The Center for American Progress is waving a white flag on banning assault weapons in a study out Friday titled “Assault Weapons Revisited.” CAP authors Arkadi Gerney and Chelsea Parsons argue that gun control advocates focus their energies primarily on expanding background checks and firearms licensing laws instead of pushing to prohibit assault weapons like the AR-15 rifle.

via Finally Waving the White Flag on the Assault Weapons Ban – Washington Wire – WSJ.

It is a victory. But it is not nailed down so we can stop worrying about it, just what they think is a tactical retreat to concentrate in other areas they think they have a better chance of winning and then they will come  back for the Evil Black Rifles.

So, what are their next targets? According to a “study” made by the George Soros’ founded Center for American progress, they will be concentrating their efforts on:

• Require background checks for all gun sales
• Require dealers to report multiple sales of long guns
• Equalize interstate sales of long guns and handguns
• Require federal firearms licenses for individuals that manufacture guns using 3D printers
• Bar possession and use of machine guns by individuals under the age of 16
• Require a permit for possession of assault weapons.

We are back to our old friend Universal Background Checks. Without that one, the rest of the list is pretty much wishful thinking and the machine gun prohibition for those under 16 is basically trying to suck on the sensationalism of the recent death of an “instructor” by allowing an 11 year old girl shoot a mini-Uzi and that shows they are not very serious about it since in pretty much died on the news cycle by time of publishing the report.

It is gonna be interesting to see what kind of pressure the Left is gonna put on the democrats. The “study” I mentioned above, Assault Weapons Revisited. Policy Options for Regulating Rifles, Shotguns,and Other Firearms 20 Years After the Passage of the Assault Weapons Ban was created by Arkadi Gerney and Chelsea Parsons, both coming directly from Michael Bloomberg’s Gun Control machinery via mayors for Illegal Guns and New York City criminal justice system. What you will find is the repetition of the old song about the evil black rifles, but now we have a new theme that should worry even those who claim they have no use for ARs, AKs and weapons of the sort: the new target is Long Guns.

By 2011, handguns continued to be the main instrument for killers using firearms, but the share of homicides using long guns had increased: 73 percent of homicides nationwide committed with a firearm involved a handgun, while rifles and shotguns were used in 27 percent of gun murders

And if you are still thinking “well that only applies to gangbangers in urban areas, not we country folk” I have bad news for you:

While handguns are used in 91 percent of gun murders in the largest urban areas—those with 1 million or more residents—long guns are used in a much higher share of murders in other types of communities. In rural areas, nearly half of gun murders—47 percent—involved a gun other than a handgun, typically rifles and shotguns.

Remember when it was said that eventually the hunting rifle would become the dangerous military sniper rifle and needed to be restricted? Here you go.

And to add to the “indignation,” they go straight and tell you that if you are the owner of a long gun, you are a potential cop-killer, always a favorite flavor with the Antis:

In addition to these regional variations, rifles and shotguns are also used against law-enforcement officers with alarming frequency. Of the 535 law-enforcement officers murdered in the line of duty nationwide between 2003 and 2012, 24 percent were killed with rifles or shotguns.

They accepted that targeting one category of rifles did not work so let’s go ahead and include them all as bad cop killing machines and let us not forget that long guns were used to mow down kids too!

In my opinion, this is gonna backfire spectacularly.  Gun Culture 1.0 (hunting & Outdoors) cannot longer say they are not included in the gun bans and that their weapons are for sporting purposes so Government has no reason to come after them. Bloomberg & Co. are making no distinction between the Remington double barrel shotgun bought at sears sometime in the early 20th Century for $35 or the $12,000 Perazzi shotgun to a Mossberg 500 set up for tactical use: They all are bad and must be regulated and eventually destroyed.

The same will be applied to bolt-action rifles: That pre-64 Winchester 70 that your granddaddy used to teach your dad  to hunt and that your Dad taught you with is gonna be as bad as those awful .50 cal for-terrorist-use-only Barret rifles that have no use in the world we live in.

My take they are betting on trying to split both Gun Cultures and advance more than they are trying to convey. If a bill so invasive is introduced in Congress, howls of anger will be heard from Gun Culture 1.0. But then the wheeler-dealers will come back and say that they understand that the podunk country gun to hunt Bambi is not the same as the cheap AK hoisted by an MS-13 gang member, but you have to work with them: How about you register your sporterized Springfield ’03 so we know it is a “good guy gun” and help us get rid of those awful “assault weapons” that are killing people by the millions? Your vote is all we need to keep your gun safe from us. Extortion, plain and simple.

I am wondering if Dick Metcalf has read this report. Maybe he’ll figure out then how come the reaction to his article was not an exaggeration  but a well founded rebuttal from those who can see this kind of things coming.

I am quoting Michael Bane again (I am like a month behind on his podcast, damn it) and say that any attack on any gun is an attack on all guns and we will not let it stand. And that goes for both version of the Gun Culture.

Stand together or hang separately.

PS: I haven’t finished with this report. There is more but that will be addressed in future posts.