Democrats Try To List Guns As 'Weapons of Mass Destruction"
Latest Democrat Extremism: Guns Are Weapons of Mass Destruction
Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, April 9, 2003
Defenders of the Second Amendment are on the lookout for a new Democrat campaign, already attempted in one state, to brand handguns as “weapons of mass destruction.”
Washington Gov. Gary Locke, picked by the Democrats to give their response President Bush’s State of the Union address just a couple of months ago, urged his state's Legislature to create six terror-related crimes that would bring guns under the legal definition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Though the legislation offered by the governor and Attorney General Christine Gregoire did not mention specific weapons, Join Together Online, an anti-gun group, reported the legislation defined a weapon of mass destruction as a “device, object, or substance that a person intends to use to cause multiple human deaths.”
Here is how the Seattle Times on March 15 led its story on how the Legislature dealt with the issue: “An anti-terrorism bill has spurred a debate among lawmakers: Is a gun a weapon of mass destruction?”
In response to the governor, several Democrat lawmakers crafted House Bill 1210 to include firearms as weapons of mass destruction.
The state legislators cited last October’s sniper attacks in the District of Columbia area as their foot in the door to try to deprive law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights. The snipers had ties to the Seattle area.
'I Tried to Push the Envelope'
“I tried to push the envelope on this bill to see if it would cover those guys if they had chosen to take out the rest of their aggression in Washington,” said Democrat state Rep. Jeannie Darneille. “And the answer, quite frankly, was no.”
Gun rights groups and Connecticut gun maker Colt Manufacturing said that defining firearms as weapons of mass destruction “is an attempt to regulate gun control” and would permit any gun to be considered a weapon of mass destruction.
To those who disingenuously argued that guns were not so defined in the legislation, Joe Waldron, a lobbyist for Gun Owner’s Action League and other gun rights groups, said it met “everybody else’s definition other than those in Olympia.”
According to an AP dispatch March 19, the Washington House of Representatives passed the anti-terrorism bill, but only after the section listing firearms as weapons of mass destruction was dropped. That change resulted from the insistence of more conservative lawmakers. Though it was a close call, some semblance of rationality ultimately prevailed.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the federal government asked each state to enact some kind of anti-terrorism legislation. Of course, defining handguns as weapons of mass destruction was not something the Bush administration had in mind.
The recent events in the Evergreen State demonstrate the necessity of vigilance to make certain that thinly disguised gun control (by whatever name) does not spread to other state Capitols or to the U.S. Congress.
From 'Scoop' Jackson to 'Osama Mama' Murray
The stunt in Olympia also illustrates what has happened in Washington's state Democrat party, which decades ago gave the nation the level-headed wisdom of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a U.S. senator for nearly 30 years.
By contrast, today’s Democrat party in that state gives us, in addition to leaders who try to exploit the war on terrorism to sabotage the Second Amendment, the likes of: Saddam pal Rep. "Baghdad" Jim McDermott, former Internet tycoon Sen. Maria "Can't Pay" Cantwell, and Sen. Patty “Osama Mama” Murray, who lied that the world’s leading terrorist was a great benefactor who did more for Afghanistanis than the United States did.
After Al Gore lost the last presidential election despite a strong economy and all the advantages of White House incumbency, some party moderates noted that his anti-gun extremism cost him such states as Tennessee, Arkansas and West Virginia. To stop losing elections, the party must mute its anti-choice extremism, the moderates cautioned.
It appears that leftist Democrats are once again eager to run roughshod over the centrists, no matter what the cost.
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