The Facts About Assault Weapons and Crime
 

Warning about "weapons designed for the theater of war," President Obama on Wednesday called for immediate action on a new Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He said that "more of our fellow Americans might still be alive" if the original assault weapons ban, passed in 1994, had not expired in 2004. Last month, in the wake of the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) promised to introduce an updated version of the ban. She too warned of the threat posed by "military weapons."

After the nightmare of Newtown, their concern is understandable. Yet despite being at the center of the gun-control debate for decades, neither President Obama nor Ms. Feinstein (the author of the 1994 legislation) seems to understand the leading research on the effects of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. In addition, they continue to mislabel the weapons they seek to ban.

Ms. Feinstein points to two studies by criminology professors Chris Koper and Jeff Roth for the National Institute of Justice to back up her contention that the ban reduced crime. She claims that their first study in 1997 showed that the ban decreased "total gun murders." In fact, the authors wrote: "the evidence is not strong enough for us to conclude that there was any meaningful effect (i.e., that the effect was different from zero)."

Messrs. Koper and Roth suggested that after the ban had been in effect for more years it might be possible to find a benefit. Seven years later, in 2004, they published a follow-up study for the National Institute of Justice with fellow criminologist Dan Woods that concluded, "we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence."

Moreover, none of the weapons banned under the 1994 legislation or the updated version are "military" weapons. The killer in Newtown used a Bushmaster .223. This weapon bears a cosmetic resemblance to the M-16, which has been used by the U.S. military since the Vietnam War. The call has frequently been made that there is "no reason" for such "military-style weapons" to be available to civilians.

Yes, the Bushmaster and the AK-47 are "military-style weapons." But the key word is "style"—they are similar to military guns in their cosmetics, not in the way they operate. The guns covered by the original were not the fully automatic machine guns used by the military, but semiautomatic versions of those guns.

The civilian version of the Bushmaster uses essentially the same sorts of bullets as small game-hunting rifles, fires at the same rapidity (one bullet per pull of the trigger), and does the same damage. The civilian version of the AK-47 is similar, though it fires a much larger bullet—.30 inches in diameter, as opposed to the .223 inch rounds used by the Bushmaster. No self-respecting military in the world would use the civilian version of these guns.

A common question is: "Why do people need a semiautomatic Bushmaster to go out and kill deer?" The answer is simple: It is a hunting rifle. It has just been made to look like a military weapon.

But the point isn't to help hunters. Semiautomatic weapons also protect people and save lives. Single-shot rifles that require you to physically reload the gun may not do people a lot of good when they are facing multiple criminals or when their first shot misses or fails to stop an attacker.

Since the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired in September 2004, murder and overall violent-crime rates have fallen. In 2003, the last full year before the law expired, the U.S. murder rate was 5.7 per 100,000 people, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Report. By 2011, the murder rate fell to 4.7 per 100,000 people. One should also bear in mind that just 2.6% of all murders are committed using any type of rifle.

The large-capacity ammunition magazines used by some of these killers are also misunderstood. The common perception that so-called "assault weapons" can hold larger magazines than hunting rifles is simply wrong. Any gun that can hold a magazine can hold one of any size. That is true for handguns as well as rifles. A magazine, which is basically a metal box with a spring, is trivially easy to make and virtually impossible to stop criminals from obtaining. The 1994 legislation banned magazines holding more than 10 bullets yet had no effect on crime rates.

Ms. Feinstein's new proposal also calls for gun registration, and the reasoning is straightforward: If a gun has been left at a crime scene and it was registered to the person who committed the crime, the registry will link the crime gun back to the criminal.

Nice logic, but in reality it hardly ever works that way. Guns are very rarely left behind at a crime scene. When they are, they're usually stolen or unregistered. Criminals are not stupid enough to leave behind guns that are registered to them. Even in the few cases where registered guns are left at crime scenes, it is usually because the criminal has been seriously injured or killed, so these crimes would have been solved even without registration.

Canada recently got rid of its costly "long-gun" registry for rifles in part because the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chiefs of Police could not provide a single example in which tracing was of more than peripheral importance in solving a gun murder.

If we finally want to deal seriously with multiple-victim public shootings, it's time that we acknowledge a common feature of these attacks: With just a single exception, the attack in Tucson last year, every public shooting in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed since at least 1950 has occurred in a place where citizens are not allowed to carry their own firearms. Had some citizens been armed, they might have been able to stop the killings before the police got to the scene. In the Newtown attack, it took police 20 minutes to arrive at the school after the first calls for help.

The Bushmaster, like any gun, is indeed very dangerous, but it is not a weapon "designed for the theater of war." Banning assault weapons will not make Americans safer.

Mr. Lott is a former chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, third edition, 2010).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

Oh for goodness sakes....

http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/x...pscc17a66c.jpg

an economi....... zzzzzzzz zzzzzzz zzzz... baton down the hatch on your bunker rocky I think I saw a liberal heading south on qe2, lol.

It has been proven that no rifle was used in the newtown shootings, the moron that did the shootings used 4 handguns. Aside from that no matter the weapon of choice, whether it be a 6 shooter or an m-16, if a crazy wants to kill they will find a way to do it. we need a crazy person ban not a gun ban
my .02

Even if he did use the Bushmaster - and I think he did - the FACTS prove that an "Assault Rifle" ban does not work.

Why?

Because, in addition to being wrong-headed for many reasons, it's already been tried. It did not work. For those at the back of the class: It....did.....not.....work.

