Give me all of your money or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.)

The more things change...

[Dacotti]

So, were they supposed to by powerfull firearms or assault weapons? High-power firearms are big-game rifles. Assault rifles use essentially pistol calibre rounds specifically so someone who isn't built like Rambo can shoot them on full auto without doing a back flip. The other reason that Kerry couldn't hunt deer with an Uzi or an AK is that they are not powerfull enough to kill a deer beyond about 50 feet. (The idea is to kill them and eat them; not just piss them off.)

Of course, actual assault weapons also have full auto mode (that's a machine gun for you liberals), which none of the guns outlawed by the so-called assault weapon ban could do anyway; that was already illegal since 1939. Now factor in the fact that these kind of weapons were only used in one tenth of a percent of firearm-related crimes before the ban (except of course on TV), and that other countries and even US cities that have the most restrictive gun bans end up with a huge spike in gun crime, and the assault weapons ban is such a useless piece of legislation that I'm surprised that Kerry didn't author it himself. But, who am I kidding? That would have required that he take a stand on something!

[John Thacker]

Jim Glass is a proud owner of Lingua Latina Occasionibus Omnibus, I see. Amusing book.

[Matt]

Why would terrorists come to the U.S. to buy assault rifles when they can go to anywhere in the Middle East, Africa, S. America, etc. and get their hands on (very easily) some of the millions of AK-47s that the Soviets flooded the world market with back in the '60's and '70's

[Assault Weapons]

I sent the following to a number of media as well as the Kerry Campaign. No one was interested so I'll put it out there for everyone to make up their own minds:
(BTW, I explain at the bottom why I'm using a blind email address)

A possible connection between
George W. Bush and
an assault weapons manufacturer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I tried three years ago to get someone interested in this “coincidence” but, regrettably, 9/11 happened at the same time. The WSJ writer who had an interest
told me “any Bush bashing has been put on the back burner”. I had a couple conversations/emails with a writer from the Los Angeles Times (Washington Bureau)
but he never got back to me after 9/11.

Here are the facts as best as I have been able to research them…

George W. Bush was on the Board of Directors of a Colorado mining concern called Lucky Chance Mining (He violated SEC rules by filing late documents).
(George H.W. Bush was on the Board of Barrick Gold Mining)

On that same Board was a person named Daniel Lezak. At that time, Lezak was the President, later to become the CFO, of a company called Madera International out of Florida (Jeb Bush country).

Now, Madera is a lumber/environmental company but only because Madera was specifically named as one of the 10 companies specifically banned by the Reagan Assault Weapons Act.

It will now be interesting to see if Madera restarts itself as a gun manufacturer.

Who is Lezak? If you look further you will find that Lezak was a partner with “the most fined person by the SEC”. I don’t recall “the most fined” person’s name but the WSJ did a story about two years ago tying these two together (I believe the "most fined" located in Santa Monica, CA). Remember this was three years ago I did the research so that statistic of "most fined" might now be passed by Enron, WorldCom or Kenneth Lay.

I stumbled across all this when I was looking into Daniel S. Lezak and his current partner, Ely Mandel. These two are supposedly “turn around experts”.
In my opinion, they are nothing but crooks. They go into a bankrupt or about-to-go-bankrupt company, become trustees, charge all their expenses against that company, run it into the ground, close out the bankruptcy and collect a lot of fees.

Mandel has a lifetime ban from the SEC imposed some 10 years ago yet he did do stocks after that under an alias. Lezak is still fighting numerous problems with the SEC. Search for Madera at SEC.gov
(http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/txt-srch-sec?text=madera).
Forty citations show up for Madera and Lezak alone.

Why am I hiding behind an anonymous email? Mandel is a lawyer. He proudly boasts that he can file lawsuits against anyone “because it doesn’t cost him anything except filing fees”. He once threatened if I said anything to anyone, he would tie me up in court for the rest of my life. As much as I’d like to fight
this guy, I don’t have the financial means. I often said, “if you shake hands with Mandel, count your fingers” and "if their (Lezak/Mandel) lips are moving, they are lying”.

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