6 Ways Bill Clinton Is Lying About His Assault Weapons ‘Ban’
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
It comes as no surprise that on Aug. 9 Time magazine published former president Bill Clinton’s op-ed calling for Congress to “reinstate” his so-called “ban” on so-called “assault weapons.” For decades, Time has been one of the media’s most extreme opponents of the right to keep and bear arms.
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In his new op-ed in Time, “Reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban Now,” Clinton points out that mass shootings were less frequent during the 10 years his “ban” was in effect, 1994-2004. But there are six important things he doesn’t point out, and four of them are reasons why, in this instance, the word “ban” needs to be surrounded by quotation marks.
First, Clinton’s “ban” did not confiscate existing “assault weapons.” It instead exempted the many hundreds of thousands of “assault weapons” that Americans already owned.
Second, while Clinton’s “ban” was in effect, the number of firearms that anti-gunners thought were going to be banned from manufacture instead increased.
Third, while Clinton’s “ban” also targeted so-called “large” ammunition magazines—anti-gunners’ term for standard-equipment magazines holding more than 10 rounds, including those for handguns—it did not order their confiscation. Magazines Americans already owned were exempted.
Fourth, while Clinton’s “ban” prohibited the domestic manufacture of those magazines, it allowed their importation. Therefore, the number of the magazines increased by the millions. To illustrate how many magazines Americans buy, when California’s magazine ban was temporarily lifted by a federal court ruling in Duncan v. Beccera last year, cargo jets filled with magazines quickly flew to California, where their contents were offloaded and transported to vendors throughout the state.
Fifth, Democrats are not interested in “reinstating” Clinton’s “ban.” The “assault weapon” legislation that Democrats have been pushing for the last 15 years would ban the manufacture of rifles like the AR-15 and a whole lot of other firearms regardless of how many external attachments they have.
Sixth, Joe Biden and some of the other Democrats running for president this year have said they support going even further: a law requiring government confiscation of so-called “assault weapons,” which now number well more than 10 million in the United States.
Twenty years ago, Clinton was held in contempt of court by a federal judge because, the judge said, Clinton gave “false, misleading and evasive answers that were designed to obstruct the judicial process.” Today, the same habitually dishonest Clinton is mischaracterizing his "ban" to help Democrats impose one with far more severe consequences.
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The "Lefts" idea that Clintons idea of gun "Ban" was great, need to do better in the "thinking" and actually "reading about it" realm of reality.
Clintons "BAN" was nothing more than a 3 letter word that, like the word "Racist" these days, didn't mean squat.
But the "Left" sure does like that little 3 letter word though ! Then they're happy campers.....as nothing changes anyway. But the "Word" is there.
Crime rate dropped for 8 years in a row while clinton was in office.
He piled in the cops, which isn't a good thing now.
#metoo = "Fry them like bacon !
Well yeah because Clinton brought all the Super Predators (Blacks) to heel by throwing them in prison for frivolous crimes.
So today you are proud of that?
The general crime rate is only impacted in trace amounts by legislation affecting so-called "assault weapons." Such weapons are used in about 2% of crimes. So, at most, getting rid of all of them entirely might lead to a 2% decrease in crime. In reality, though, criminals who can't get those guns simply use some other gun or some other weapon entirely.
Other factors, like policing, sentencing, the overall economy, social morality, population density, the age of the general population, and even climate have a much more significant impact on the crime rate than how many "assault rifles" are out there.
The Clinton Presidency: A Historic Era of Progress and Prosperity
The President's strategy of fiscal discipline, open foreign markets and investments in the American people helped create the conditions for a record 115 months of economic expansion. Our economy has grown at an average of 4 percent per year since 1993.
More than 22 million jobs were created in less than eight years -- the most ever under a single administration, and more than were created in the previous twelve years.
A strong economy and fiscal discipline kept interest rates low, making it possible for more families to buy homes. The homeownership rate increased from 64.2 percent in 1992 to 67. 7 percent, the highest rate ever.
Unemployment dropped from more than 7 percent in 1993 to just 4.0 percent in November 2000. Unemployment for African Americans and Hispanics fell to the lowest rates on record, and the rate for women is the lowest in more than 40 years.
Since 1992, reading and math scores have increased for 4th, 8th, and 12th graders, math SAT scores are at a 30-year high, the number of charter schools has grown from 1 to more than 2,000, forty-nine states have put in place standards in core subjects and federal investment in education and training has doubled.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore have nearly doubled financial aid for students by increasing Pell Grants to the largest award ever, expanding Federal Work-Study to allow 1 million students to work their way through college, and by creating new tax credits and scholarships such as Lifetime Learning tax credits and the HOPE scholarship. At the same time, taxpayers have saved $18 billion due to the decline in student loan defaults, increased collections and savings from the direct student loan program.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore's new commitment to education technology, including the E-Rate and a 3,000 percent increase in educational technology funding, increased the percentage of schools connected to the Internet from 35 percent in 1994 to 95 percent in 1999.