That's why you now see lame attempts at censorship. They lost the debate. Facts are against them and they have only emotion left.

Seeing that emotion a LOT, aren't we :)

Dear Mr Dave......

YOUR AWESOME DUDE!!!!!!!!!.........

I had no words for this post.....but you nailed it my friend.

ROTFLMAO. Dave... I am bowing. Hands down you made my day with this post. It was a close one with Rocky7's post coming in second. The post were he finally admits that the AR15 killed all the children.

Based on these new stats...Rocky will finally realize he is completely wrong by the time he has posted another 34 lame gun politico threads.

Yeah right try 340.

Rocky has still not admitted that he was wrong about the wildrose losing the election.

Liberals hate Lott.

Why?

He proves what he publishes.

Ya...... They hate that :sign0161:

I don't care what the misguided kid used. Banning AR-15's is a useless gesture. And why is there some kind of thing going on as if "Bushmaster" is the only maker of AR-15's? I'd wager that most people who want to ban them wouldn't even recognize this R-15 (Remington) as being an AR-15.

http://www.remington.com/~/media/Ima...0-AR-prod.ashx

New info about school shooting. No AR15 used.
 

You'll figure it out eventually rwm. :)

Interesting.

I agree with ehntr that the type of gun used by the psycho really doesn't matter; except that these sort of details do shed light on the willingness of the Left to gobble up any tragedy, without a care for the truth, if it will advance their cause. For that purpose, it should not be overlooked.

Are these "assault rifles" scary, too?
 

The media lied and the Gov. by not correcting them took part in the lie, sad what Police and the once proud United States of America has sunk to.

Great Rocky. I just agreed with better background checks and restrictions on larger ammo drums and mags. But you want the Swiss model where they highly control the ammo versus guns.

Also you realize te Swiss have no army and rely on reserves where last I checked the US had a small army.

All ammo needs to be used at the range. So pretty girls with guns and no ammo..is cute.

Gun purchases are highly regulated. Private sales often have criminal background checks...and need a permit.

Carry permits are only for security jobs.

Ammo sales are aso recorded.

Thanks for making our point again. Gad you are endorsing Swiss laws. You and I are pretty closely aligned now.

What more can I say.


http://www.google.ca/imgres?q=guns+d...r:16,s:0,i:130

Can I just suggest that rather than picking apart each other's beliefs regarding certain classes of firearms that we stand together in support of firearms ownership regardless of class of firearms. If we do not present an united front against gun bans, our hunting rifles may be on the chopping block after the anti's succeed in their push for an "assault" style rifle ban.

Come on dont ruin Switzerland for him. Dont tell him all those gun owners have them because they are in the Swiss version of the military. Dont tell him they used to get boxes of 50 bullets that were sealed and subject to inspection to ensure they were unused. Dont tell him that only a small number of citizens required to guard high priority targets are allowed to have ammunition now. Dont tell him the others have to drive to a armoury to get ammunition. How effective is a gun at preventing crime when the criminal knows you dont have bullets? Dont tell him the swiss crime rate is low do to factors unrelated to gun ownership. Dont tell him that many swiss voluntarily give up their firearms when there militia duties are over and those that dont must have there weapons changed from full auto to semi auto. Dont tell him gun ownership of both hand guns and rifles is lower in switzerland than it is in the US

Dont tell him you have to take your gun from your home to the range or military instilation and back with no stops in between. Dont tell him those girls werent driving to go have tea and crumpets.

Dont tell him the swiss have low unemployment a small population and are so culturaly different from the US that there is no point in comparing the two nations.

Please dont ruin switzerland

Don't tell him that those checks were to make sure the gun owner didn't use up that government-issued ammo and still had that particular box of ammo on hand.

Am I going too fast for you?

200,000 people attend the annual Feldschiessen weekend, the largest rifle shooting competition in the world. Are you saying they all line up and say "Bang"?

Post a link.

Pride goes before the fall.

Don't tell him that any ammo you buy for hunting gets recorded by the government.

All in favor of Rocky's proposal to adopt the Swiss system say I :sHa_shakeshout:

Seems like there are a lot of gun control yahoos on this site but it's really only a few clowns that never shut up and they will never get a clue. The AO gun control crowd. :snapoutofit:

For sure..i mean let's just take a little looksy at this story(has a big relation to all the school shootings retardation too,always the teeny bopper WHO gains access to guns >>NOT<< owned by them!
-----------
"...After a while, I thought to myself that if I were to kill my mom and Mallory, I wouldn't want them to feel anything, so I decided to kill them both with the


>> .22 revolver I stole from my Grandpa," he wrote. <<

He said he thought about it some more.
I then spent probably over an hour walking nervously around the house thinking how life will never be the same and how I would never see them again," he wrote...."
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013...om-sister?lite

Yeah, that surprised me as well. Were these the people fighting for the LGR when it still in effect or did their superior morals only kick in when the shootings took place in CT.

I can't believe you guys are drinking the koolaid and failing to see how better background checks and restrictions on higher capacity mags and drums is a good thing. I marvel at how you can't grasp that it would help show a willingness by the industry to curb deaths. I shake my head at you guys pulling the government conspiracy theory, the need to take over the government theory, the paranoia that the UN is taking away guns or the Liberal are attacking!

The person responsible for the Sandy Hook massacre would not have been issued a permit due to mental illness. He had to improvise, so he killed his mother and took her lawfully obtained guns, ammo and car. Nothing short of destroying all the guns in the world will ever stop them from being misused. Obama's proposals would have had no affect on that shooting.