Is it too much too much to ask of our congressional representatives that they know the most basic facts about the things they condemn?

It seems so for Sheila Jackson Lee, for 21 years the representative for the 18^th congressional district (Houston).  She seems ignorant of the fact that long guns are used in a very small percentage of crimes, and that automatic rifles are used in far fewer still.  Automatic weapons like the AK-47 are difficult and expensive to acquire.  Few Americans own one.  They are an almost inconsequential factor in crimes committed with guns.

I’ve become sadly accustomed to gun opponents’ ignorance of gun types, ofstatistics about guns used in crimes, and even of the basic operating principles of guns, but statements as foolish as this further convince me that federal lawmakers are all too often woefully unqualified to craft or pass laws which at the least will be ineffective and, at the worst, may burden further our civil liberties.