Blackwater Shows Up At NRA Convention With Guns Blazing, Sets Up Display Of Assault Rifles

[kpete]

Blackwater Shows Up At NRA Convention With Guns Blazing, Sets Up Display Of Assault Rifles

What’s interesting about this booth is the fact that Blackwater officially changed its name to Xe in 2009, recognizing that it needed to try to rebrand itself and escape from the taint of the Iraq massacre. However, the company still retains the Blackwater name for its “Pro Shop,” which sells gift shop-type products with the Blackwater logo to the public. So when the company is talking to the media or Capitol Hill, it’s presenting its brand new Xe face. But when it’s marketing itself to a certain segment of conservatives, Blackwater still sells.

more:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/14/blackwater-nra/

[Mari333]

1. they are still being paid with our tax dollars in both occupations

will they ever be held accountable? doubt it.

in the meantime, I ponder the psychological term for people who think they need these items to project some sort of image.

[marmar]

2. That convention sounds like a real rat's nest......

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

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[katzenjammers]

4. I'm still trying to figure out what an assault rifle is...

There doesn't seem to be a definition. shrug

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. The one the pols use is fraudulent

[Pavulon]

7. Assault Rifle vs Assault Weapon

An assault rifle is generally a select fire weapon. Can fire single shot or fire in a fully automatic mode. These are legal and regulated under the NFA since 1934. The M4A1, AKM, an G36 are examples.

Assault weapon is a word made up to be specifically vague. It generally incorporates semi automatic rifles that look scary but are not machine guns. AR patterns and Benelli hunting rifles fall under this nebulous term

Its orwellian for anything some people want to ban because they have no real solution for a problem.

[katzenjammers]

8. Thanks, it gets confusing! But couldn't a person be assaulted with a shotgun?

Or - like a baseball bat? That is to say it seems like someone could assault another person with any of a million kinds of tools, and conversely the existence of some particular kind of weapon/gun surely doesn't mean it will actually be used for that purpose. The terminology just seems awfully sloppy.
Makes my head hurt. ;-)

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

12. If you can't explain why you favor banning something, why should anyone listen to you?

You can't figure out or name any reasons WHY it would be right to ban these things, or why they're more dangerous than a "regular" gun, but we should all just take your word for it? Because clearly you've very unbiased talking about the "gun huggers and strokers," and using the same 'something vaguely bad will happen, so surrender your rights to me' approach that has worked so well with, say, the criminalization of marijuana in this country. :eyes:

[TheWraith]

11. Definition of an assault rifle.

An "assault rifle" is a military-grade weapon firing a low to intermediate power cartridge, capable of "select fire," meaning it can be set to fire either one round at a time ("semi-auto"), or multiple rounds via fully automatic firing or "bursts" of 3-5 rounds.

Assault rifles grew out of research done during World War II by the Germans, who found out that most infantry engagements happen at relatively short range, meaning that the high-powered "battle rifles" used by all the major combatants were more powerful than needed. The US discovered much the same thing in Vietnam, where the M14 was supplanted by the M16, which let soldiers carry more ammo for the same weight.

For instance, the M16s used by the military today deliver less than a third of the power in each round as does the 30-06 rounds that we used in World War II. In effect, they're a compromise between the power of a rifle and the rate of fire of a sub-machine gun.

In the US, assault rifles are regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934, and no new ones have been available for civilian ownership since 1986, making them phenomenally expensive collector's items. (Around $15,000 to $20,000 depending on the model.)

These are not to be confused with the term "assault weapons," which means firearms which look like a military model. Those weapons do not have fully automatic capabilities, making them effectively like any other civilian rifle.

[aikoaiko]

6. I'm sure there is a lot of Blackwater swag to give away or sell

[mnhtnbb]

9. We were treated to front page blurb box quoting Sarah Palin

at the convention in Charlotte, "Bambi's mother is dinner".

News & Observer (Raleigh)http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/05/15/483162/palin-blasts-gun-control-groups.html



:puke:

[lunatica]

13. A Teabaggers' wet dream