Because of President Clinton's comprehensive anti-crime strategy of tough penalties, more police, and smart prevention, as well as common sense gun safety laws, the overall crime rate declined for 8 consecutive years, the longest continuous drop on record, and is at the lowest level since 1973.
As part of the 1994 Crime Bill, President Clinton enacted a new initiative to fund 100,000 community police officers. To date more than 11,000 law enforcement agencies have received COPS funding.
Since the President signed the Brady bill in 1993, more than 600,000 felons, fugitives, and other prohibited persons have been stopped from buying guns. Gun crime has declined 40 percent since 1992.
To help parents succeed at work and at home, President Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. Over 20 million Americans have taken unpaid leave to care for a newborn child or sick family member.
The President pledged to end welfare as we know it and signed landmark bipartisan welfare reform legislation in 1996. Since then, caseloads have been cut in half, to the lowest level since 1968, and millions of parents have joined the workforce. People on welfare today are five times more likely to be working than in 1992.
After falling by nearly $2,000 between 1988 and 1992, the median family's income rose by $6,338, after adjusting for inflation, since 1993. African American family income increased even more, rising by nearly $7,000 since 1993. After years of stagnant income growth among average and lower income families, all income brackets experienced double-digit growth since 1993. The bottom 20 percent saw the largest income growth at 16.3 percent.
Since Congress passed President Clinton's Economic Plan in 1993, the poverty rate declined from 15.1 percent to 11.8 percent last year — the largest six-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years. There are now 7 million fewer people in poverty than in 1993. The child poverty rate declined more than 25 percent, the poverty rates for single mothers, African Americans and the elderly have dropped to their lowest levels on record, and Hispanic poverty dropped to its lowest level since 1979.
In his 1995 State of the Union Address, President Clinton challenged Americans to join together in a national campaign against teen pregnancy. The birth rate for teens aged 15-19 declined every year of the Clinton Presidency, from 60.7 per 1,000 teens in 1992 to a record low of 49.6 in 1999.
The Clinton Administration expanded efforts to provide mothers and newborn children with health care. Today, a record high 82 percent of all mothers receive prenatal care. The infant mortality rate has dropped from 8.5 deaths per 1,000 in 1992 to 7.2 deaths per 1,000 in 1998, the lowest rate ever recorded.
Efforts of the Clinton-Gore Administration led to the dismantling of more than 1,700 nuclear warheads, 300 launchers and 425 land and submarine based missiles from the former Soviet Union.
President Clinton has protected more land in the lower 48 states than any other president. He has protected 5 new national parks, designated 11 new national monuments and expanded two others and proposed protections for 60 million acres of roadless areas in America's national forests.
Between 1998-2000, the national debt was reduced by $363 billion — the largest three-year debt pay-down in American history. We are now on track to pay off the entire debt by 2009.
Thanks in large part to the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act, the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, and President Clinton's call to save the surplus for debt reduction, Social Security, and Medicare solvency, America has put its fiscal house in order. The deficit was $290 billion in 1993 and expected to grow to $455 billion by this year. Instead, we have a projected surplus of $237 billion.
Under President Clinton federal government spending as a share of the economy has decreased from 22.2 percent in 1992 to a projected 18.5 percent in 2000, the lowest since 1966.
President Clinton enacted targeted tax cuts such as the Earned Income Tax Credit expansion, $500 child tax credit, and the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits. Federal income taxes as a percentage of income for the typical American family have dropped to their lowest level in 35 years.
The number of families owning stock in the United States increased by 40 percent since 1992.
The President has appointed more African Americans, women and Hispanics to the Cabinet than any other President in history. He appointed the first female Attorney General, the first female Secretary of State and the first Asian American cabinet secretary ever.
" The Clinton Presidency: A Historic Era of Progress and Prosperity "
The article isn't speaking of anything more than his so-called "Gun Ban" non-accomplishment.
Nothing More....Nothing Less.
Your comment on this article is meaningless to the SUBJECT !
Read what I posted, it's very relevant.
If Clinton isn't the subject, what is it?
Irrelevant !
Only in an irrelavent sort of way
6 Ways Bill Clinton Is Lying About His Assault Weapons ‘Ban’
Get it now ?
Nothing More, Nothing Less.
