DIANE FEINSTEIN, PATRONESS OF THE GUN SHOP OWNERS

Diane Feinstein made a massive and unexpected contribution to the financial health of gun shop owners across the country today.  Will they be grateful?  Probably not.  But they should be.

She announced that she will introduce a bill in the next Congress (January 2013) to eliminate so called assault weapons.  She helpfully stipulated that this would not be retroactive.  She is thus alerting every shooter in America that it's now or never to get that "Assault Weapon," they crave.  I hope that the folks at Colt, Smith and Wesson, etc. thank her. Perhaps the gun shop owners association should offer her a campaign contributing?  I was thinking about buying an old SKS carbine for varmint control and home defense but now, thanks to her, it will be priced far beyond its value in the mad inflationary rush she just thoughtlessly created.

We had an assault weapons ban in the past that did no good and was allowed to lapse.  Still, when she is grandstanding, any measure, even useless ones will do.  This latest ban  will also have no effect and will pass away just as surely.  Either that or sportsmen and gun makers will find ingenious ways around it.

Now I must say that weapons of the AR15 and AK series are of little interest to me.  They are not precision arms and do not fire particularly effective ammunition. They are not esthetically pleasing to me.  I don't want to look as if I'm going to war when I venture into the woods. I'm not at war with the animals, I'm just hunting them.

What I have noticed of late is the great desire of the public to own so called assault rifles.  I attribute some of this to the fact that as we have been at war for over a decade using variants of the AR series rifle, many veterans gravitate to having their old weapon in hand.  This phenomenon peaks the interest of others and you can, with the right ammunition, dispatch dear, hog, coyote, etc with such weapons.  Look-a-like versions of the AR and AK are available in 22LR, suggesting that the mean military look of these rifles is part of the attraction.  You can even buy a M16 type twelve gauge shotgun!

So in the end, Liberals want to ban firearms that looking like bad guy guns thus generating a frenzy of buying by shooters for these very guns.  Brilliant!