The best gun control commercial ever made by anyone, ever.

[spin]

77. "No justification for assault weapons" ....

Despite what the media tells you, AR style rifles are popular because they are used for hunting and target shooting up to and including national level competition. Most states limit the magazine size of such semi-automatic firearms to five rounds while hunting game such as deer, but magazines with a capacity of 20 or 30 rounds are commonly used while hunting pests such as feral hog in states including Florida and Texas.

An AR-15 is an excellent choice for home defense in a rural area. Its low recoil makes it a good choice for many individuals who find the strong recoil of a 12 ga shotgun intimidating.

The move to ban such weapons has caused their sale to skyrocket. Even if you disagree with what I just said above this was predictable as was the fact that a new Assault Weapons Ban had little chance of passing in the Democratically controlled Senate let alone the Republican controlled House. The votes were simply never there. The attempt to pass this legislation reminds me of Don Quixote's
quest and his tilting at windmills. If they are indeed "machines of mass murder" as the media claims why would it make good sense to encourage the sale of these weapons when there was such a low chance of banning them?

I should point out that although I have enjoyed target shooting for over 40 years, I have never owned an "assault weapon" such as an AR-15 or any weapon with a standard magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. Most of the regular shooters that I know do own such firearms. I may decide to buy one in the future if I feel that i have a use for one. For example, I might move to a more rural area where I could target shoot and hunt feral hog on my property.

Over the years I have known a number of gun owners and talked to many at gun ranges. The majority are Republicans because they feel our Democratic Party is the party of gun control. They often agree with me on many positions that our party holds but will point out to me that they will NEVER vote for a Democrat. I feel that the fact that often gun owners are single issue voters has led to good Democrats losing a number of elections at the local, state and national level over the years. I also feel that it is quite possible that we will lose seats in the Senate and in the House at the midterm elections due to the effort to pass the AWB. Of course, I could be wrong. Time will tell.

Just as gun owners are one issue voters, I feel this may be true of some liberal Democrats who support implementing strong gun control in incremental steps with the eventual goal of disarming honest citizens or limiting them to sporting weapons such as single shot rifles or double barreled shotguns and all handguns banned. Some Democrats are very willing to endanger all the accomplishments that our party has been able to achieve in recent years to aid their quest to implement draconian gun control. This more "liberal" fraction of our party is very vocal and garners a lot of support from the national media. Of course these Democrats have every right to hold and express their views but, in my opinion, they hurt our party more than help it.

Most Democrats are far more moderate and a good percentage own firearms as I do. I fear our views on gun control are largely ignored by the most liberal faction of our party. It seems that some in our party would use the gun control issue as a litmus test for a Democrat. Opposing the AWB labels a person as a right winger or a conservative. Facts and statistics that do not support strong control are labeled as "NRA talking points" and totally ignored. Our party was once a "big tent" which allowed its members to hold different views. If we wish to preserve our big tent which admittedly can sometimes look like a circus tent, we have to accept that a good Democrat from California or Illinois may hold different views on some issue than one from Montana or Texas.

Possibly the best President that has led our nation during my lifetime was Bill Clinton. I feel he gave our party some wise advise but was largely ignored.

Bill Clinton Warns Democrats Against Overreaching On Gun Debate
DOUG MATACONIS · SUNDAY, JANUARY 20, 2013

If there’s any Democrat in the United States who has experience in taking on America’s gun owners and the Second Amendment, it’s Bill Clinton. Mere weeks before the 1994 Presidential Election, the United States Congress passed, and Clinton signed, a controversial Assault Weapons Ban. Indeed, while the conventional wisdom continues to hold that the primary motivation behind the massive Republican victories in the 1994 Congressional Elections was due in large part to the President’s failed effort at health care reform, many political observers have contended for years that it was the Administration’s push on the Assault Weapons Ban, and the political backlash that it unleashed from the National Rifle Association and other groups, that played the most significant role in the tidal wave that handed control of both Houses of Congress to the Republican Party. Given that, it’s significant that President Clinton is now warning his fellow Democrats about overplaying their hand in the upcoming debate about gun control:

Former President Bill Clinton warned a group of top Democratic donors at a private Saturday meeting not to underestimate the passions that gun control stirs among many Americans.
“Do not patronize the passionate supporters of your opponents by looking down your nose at them,” Clinton said.

“Alot of these people live in a world very different from the world lived in by the people proposing these things,” Clinton said. “I know because I come from this world.”

***snip***

And Clinton said that passing the 1994 federal assault weapons ban “devastated” more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 1994 midterms — and cost then-Speaker of the House Tom Foley (D-Wash.) his job and his seat in Congress.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/bill-clinton-warns-democrats-against-overreaching-on-gun-debate/