We in MD just fought an AWB with over 200 pro-gun, myself included vs 10 antis at the hearing. I saw firsthand the logic that the head of the brady campaign and ceasefire Maryland used in their testimony and have outlined the formula they obviously used.
1. refer to an "independent study" conducted in some junk science sort of way. they used "every 48 hours" it claims an AW can be traced to a crime in MD every 48 hours, although out of the 550 murders over a 3 year period only 4 semi-auto rifles of any type were used. They included children as young as 25 in the "children harmed by guns" section. They included crimes where the weapon was indirectly involved, ex. AW's were stolen from a gunshop(if 5 were stolen thats 10 days), traffic violations, people convicted of a felony possesed AW before the trial and so on.
2. Refer to notworthy crimes. The north hollywood shootout, Columbine, or the DC sniper. all during the clinton AWB, some with illegally obtained or modified arms. Afterall, by their very definition criminals break laws such as those against murder, robery, and rape, of course they will obey all firearms regulatons and never buy smuggled or stolen guns. Look at the gun-crime rates in England after just about all firearms were made illegal.
3. Use the expert testimony of people who have no clue what they are even talking about. They used the former Mayor of Indy to spin a yarn how AW are designed to be sprayed from the hip with ultra-powerful cartridges designed to kill people, and can kill hundreds at a time, but also can kill from a mile away. Use dramatic visualizations like a picture of osama bin laden firing a full auto AK in one of his death to america videos, then as if by magic hold up a picture of a semi auto externally similar AK implying they are not only the same arm, but have similar links to terrorism.
4. They have no "sporting or hunting" value, Zumbo to the rescue! (as one can clearly see by its requirement in the 2nd ammendment), hi-power and DCM do not exist. A 308 bolt gun fires a hunting cartridge, but an AR-10, M1A1, G3, and FAL do not. The most popular target and competition rifle of all time the AR-15 is not used for targets or competition.
5. They are never against the 2nd ammendment, hunters, or legal gun owners. They would NEVER ban all guns at once, only 1 at a time. The constitution was written a long time ago, by people who wouldn't have dreamed of a society like ours, and is a living document, so we can change it at will. The 2nd is the only ammendment that has the word "regulated" in it. It protects your rights to own a musket, within the militia, but they meant the National Guard (est.1903 by the militia act.)
6. The media is your friend. You can always count on the media to be fair and unbiased, and show a montage of gun related tragedy with demonstrations of M2's, MP5's and the latest Al-queda video to show exactly what they are attempting to protect us from. This also includes singling out the one guy that is wearing his 1944 german army fatigues, or acid washed cut offs, mullet and novelty T-shirt for a "comment from those opposed to the ban"
7. Avoid questions like "will this stop any crime", "won't this criminalize millions of law-abiding citizens", or especially "criminals do not follow laws" like the plague. These rational and comon-sense ideas are poison. If needed answer "we would like to think so", "hunters do not use these weapons" and "but it will make it harder for them to get guns" in that order. always cap it off with "if we could just save one life", or "how many have to die before we take action". Make sure not to include any SHTF scnarios where law abiding people may use them to defend their families lives against mobs or looters such as the LA riots or katrina aftermath.
8. When all else fails, a pretty young girl crying can do wonders. Why not, the brady's milked this one for all it was worth, Miss MIller whose father, an FBI agent was gunned down by a madman 8 years ago with a black market full auto mac-10. This ban on legally purchased semi autos would apparently have prevented that.
As you can see slow sunday at work, hope sharing my observations helps.
