Dana Loesch, a conservative talk radio show host, made a statement on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight that would make any intelligent person want to hurl, or throw their TV set out of the window, or scream at Van Jones, who was served as the liberal counter to both she and Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate who also sits on the board of the National Rifle Association (NRA), for not aggressively talking her down.
Loesch unbelievably said this: “I’m going to correct you, because I am tired of this talking point being put out there. First and foremost, let’s get something straight. ‘Military-style assault weapons’ are not out on the street. We are talking about semi-automatic weapons, weapons that are capable of–”
Equally unbelievably, Van Jones let Ms. Loesch talk over him, spewing awful lies about assault weapons.
Dana Loesch might be “tired of this talking point being put out there” but that’s too bad. Every source a good researcher can find will tell you that assault weapons are generally regarded as military-style. Want proof? I’m not going to turn to what General Gen. Stanley McChrystal said. Rather, I’ll go right to the source: the sellers and advocates of the AR-15, the main device generally talked about in conversations about assault weapons.
According to a section of the website AR-15.com called “Birth Of The AR-15,” the weapon was the outgrowth of…
“the United States Army Continental Army Command (CONARC) (which) sought commercial assistance in the development of a 5.56mm military rifle…CONARC sponsored the development of a .22 military rifle and asked Winchester and Armalite to come up with designs for a high-velocity, full and semi auto fire, 20 shot magazine, 6lbs loaded, able to penetrate both sides of a standard Army helmet at 500 meters rifle. The competing rifles were:Winchester – .224 Lightweight Military Rifle – patterned after M1 and M1 Carbine, Springfield Armory , and the Armalite AR-15.
From that, it should be obvious that the AR-15 is, indeed, not only a military-style assault weapon, but it was designed for military use.
Dana Loesch is wrong.
Since that point in time, and thanks to the Internet, an AR-15 can be purchased via an organization like GunBroker.com, which has a part of its site specifically devoted to the buying and selling of AR-15 assault weapons. Moreover, the pages where the guns are sold specifically say that the seller assumes responsibility for the listing. At no place does it say that the buyer is required to pass a background check. The person who registers as a buyer or seller is only asked to comply with whatever laws are active in that state, but GunBroker.com itself does not do any policing of who registers based on a background check, or any kind of mental health test. The Terms of Service are in place to protect GunBroker.com from any liability claims in case a nutcase gets a hold of an AR-15 via it’s website.
So, in short, Dana Loesch was just plain wrong on CNN’s Pierce Morgan show tonight. Ms. Loesch might as well get used to the fact that the talking point she hates – that assault weapons are military-style – is one that’s she’s going to here again and again, especially after this blog post is distributed.
Van Jones, get tough, man.
Stay tuned.