Reply #76: From Honolulu: [View All]

"CRIMINALS will be able to acquire their guns of choice more easily unless a federal ban on semiautomatic assault weapons is renewed by Congress. President Bush favors extending the ban, but some congressional Republicans are poised to allow the weapons back on the streets. Bush should follow through on his campaign pledge and urge Congress to maintain the prohibition.
At the urging of Hawaii's law-enforcement coalition, the state Legislature approved a ban on assault pistols and pistol ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds three years before the federal ban was enacted. The lack of a federal ban would undermine the Hawaii law and assault-weapons bans in five other states, including California.
The current issue of Gun World magazine boasts that clones of banned assault weapons "sprang back with a vengeance and seem better than ever." The poster child of the clones is the Bushmaster XM15 M4 A3 assault rifle, marketed as a "post-ban carbine" and used last October by the Washington, D.C.-area snipers in the killing of 10 people and wounding of three."

http://starbulletin.com/2003/05/18/editorial/editorials.html