The article goes no further than that ONE subject.
So gun sweeping legislation has nothing to do with assault weapons?
Look, I get it, you want an echo chamber so only posts you like get to stay, while you troll everyone else's article. You have a great day.
Where was that said anywhere here ?
"while you troll everyone else's article."
Nothing in the seed about that.
Still needing to be "OFF TOPIC" ?
More police is a no, no these days, and the Brady bill was nothing more than :
"a response to the use of a handgun in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Four people were injured in the attacks. The Brady Bill, formally known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, was passed by the Congress in November of 1993 as an attempt to restrict access to guns. The restrictions in the bills were not actually new. The Gun Control Act of 1986 established the laws governing who was able to obtain the weapons."
[Deleted]
Do explain.
You realize that Bill Clinton left office 18 years ago and the assault weapons ban expired in 2004 right?
Yep....But you do realize, this Article came about because of a Bill Clinton Op-Ed from this year, run by the "Times" ?
So what's the point of beating a dead horse? Is the point to just post the words "assault weapons ban" in bold red letters?
You'll have to ask the Democrats Running for President, and Bill Clinton. They're the ones holding the bat right now, to try the Ban thingy again !
Neither the Democrats running for President or Bill Clinton are the President. Trump's holding the bat right now and he's swinging at video games. Republicans have an opportunity right now to make a difference but it appears that the NRA has a (ahem) gun to their heads.
He won't. He is good for a stupid bomb then slivers back into the shadows, until the next stupid bomb.
Yet Bill MUST speak anyway !
C’mon Frosty, tell the whole story.
As I recall control of both houses went to Republican’s in Clinton’s first mid-term election and stayed there after that for his entire two terms. He was forced to be more centrist but to his credit he did it. The last time I can recall the legislative and executive branches compromised to any degree.
The long and short of it ..... Republicans in Congress get credit for that expansion as well.
Thats just the truth of it.
personally I don't think the Clinton AWB did a damn thing really statistically crime rates had been and continued in a downward trend and would have continued even if the ban had not been instituted.
About the only thing that came about from that legislation that included the omnibus crime bill which added more funding for cops , the brady legislation which helped control how guns were sold and the AWB itself was the institution of the NICS that we still use today when a firearm is bought through a dealer , that's where those six hundred thousand or so felons and prohibited persons got caught buying guns , question is where is all the prosecutions for those people breaking the law?
I think people really have to look at the AWB and see that it actually didn't "BAN" anything , everything was still readily available on the open market and still legal to have and to sell.
The actual problem when discussing a ban of any sorts lies in the definitions and getting people to agree on those definitions , take magazines , what is a high capacity magazine to one person , is a standard issue or standard mag on the market when a firearm is sold. the devil is in the details actually because if the definition is too loose , it can at some point in the future be applied to something it was never intended to affect
So my question is exactly what did the Clinton era AWB actually do? to me all it did was raise the cost of acquiring something to be purchased , it didn't affect availability , or the legality of having one that wasn't covered in other laws already on the books.
Another thing I would say is if any bans are to be put in place , they need to affect EVERYONE with no exemptions for ANYONE , Meaning if I go in to buy a GLOCK , and am limited to an 8 or 10 round mag , then that's the limit anyone in government is limited to as well. Think the cops are going to want to go back to carrying 6 shot revolvers? they did for many a year.
You should put your entire comment on post cards and ship them out to all the ignorant gun lovers Do you realize that the military on use a 30 round mag in an m16 not a 100 round
Don , want to know how I handle trolls on this site now that have nothing meaningful to say? say hello to ignore.
So the "Civilian" version Isn't a Military type ?
think he also forgot that the "standard issue" for the m-16 and the AR 15 from the factory use to be 20 round mags, and the military flirted with 40 rounders for a time but reliability was a factor in it being turned down so the current 30 rounders were adopted .
Apparently he doesn't, so let's educate him.
Don, there are two main reasons why the military doesn't use 100 round magazines for the M-16. First, the 100 round drum for the 5.56 round is UNRELIABLE. The last thing a soldier needs during a firefight is to have a magazine that jams when it's half empty. Second is that, when a soldier comes under fire from ambush, his first natural response it to get on the ground and empty his magazine in the general direction of the incoming fire. If you do that with a full auto M-16 a couple of times, you have melted the rifle barrel down to slag.
None of that has anything at all to do with limiting the number of targets that can be engaged.
Weight and reliability.
Never had a FTF with a 40 rounder and the weight isn't unbearable for a long hump.
I've heard good reports about the Magpul D60 drum magazine but have yet to try one.
Make sure to have your t-shirt on for easy recognition.