Upon further review, it’s not the sports angle we should care about but what’s happening to our society

I missed this at the time but just happened across it. A writer for the Flint Journal talked about high school basketball player DeAndre Upchurch being suspended for his part in a drive-by shooting. He then went on and on about assault weapons:

What’s our excuse when it comes to assault rifles? Police say an assault rifle was used in the drive-by. Fifteen bullets were pumped out in short order. Think of the damage that could have done.

You know there’s no legitimate reason for anyone to own such a weapon. I know it. The only people who don’t know it belong to the National Rifle Association.

There are enough of them and they have enough money that they’ve scared the government into not permanently banning the things. (There was a ban, but President Bush let it expire in 2004.)

We could change that. We could demand that our legislators not listen to the NRA, which objects to a ban based on the slippery slope argument, which says if you let one type of gun be banned, all guns will follow. (That’s nonsense, by the way.)

We could demand sanity when it comes to weapons. But we don’t, and that’s the easy stuff.

In the comments section, we learn that the weapon used in the drive-by was an SKS.

That, Heller, would be a weapon NOT banned by the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban. So even if I grant that the so-called “assault weapons” were such and agree that banning them could be justified (which I don’t and don’t), this weapon would not be banned.

Do some homework, Heller.

Oh, and it came out later that the suspension had been made BEFORE the drive-by shooting incident.

Do some homework, Heller.

So, other than the lede about the sports angle and the point he used that lede to make, the column was totally accurate. I’m sure.

Tags: MI

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 8:59 am and is filed under AWB, Crime and Violence, Media, Schools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.