posted on September 17, 2004 12:24:50 PM new
Kerry Questioned About His 'Chinese Assault Rifle'
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Morning Editor
September 17, 2004
CNSNews.com) - Does Sen. John F. Kerry really own a "Communist Chinese assault rifle," as he suggested in an interview in the latest edition of Outdoor Life magazine?
The Second Amendment Foundation says if the senator does own such a rifle, it wants to know where Kerry keeps it, if it is legally registered, and how he got it into the United States.
"Senator Kerry's own words once again trip him up in an apparent hypocrisy," SAF Founder Alan Gottlieb said in a press release.
"Responding to a question from Outdoor Life about whether he is a gun owner, and if so, what's his favorite gun, Kerry strongly intimates he has an assault rifle, which is illegal to own both in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C."
The Kerry quote appears on Page 82 of the October issue of Outdoor Life. He told the magazine, "My favorite gun is the M-16 that saved my life and that of my crew in Vietnam. I don't own one of those now, but one of my reminders of my service is a Communist Chinese assault rifle."
Gottlieb called it another example of Kerry running on his Vietnam service history: "Now he's talking as if he's got an assault rifle stashed somewhere, while he's been railing against their ownership by other law-abiding American citizens," Gottlieb added.
Kerry supported an extension of the so-called assault weapons ban, which expired on Monday. Last week, at a campaign stop in St. Louis, he said, "As a hunter, I have never ever thought about going hunting with an AK-47 or an Uzi or anything else."
"Senator Kerry, where's the rifle?" Gottlieb asked. "In which one of your mansions are you hiding that gun? Why should it be okay for you to have a Communist Chinese assault rifle when you think nobody else should have one? And if you don't have one, why would you intimate to Outdoor Life that you do?"
Kerry has made it a point to appeal to gun owners by staging a number of gun-friendly photo-ops on the campaign trail.
