James Woods Owns Dem Congressional Hopeful over Ridiculously Ignorant Gun Statement
Emboldened by their congressional victories in the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats are pressing forward with their leftist agenda to undermine the Second Amendment by imposing strict gun control laws.
While the Democratic-led House of Representatives is currently pushing through an attempt to outlaw private sales and transfers of weapons with “universal” background checks for all firearms purchases, the so-called “assault weapons” ban that would outlaw many common semi-automatic firearms remains a top priority that is supported by many anti-gun agenda supporting leftists outside of Congress.
Enter Brianna Wu, a leftist feminist software engineer — probably best known for her role in “Gamergate” — who aims to win a seat in Congress in 2020 representing Massachusetts’ 8th Congressional District.
(She lost badly in the 2018 Democratic primary to incumbent Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch, according to the Quincy, Massachusetts, Patriot-Ledger, but apparently isn’t giving up.)
On Tuesday, Wu posted a Twitter thread of anti-gun tweets surrounding her claimed experience of firing a fully automatic M-16, an actual “assault rifle” that is already, for all intents and purposes, banned from civilian ownership.
Conservative firebrand and Hollywood actor James Woods took notice of Wu’s tweets and fired back with one of his own that highlighted her utter ignorance about firearms and the laws that are already on the books in that regard.
Uh, are you aware these are already not legal to possess by a civilian citizen? Are you aware of the distinction between automatic and semi-automatic? https://t.co/JRPseYKI1H
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 28, 2019
Woods tweeted, “Uh, are you aware these are already not legal to possess by a civilian citizen? Are you aware of the distinction between automatic and semi-automatic?”
That was in response to the first tweet in the thread from Wu, which read:
“I had an opportunity to fire a fully automatic M16 assault rifle today under professional instruction. This is the same weapon US Armed Forces use. The experience made me feel even more strongly there is no reason for a civilian to have access to this weapon, or one like it.”
1/ I had an opportunity to fire a fully automatic M16 assault rifle today under professional instruction. This is the same weapon US Armed Forces use.
The experience made me feel even more strongly there is no reason for a civilian to have access to this weapon, or one like it.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) February 26, 2019
In the follow-up tweet, Wu claimed to have grown up target shooting in the South and taken a National Rifle Association safety course, “But this assault rifle is a different beast. It would take A MINIMUM of 30-40 hours of professional instruction to learn to operate safely.”
“It shoots a 5.56 mm bullet. You can feel the wind of it firing three feet behind the shooter. The gun is very difficult to control,” she continued in the third tweet. “I’ve seen these fired thousands of times in games and movies. In real life you understand the devastation even being grazed would cause.”
Wu concluded, “These guns belong in the hands of soldiers who have been trained. They do not belong in the hands of civilians. There is no reason someone would need this to defend their home.”
To be sure, Woods was not the only person to take Wu to task over her ignorant thread of anti-gun tweets, as countless users piled on in the comments to her posts, many of whom pointed out the same thing that Woods had — fully automatic weapons like that M-16 are already exceptionally heavily regulated and all but outlawed in the civilian world.
In fact, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives website conveniently has a page dedicated to explaining the National Firearms Act of 1934, which was the first law to ban fully automatic weapons — “machineguns” — from civilian possession.
That ban on fully automatic weapons was later amended with an expanded definition of “machineguns” by the Gun Control Act of 1968, and further clarified by the Firearm’s Owners Protection Act of 1986, which banned the possession of any machinegun manufactured after 1986 and further solidified the strict regulations on possession of such weapons produced prior to that date.
To be sure, there are some civilians who are able to legally get their hands on fully automatic weapons like the M-16 rifle, but that is no easy task, as the ATF requires reams of paperwork to be filled out, the submission of fingerprints and an extensive criminal background check conducted, a required sign-off on the purchase by the “Chief Law Enforcement Officer” with jurisdiction over the purchaser and a hefty fee …
And then there’s the prohibitive cost for fully automatic weapons in general, once all of the governmental hoops were properly jumped through.
Wu is either completely ignorant of the gun control laws that are already on the books strictly regulating civilian ownership of fully automatic firearms, or she is ignorant of the substantial difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic firearms.
Either that, or she is purposefully lying and misleading the public by conflating the two while ignoring existing laws.
None of those options are a particularly good look for an aspiring politician.
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