Reply #41: And that is precisely what the Democratic Party Platform espouses.

[Atypical Liberal]

They told their members that the Democrats will take away their guns. They've been telling that lie for decades.

Except that's not a lie.

Go read the Democratic Party Platform. It advocates re-instating the Assault Weapons Ban.

Go read www.change.gov under Urban Policy. Obama campaigned on re-instating the Assault Weapons Ban.

Now the anti-gun folks like to say, "Aw, shucks, that's just a ban, that's not taking your guns away!"

To which every pro-firearm folks sounds an awful lot like pissing down our backs and telling us it's raining.

The fact is, banning future sales of a particular kind of firearm, even if you grandfather in existing ones, is just as bad as confiscation. Because it basically means that unless you already own one, odds are you never will be able to own one.

Secondly, no one knows the details that would come about from a renewed ban! It's pretty obvious to everyone on both sides of the issue that the last Assault Weapons Ban didn't accomplish anything. All the existing magazines were so numerous that banning the manufacture or import of more of them didn't do much but raise the prices. And manufacturers of assault weapons made the necessary changes in cosmetics or US/Foreign parts count so that they could continue selling basically the same weapons they did before the ban, while still complying with the letter of the law.

I have no doubt that should the political will rise again to try for another AWB, those "mistakes" of the past will not be repeated if they can get away with it.

So this whole idea that just because there has been no outright confiscation of firearms that the NRA's stated mission is a lie is bullshit.