Bill O'Reilly Gets It Totally Wrong

Bill O’Reilly debated a Congressman last night about gun violence.  O’Reilly asserted that Americans can just go buy any weapon they like and nobody ever knows.  He started with the outrageous statement that anybody can buy a “machine gun” without the government knowing it then said the same about an AK-47.

Bill you are simply wrong.  Gun sales are regulated through licensed dealers who must qualify and operate under very the strict scrutiny of the ATF.  Gun sales to mentally incompetent people, drug addicts and felons are illegal.

To purchase a “machine gun”, (a fully automatic weapon) one must also purchase a federal tax stamp and may be required to get the local law enforcement agency of his/her county to approve.

O’Reilly went on to shout “have you ever been to a gun show?  You can get anything you want there!”  While technically he might be correct, most gun shows involve the participation of licensed gun dealers who must submit your purchase to a background check.  While private individuals can sell the occasional gun to other private individuals, or sell a “gun collection” without a Federal Firearms Dealers License (FFL) no amount of government regulation is going to prevent criminals from dealing guns among themselves anyway.

O’Reilly was reacting strongly to the use of semi-automatic weapons in the Colorado Theater shooting.  He objected to American citizens being able to buy ammunition “without the government knowing about it”.

Come on Bill.  The Second Amendment is there for a reason.  It specifically permits the American citizen to be as fully armed as the government military which, in the context of its adoption, had been recently used against the citizens.

Your reaction makes you look like an ignorant jerk on this one.

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