Think Progress Lies About Assault Weapons Ban

Think Progress (a misnomer if there ever was one) has a laundry list of lies, distortions, half truths and smears they have made on behalf of their benefactor, the Center for American Progress.

The people that run this site don’t think and their definition of progress is something you’ll find in bizarro world.

Adherence to the facts is something do not concern themselves with so it didn’t surprise me that they took a chance to politicize the awful shootings in Aurora Colorado. Nor did it surprise me to see them spreading falsehoods about the now defunct assault weapons ban, behaving as though this tragedy might not have taken place if the ban was still in place. It expired in 2004. They sent out two tweets:

Expired assault weapons ban would have covered rifle used in Colorado shooting thkpr.gs/PkT8VC

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) July 20, 2012

and

UPDATE: High capacity clip used by shooter was also banned under expired 1994 law thkpr.gs/PkT8VC

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) July 20, 2012

Neither of these tweets are true. That didn’t stop nearly 400 people from re-tweeting both of these tweets, nor did it stop them from writing it up in a blog post:

The AR-15 rife carried by Holmes, a civilian semi-automatic version of the military M-16, would have been defined as a “semiautomatic assault weapon” under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. If the law was still in force, semiautomatic assault weapons would have been outright banned:

The AR-15 was not “banned” under the AWB. It was still legal to own one. It was still legal to buy one. It was still legal to sell one. The assault weapons ban was poorly implemented because the people behind the law, essentially looked through a book and picked out “scary” looking semi-automatic guns. Variants of the AR-15 — ones with flash suppressors, collapsible stocks, and bayonet lugs were prohibited for sales to civilians. The AR-15 by itself was not.

Purportedly, the AR-15 used by Holmes had a high-capacity clip, which were banned as “large capacity ammunition feeding devices” in the 1994 legislation.

The same goes for the high capacity magazines. They were not ‘banned.’ During the time of the AWB, the manufacture of these clips was prohibited. But the law was not retroactive, so high capacity magazines that were already manufactured could be sold and possessed.

These are easy and yet very important distinctions.

Think Progress frames it in such a way one would think the gun and magazine James Holmes used during his rampage would have not been legally permissible for him to have.

100% not true.

Like so much of what Think Progress writes.