Smith & Wesson gives $500,000 to fight Massachusetts assault rifle ban

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Smith & Wesson gives $500,000 to fight Massachusetts assault rifle ban

The gun manufacturer donated to the US’s largest gun industry
trade body in response to state’s attorney general’s ban on sale
of assault rifles to civilians

Rupert Neate in New York
Thursday 4 August 2016 20.11 BST

Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson has donated $500,000 to the US’s largest gun industry trade body to help its fightback against the Massachusetts attorney general’s ban on the sale of assault rifles to civilians.

Smith & Wesson, whose shares this week hit a record high on the back of increasing demand for its assault rifles and other guns, said it had donated the money to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s (NSSF) battle against “arbitrary government action that threatens to turn lawful gun owners and dealers into criminals”.

Maura Healey, the Massachuetts attorney general, last month moved to close a loophole that allowed the sale of assault rifles, which are illegal under the state’s assault weapons ban, after the firearms manufacturers had been given what Healey regards as “small tweaks”.

Healey said that following the horrific atrocity in Orlando, in which 49 people were killed and 53 injured at the hands of an attacker using an AR15-style rifle and a handgun, the state would no longer let gun manufacturers “exploit our laws”.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/04/smith-wesson-massachusetts-assault-rifles-ban-contribution

[jmg257]

1. Still a weird story....

"Healey said gun companies have been getting around the law by selling state-compliant “copycat versions of their assault weapons” with “small tweaks that do nothing to limit the lethalness of the weapon”.

Sounds like they need a differently written law.

Which she'll figure out as soon as Sig tweaks the MCX and sells it in Mass. because it ISN'T on the AW list in the original law and so would be legal.

[DonP]

5. Now there's an oxymoron for you

They're getting around the law ... by complying with it.

That's what happens when you're in a big rush to pass a law for the optics and fund raising benefit of it, rather than an actual effect.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

6. Yuri Orlov: "Where there's a will, there's a weapon."

Maybe it's time to ignore the ones who can't or won't understand.

[DonP]

8. I'm way past ignoring them ...

... and already moved on well into ridicule.

They are at best "keyboard kommandos", paper tigers, or choose your own descriptive and derogatory term. After over a decade on DU, and out in the real world, I haven't found any who ever actually do anything, just whine and bluster online.

Their "protests" generally number in low single digits. None of them actually supports the "GrabNutz" organizations they all claim they are behind with their own money. Just waitin' for Nanny Bloomberg to write the checks for them.

Their major safe haven here has 1 full time rude poster that has to reply to his own posts and maybe 2 or 3 bobblehead visitors, nodding mindlessly. One may slink over here once a month make an occasional post and run back to brag about how he told us off and shut us up. As if a "post and run" is some kind of major gun control victory?

Not too bright and not much of a threat to our rights, but ... still a good source of humor.

[sarisataka]

7. Only in the world of Control

Is complying with a law "getting around the law."

I got around the law on my way home from work today. I'm sure somebody wanted me to drive at 40 mph but I followed those speed limit signs and did 55. I found the speed limit loophole.

[aikoaiko]

13. I think the legal meaning of "copy" and "duplicate" is the problem.

I remember reading the 1994 AWB which had the same language about banning copies and duplicates of banned firearms, but seeing lots of AWB compliant rifles for sale.

I suspect copy and duplicate has a specific legal means that allows small changes (even cosmetic changes) to qualify as a non-copy or non-duplicate, but I have not research the law on this point. Its hard to imagine the BATFE dropped the ball on all those AWB compliant firearms out there if the legal meaning of copy or duplicate was looser than exact copy or exact duplicate.

And that may be why the MA AG is trying to do an end run.

[ManiacJoe]

2. This is what happens when the clueless people write laws....

[Duckhunter935]

3. Yep, lol

[Nuclear Unicorn]

9. A small point of order -- This isn't a law this is a unilateral decree by the State Attorney General

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

10. Pardon my interruption but I infer that...

...the ManiacJoe was suggesting that the original law being "reinterpreted" by the AG's decree was (at least in part) defective and that the blame for the defect(s) is attributable to the authors degree of unfamiliarity with the target of the legislation.

This a prime peeve of mine. There are numerous instances of folks campaigning for laws who have no understanding of the details involved in the implementation of their ideas. I'm mostly okay with the idea of "banning" certain activities such as murder, rape, robbery... However, I'm less friendly toward bans on individual objects and substances. Banning guns, drugs or email servers will be really difficult and, IMNSHO, pointless.

How can anyone be surprised that a manufacturer would read the law and then remove the features named as problems from their products? How can anyone think an AG has the authority to interpret the law? That's for the courts to decide.

Federal and state constitutions are written to regulate the various branches, to articulate their roles and authorities and to limit those authorities to protect the people. State and federal laws need to comply with those constitutions and be concise and deterministic.

Capricious decrees from over zealous executives need to go.

[beevul]

14. And 'overly creative' interpretation is allowed. N/T

[benEzra]

4. She didn't ban "assault rifles". She banned rifles that *aren't* assault weapons

under Massachusetts law, in that they are neither banned by name, nor are *copies* or *duplicates* of guns banned by name, nor meet the features-list criteria used to define an "assault weapon". Instead, she unilaterally redefined "copies or duplicates of" to mean "somewhat similar to" or "shares a couple of parts with", contrary to 18 years of precedent, and turning hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents into criminals overnight.

Banning modern-looking rifles is particularly ludicrous because between 2007 and 2014, Massachusetts had 1,294 murders in the state. All rifles combined accounted for ]b]seven of them. That is fewer than one per year, on average, for all lever-action, bolt-action, pump-action, and autoloading rifles combined.

Tell me again how gun control fundamentalists "don't want to ban guns, just keep them out of the wrong hands." That's BS. Even the Brady Campaign is distancing themselves from this crap.

[Eleanors38]

11. Let's talk about stopping gun proliferation, which equals ...proliferation.

Smith & Wesson oughta hire her as a consultant to stop all those "AR-style rifles....used in Orlando."

[virginia mountainman]

12. Glad they are putting that money to good use..nt

[DonP]

15. Waiting for the "Go Fund Me" page from the control folks ... any minute now ...

Certainly, with so many people supporting their version of gun control, they should have no problem matching or exceeding the S&W contributions, even without racist Bloomberg's money, right?