Diane is worried

And anything that worries her is a good thing, IMNSHO.

WASHINGTON -- Unless President Bush changes the minds of House Republican leaders, the 10-year-old federal assault weapons ban will die on Sept. 13, clearing the way for the weapons to enter the country and be sold again.
"After September 13th, we will begin to see assault weapons pop up all over the place," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who a decade ago successfully sponsored a ban on domestic manufacture and import of the weapons.

Diane also made an astute observation:

Feinstein said opposition to the ban reveals the power of the National Rifle Association.

Of course, the NRA being powerful is a Bad Thing® unlike, say, the power of the NEA or the various ecological advocacy groups.

Larry Craig is one of my heroes in the Senate for his principled stand on this issue:

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, the leading Senate opponent to renewal of the ban, said he doesn't expect the president to intervene.

"This assault weapons ban has a track record that shows it doesn't reduce crime one bit," Craig said. "What we need are tougher penalties for criminals who use guns.

This paragraph stood out:

Gun control advocates say the president and Congress should be motivated to renew the law by the oft-shown pictures of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden pointing an AK-47 at a target.

Gun control advocates would do well to learn the difference between a semi-automatic rifle and a fully automatic machine gun. The gun that Osama is holding in these pictures is almost certainly a fully-automatic AK-47, the ownership of which is completely unaffected by this ban and would still be illegal (except by people with specific federal licenses that they have to jump through considerable hoops to get). Of course, gun control leaders are probably fully aware of the difference, but they won't let such knowledge get in the way of their propaganda.

One of the criticisms I have of George W. Bush is that he has stated his support for the so-called assault weapons ban. However:

In their effort to get Bush to push for renewal, gun control advocates have mounted a campaign using the president's previous statements, such as: "It makes no sense for assault weapons to be around our society," Bush declared in 1999. The president "supports extension of the current ban," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said earlier this year.

This tends to reinforce the theory that his "support" was simply political expediency and that he gave it in the hope that he would never see the bill on his desk. Of course, there's the theory that he signed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act hoping that the Supreme Court would strike it down and we all know what happened in that case.

Finally I'll jump back up the article a ways for this excerpt:

"The American people favor the ban, but we need a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic House and Senate to make it happen," said Feinstein, who with Sen. John Warner, R-Va., is sponsoring legislation to renew the ban for another 10 years.

If Democrats get control of the White House and both branches of Congress, they're not going to stop at renewing this ban. If that ever happens, you can bet I'll start stocking up before personal ownership of all firearms is outlawed.