'Assault weapons ban' déjà vu

Despite the failure to pass an "assault weapons" ban in the U.S. Senate, Democrat lawmakers nationwide continue to push for new legislation outlawing whole classes of rifles, from a Rhode Island effort to a new appeal from Vice President Joe Biden.

"Liberal gun-controllers never ever give up," says WND columnist Bob Just.

He should know. A quarter century ago he was helping combat a campaign eerily similar to today's push to ban "semiautomatic assault weapons."

"Most Americans under 35 may not remember the 1989 Stockton, Calif., schoolyard shooting," says Just.

Patrick Purdy, a 26-year-old drifter, shot and killed five schoolchildren and wounded 29 others with an AK-47.

"But that crime," says Just, "led directly to the original ban on so-called 'assault rifles.'"

Indeed, in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 children dead, the gun-control movement that seemed to spring magically into being bears a striking resemblance to what America experienced back then, says Just, including the "almost maniacal attacks on the National Rifle Association."

Fortunately, Just – a filmmaker before he went into political activism and later became a national radio talk show host – made a remarkable video documentary on the battle between the gun controllers and the Second Amendment defenders. As head of Liberty Coalition Against Crime in Los Angeles, Just can be seen shouting at politicians and being interviewed by media as the "assault rifle" ban materialized.

The bottom line, says Just: "Nothing has changed."

The video is made almost entirely from television reporting at the time. It shows that the gun control movement always uses a predictable template in its response to mass murders, says Just.

If the video proves one thing, he says, it's that whether they win or lose this round, the left will not let the gun control issue go, even if it takes another 25 years.