The Federal Crime Bill, a law which banned 19 types of firearmsfrom the American market for the past ten years, expired earlierthis month. This, like many other laws arising from the gun-controldebate, ignored one fundamental point: no gun control law has evercaused an overarching decrease in gun violence.
Every year the Million Mom March in partnership with HandgunControl Inc., an organization dedicated to the banning of allhandguns and “assault rifles,” releases a grade sheetfor each individual state based on its gun control laws.
In 2003, Maryland received an A-, as did California. Vermont andTexas both got a D-. A cross-check with the FBI’s 2003statistics on crime show that violent crime rates are essentiallyindependent from HCI’s gun-control grades.
This lack of correlation between gun control and violent crimerates would indicate that gun control on the whole does not do whatHCI, Million Mom March, and the Brady Campaign, an influentialgun-control advocacy group, says. It doesn’t reduce violentcrime rates.
A report by the Brady Campaign states there has been a decrease inthe amount of gun traces of “assault weapons” since thepassing of the Federal Crime Bill. It also claims this decline is”extremely significant to law enforcement and has clearlyenhanced public safety, especially since these military-styleweapons are among the deadliest ever sold on the civilianmarket.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise that after it became illegal tomanufacture or sell particular kinds of firearms, they became lesscommon. “Assault weapons,” however, are not inherentlymore dangerous than hunting rifles, hunting shotguns, andhandguns.
The term “assault weapon” was invented to describe gunsthat looked scary to average people and has little meaning to thosefamiliar with firearms. Examples include the AR-15 and AK-47, whichare loosely based on weapons used by The American and Russianmilitaries.
But to arbitrarily restrict weapons based on their appearance isfrivolous at best. Former President Bill Clinton argued, “Youdo not need an Uzi to go deer hunting and you do not need an AK-47to go skeet shooting.” You also don’t need a Ferrari todrive to school, but this does not mean we should ban sports carsto cut down on speeding.
“Assault weapons” aren’t necessarily the weaponof choice for criminals or gang members. According to Guncite.com,Gary Kleck, in “Targeting Guns: Firearms and Theircontrol,” summarizes the findings of 47 such studies.
The summary indicates that less than 2 percent of guns used incrimes were assault weapons. Kleck cites Bureau of JusticeStatistics which states that offenders were armed with a firearm in10 percent of all violent crimes meaning less than 0.2 percent ofviolent crime offenders used an assault weapon.
The definition of “assault weapon” varies widely. Theactual Federal Crime Bill’s definition included numerousfeatures that were largely irrelevant to how dangerous a weaponis.
Folding and telescoping stocks, for example, are purely forconvenience in a civilian context. They simply make the gun easierto store and transport by folding up to save space.
A bayonet is a knife attached to the end of a weapon, and itsfunctionality even in the military is now largely questionable.
A flash suppressor hides the flash at the end of a barrel when agun fires, and is primarily used so that the person firing theweapon isn’t blinded by the first shot and unable to continuefiring effectively, particularly at night.
Pistol grips stabilize a firearm while firing from the shoulder,making a firearm more accurate and hence less likely to createstray shots that could wound innocent bystanders.
Then there’s the ominous grenade launcher. Grenades andgrenade-related accessories are heavily regulated and hard to getat; a launcher wouldn’t make them any easier to find.
According to Dr. David Kopel, a leading expert and published authoron the issue of gun control, neither the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobaccoand Firearms nor the Department of Justice was able to indicate asingle instance of a grenade launcher or a bayonet attached to arifle being used in a crime in the United States.
The bill also states, “a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, orsimilar device manufactured after the date of enactment of theViolent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 that has acapacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted toaccept, more than ten rounds of ammunition” has a”large capacity ammunition feeding device.”
Virtually any gun that accepts a magazine can accept ahigh-capacity magazine, including many hunting rifles and handguns.The magazine is an individual component. It doesn’t makesense to regulate firearms based on the size of the magazines whenthe size of magazines can be regulated separately, but the bill didit anyway.
A common misconception among those who don’t understandballistics and general firearms design is that weapons deemed to be”assault weapons” are more dangerous than other weaponsbecause of their military nature.
Sarah Brady of the Brady Campaign wrote a letter to President Bushon Sept. 14 stating, “these guns, designed by militaryscientists to inflict the maximum level of damage to human beings,are back on our streets.”
In fact, the opposite is true. For example, some common”assault weapons” are the Tec-9 and Uzi, both infamousfor being used by gangs. Both are semi-automatic like anyconventional handgun, which means pulling the trigger will onlyfire a single cartridge, unlike a fully automatic weapon. The Tec-9and Uzi also use the same 9 mm cartridges as normal handguns, sothe individual bullet doesn’t have any additional power.
Statistically, “assault weapons” aren’t used in adisproportionate amount of crime. Criminals don’t favor thembecause they don’t provide the power of hunting rifles andshotguns or the compact design of handguns.
Trying to patch serious problems by arbitrarily banning specificfirearms isn’t going to reduce crime any more than throwingpot dealers in jail reduces drug use. Instead of limiting oursecond-amendment right to bear arms with ineffective bans like theFederal Crime Bill, we might reexamine how we can combat crime moreeffectively. Murder, robbery and assault are all illegal, no matterwhat weapons are used.
