Ignoramus politician gun statement of the year

In a recent press conference, California State Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, championed a new term intended to scare people into accepting more restrictions on their fundamental rights, and in the process he claimed his place as king of the gun control mountain of ignorance.

Misunderstanding and irrational fear have always been at the heart of efforts to impose gun control schemes on the American people. Over the years, the hoplophobes and control freaks have launched fear campaign after fear campaign revolving around invented terms like "Saturday Night Special" (a racially motivated description of guns poor people can afford), "Cop-Killer Bullets" (which even today have never been used to kill a cop by piercing body armor) and "Assault Weapons" (which are simply semi-auto firearms that share cosmetic features with military guns).

Along with the clever catch phrases have come a raft of idiotic statements demonstrating that gun control extremists are totally clueless about the items they want to redesign through legislation. At the top of that heap has been Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., who "has been working on a high capacity assault magazine ban for years" and her insistence that once her ban is implemented, crime will go down because shooters will eventually use them all up. Obviously, her years of work on a ban never turned up the fact that a magazine is just a box with a spring in it, similar to a PEZ candy dispenser, and that, like a PEZ dispenser, magazines can be reloaded countless times.

Then there was perennial gun control looney Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., who, when pressed about features that were the basis of her "assault weapon" ban proposal, had no idea that a "barrel shroud" is exactly what the name suggests, a piece of metal, wood, or plastic that shrouds, or covers, the barrel. The purpose is to protect the shooters hand from being burned by the hot barrel. McCarthy's weak guess was, "the shoulder thingy that goes up." The video of that bit of brilliance is priceless.

But now, Reps. McCarthy and DeGette must bow down before the new champion of gun-babble ignorance, State Sen. de León. In a televised press conference, he single-handedly brought the term "Ghost Guns" into national notoriety and simultaneously crowned himself king of the gun control court jesters.

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In the press conference, de León defined "Ghost Guns" as homemade guns that have no serial numbers and, therefore, cannot be traced back through the manufacturer to their original purchasers. He particularly pointed at partially machined AR receivers known as "80% lowers," which are sold as do-it-yourself projects for home gunsmiths, and the potential for guns made on high-tech 3D printers, which he erroneously claims are undetectable by airport screening devices.

But Sen. de León sealed his place in the Anti-Rights Hall of Ignorance, when he held up an illegally manufactured, illegally configured and illegally possessed AR15-style rifle and declared: "This is a ghost gun. This right here has the ability, with a .30 caliber clip, to disperse with 30 bullets within half a second." He then reiterated, to make the point, "Thirty magazine clip in half a second."

The YouTube video of that statement received over a million hits in just a few days. It is just so ridiculously wrong that anyone with the slightest knowledge about guns finds it totally hilarious, and is guaranteed to keep gun owners laughing for years to come. Not only does it display unbelievable ignorance, but the statement was delivered with such seriousness and importance, that it's hard to believe that it wasn't a parody. Add in the faces of the police officials being used as a backdrop to the senator's press conference, and their studious efforts to maintain poker-faces while their political master spouts blathering nonsense, and the whole effect is absolutely priceless.

[See de Leon's claims on video:]

For the record, .30 caliber refers to bullet diameter, not magazine capacity, and the correct term for a spring-loaded, ammunition feeding device is a magazine, not a clip, but the assertion that this "ghost gun" could "disperse with 30 bullets within half a second," and then repeat the claim for emphasis as a "Thirty magazine clip in half a second …" I don't care who you are, that's just funny.

As a small-arms repairman under a government contract, I've inspected and repaired thousands of M16s and M4s, along with hundreds of various military machine guns , and I can assure you that there is nothing in the Army's inventory short of the M134 Dillon Aero electric Gatling gun that can come close to a rate of fire of 30 rounds per second, much less 30 rounds in half a second.

But much worse than the idiotic misstatements about the dangers of "ghost guns," is Sen. de León's solution to the imaginary problem. He contends that street gangs, drug cartels and crazy people are increasingly using homemade "ghost guns" to advance their criminal schemes, and his solution is to require that anyone who makes a gun must register it with the California Department of Justice.

So to keep criminals and crazy people from killing people with untraceable guns, de León would require the criminals and crazy people to first register those guns … brilliant! No need for a parody – Sen. de León is a parody of himself.

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