Once again, the Virginian Pilot just doesn't get it. They start off their anti-gun editorial by calling for the so-called "Assault Weapon" ban to be renewed, and then back it up by relying heavily on the flawed analysis of the gun-ban group, Violence Policy Center. It has been widely pointed out that the VPC study greatly expands to the term "assault weapon" to include firearms that aren't covered by the ban. But if they put so much reliance in the VPC, why don't they mention that Tom Diaz, spokesman for the VPC, called the ban ineffective: "If the existing assault weapons ban expires, I personally do not believe it will make one [bit] of difference one way or another in terms of our objective which is reducing death and injury and getting particularly lethal class of firearms off the street, so if it doesn't pass, it doesn't pass."

Perhaps even more disturbing is their cavalier attitude about the Bill of Rights.

Outlawing assault weapons won't violate the Second Amendment any more than outlawing machine guns. There's no sport in using these weapons to hunt.

First of all, machine guns are not outlawed just heavily regulated. And even that is a violation of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment clearly states: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Have they not read the Consitution, or do they not understand the what "shall not be infringed" means? Imagine the reaction from the press if we claimed that the First Amendment only protected fiction, or didn't protect political speech.