The media has been, and continues to be, the front-running shills of the anti-gun movement. Our nation's so-called "journalists" provide sensationalized, in-depth coverage of any violent crime involving a firearm while simultaneously ignoring virtually every self-defense involving a firearm -- even though armed defense occurs far more often. Our trusted "journalists" do feature stories on the dangers and evils of firearms often citing disproven statements as fact and again ignoring the number of armed defense cases. The estimated number of self-defense cases with a firearm hovers around 2.5 million per year. Often the gun is never fired and no blood is shed. Unfortunately, this good news about guns flies in the face of the anti-gun agenda of the mainstream press.

The media has been largely successful in their gun-ban propaganda campaign. Not only do we have more than 10,000 gun laws on the books, but gun owners are routinely demonized as criminals and racists. But, that's not enough. The Sacramento Bee published an article on July 7, 2009 in what amounts to the beginning of a campaign to ban all semi-automatic rifles in California.

The latest attempt surrounds a misnomer known as "assault weapons." Before we go any further, we must expose the lie surrounding these mis-named firearms.

A so-called "assault weapon" is not a machine gun. It is not a firearm that "sprays bullets" nor was it developed solely for the purpose of "hunting and killing people." The so-called "assault weapon" is a term invented by anti-gunners, specifically Josh Sugarmann, founder and Executive Director of the anti-gun organization, Violence Policy Center. In Sugarmann's March 1989 paper titled "Assault Weapon: Analysis, New Research and Legislation," Sugarmann recommends exploiting:

"...the public's confusion over fully-automatic
machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons
[sic] -- anything that looks like a machine gun
is assumed to be a machine gun..."

In 1989, the California legislature championed a bill that would ban semi-automatic rifles. Since the government knew that they would never get away with banning ALL guns at one time, a strategy was devised to ban as many rifles as possible. Hence the term, "assault weapon" was invented. Guns that fell under the evil moniker were different from other rifles in appearance only. The rifles functioned in exactly the same way as those that remained legal. (Click here for a video demonstration that shows the difference between legal and banned rifles in California).

The military uses the term, "assault RIFLE" in reference to fully automatic machine guns. The anti-gun crowd, by creating the very similar term, "assault WEAPON," began its campaign to confuse the public. The media and anti-gun political groups did their part to confuse the public by portraying ordinary rifles as machine guns, even though they are not. The campaign worked and many semi-automatic rifles remain banned to this day.

Firearm manufacturers re-tooled and the made necessary adjustments to continue to legally sell firearms in California. Keep in mind that the banned firearms are ordinary rifles that have been commercially available since 1896.

The Sacramento Bee has launched the second part of the attempt to ban ALL firearms in its July 7th article. The media is having a apparent revelation about the similarities between legal and banned rifles. Rather than highlight the stupidity of the law, the media is calling it a "loophole." This would suggest that gun manufacturers are somehow getting away with something or doing an end-run around the law. In reality, this is the next step in deceiving Californians into accepting a total ban on semi-automatic rifles.

The fact that there is a direct link between unarmed citizens and high crime is of no consequence to the anti-gun Democrat party, the anti-gun media, and the anti-gun nuts who fuel this type of legislation. Your safety and your liberty are the real target of their actions.

Unfortunately, California voters have a strong track record of being influenced by feel-good and identity politics -- even though these are the very politicians who strip their constituents of their rights. California's poor voting choices are finally beginning to show as the state falls apart at the seams. Still, that is no reason to expect voters to suddenly take a sober interest in protecting and reinstating their rights. Expect more of the same in California as the state marches toward a total ban on semi-automatic firearms.

Jennifer Freeman is Executive Director and co-founder of Liberty Belles, a grass-roots organization dedicated to restoring and preserving the Second Amendment.
http://www.libertybelles.org
jennifer@libertybelles.org