Originally posted by Skydancer
"I intend to offer at least one amendment, which would put dangerous and destructive .50 caliber military sniper rifles in the same category as weapons such as machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.
These extremely powerful sniper rifles are powerful enough to bring down airplanes and can fire a bullet a mile and penetrate a brick wall. They are for sale virtually anywhere, even at gun shows with no background checks. If this bill passes, these potential terrorist weapons would continue to be for sale with virtual blanket liability protection.”
Sounds pretty sensible to me! 
Skydancer,
DiFi has never seen a firearm (except for the one's carried by her bodyguards) that she liked, and the above is a lie. I have purchased firearms in 3 different states and in all of them I had to have proof of residence, a drivers license, and go through a background check. In two I've also had to have Sheriff's permission and go through a "waiting period." No Barrett has ever been used in a criminal act, and terrorists have plenty of illegal channels through which to obtain illegally imported
automatic weapons which are far more useful to them. I've fired the Barrett, it's huge, has a whale of a kick, and as Virgil mentioned, takes a lot of getting used to.
What Ms. Feinstein is doing, is exactly the same methodology she followed with the thankfully now defunct "assault weapons ban." Starting with a big ugly gun she knows she can gin-up fear over, associating it with a popular cause (i.e. anti-terrorism), playing to public ignorance in the cities, suburbs, and the media regarding guns, gun purchasing, gun crime, and terrorist methodology. The resulting bill has nothing to do with preventing terrorism, and everything to do with DiFi's desire to end legal private firearms ownership in the USA.
Imagine if you will a politician in the UK who hated motorbikes, thought they were a danger to the public and desperately wanted to ban them. Imagine him going after the biggest, meanest, most barely street-legal superbike on the market. He would tell the public how this bike could be used by criminals and terrorists to easily outpace police, how it was really a dangerous "racing bike" how anyone could buy one online without any serious checks. How they were totally unnecessary to the general public and had no "legitimate transport use" and looked threatening. Then he would press for a ban on all bikes "in that category" That's exactly the methodology employed here.
Now personally I could care less about motorbikes, I don't own one, I don't need one, why should you? They are dangerous! So the "Superbike ban" sounds sensible to me. Let's pass it. People who insist on having these two wheeled menaces can still buy a moped or a scooter, and they'll get you around.
There is no crisis with the Barrett that is being responded to, the real problem is DiFi doesn't like guns and knows it plays well to her crunchy constituency.
- SEAGOON
