A while back, I harped on the Prince George’s Sentinel for an article on the Assault Weapons ban and actually got them to state that a correction of the error was forthcoming. As a result, Darren Harrison (the managing editor) asked me to write an op-ed on the ban. I did. Actually, I did with the help of Kevin Baker and Publicola.

Well, I sent the article that I wrote to him and haven’t heard back. I’m either getting blown off or they’re real busy. So, this is either an advanced copy for my readers or the only copy ever published. Regardless, here it is (let me know what you think):

Are you scared yet? Capitalizing on fear.

In Maryland, the debate over the federal Assault Weapons Ban, which is set to expire in September of this year, has heated up. There will be carnage in the streets! The end is nigh! Or is it?

The anti-gun crowd is playing on fear cultivated by the public’s misunderstanding of the current ban. People are lead to believe that the ban rids our streets of assault rifles. What is an assault weapon? That depends on the context. If you ask a member of the armed forces or a gun enthusiast, an assault weapon is a rifle capable of fully automatic fire that fires a medium caliber round. However, if you consult the text of the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, an assault weapon is:

a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of- (i) a folding or telescoping stock; (ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon; (iii) a bayonet mount; (iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and (v) a grenade launcher

The difference between fully automatic and semiautomatic is substantial. A fully automatic rifle (AKA a machine gun) fires bullets at a high rate of speed so long as the trigger is pulled. Essentially, a fully automatic rifle sprays a constant barrage of bullets. A semiautomatic rifle fires one shot for one pull of the trigger. To gun enthusiasts, this distinction is widely known. Proponents of the Assault Weapons Ban would lead you to believe that the ban affects machine guns. It does not. The law does not even ban guns, per se. It merely limits the number of features (listed above) that new semiautomatic rifles can have.

Machineguns have been regulated in this country since the National Firearms act of 1934. For that matter, grenades and launchers have also been regulated since 1938. What does the Assault Weapons Ban actually do? Essentially, it allows a rifle to have either a folding stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, or a flash suppressor. None of these four features (nor any combination thereof) make the rifle more deadly. The Assault Weapons Ban is about aesthetics. Though folding stocks are a regulated feature, it is rather irrelevant. You can still purchase short stocks or long stocks but the stock you purchase can’t have the ability to change from one size to the other. A pistol grip in no way makes a rifle any more deadly, it just alters the feel and appearance of the rifle. A flash suppressor redirects the muzzle flash of the gun to the sides of the muzzle instead of allowing the flash to go straight out of the muzzle, this does not affect firepower and doesn’t make the flash invisible. And drive-by bayoneting has ever been a problem.

Anti-gun groups are capitalizing on the misconceptions regarding the Assault Weapons Ban. They are taking advantage of the general public’s failure to distinguish between fully and semi-automatic weapons to push their agenda, which is gun control. After all, do you feel banning the features listed above really makes our streets safer? Even worse is the fact that the Violence Policy Center (VPC) has admitted to exploiting this fear. In reference to assault weapons, their website says:

The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons

The VPC also makes many other equally ludicrous statements that attempt to portray semiautomatic rifles as machine guns:

Semiautomatic assault weapons (like AK and AR-15 assault rifles and UZI and MAC assault pistols) are civilian versions of military assault weapons. There are virtually no significant differences between them.

Fully automatic rifles and semiautomatic rifles have a very significant difference. The former are capable of fully automatic fire. The VPC does, at one point, differentiate between the two but offers that this is a distinction without a difference in terms of killing power. This is an equally ludicrous statement.

Additionally, the VPC states: The distinctive “look” of assault weapons is not cosmetic. It is the visual result of specific functional design decisions. They are referring to the regulated features listed above. The VPC even refers to such rifles as bullet hoses, which again implies they are machine guns.

The press eats these misconceptions up. When you see a story about the Assault Weapons Ban, the press is quick to show images of machine guns, even though the ban does not address them in any way. Even CNN, in May of 2003, mislead by Sheriff Ken Jenne of Broward County, Florida, implied that assault weapons were more powerful and that the Assault Weapons Ban applied to machineguns. CNN subsequently corrected the story. Was this willful ignorance to push an agenda as many pro-gun people think? No, it appears that CNN fell for the Assault Weapons Ban propaganda issued by anti-gun groups.

The Sentinel fell for the same thing. John Erzan wrote that the bill targeted . . . weapons that can fire multi rounds with just a squeeze of the trigger. The managing editor has stated that a correction of the error is forthcoming. The Catonsville Times also had to retract a story claiming the Assault Weapons Ban targeted fully automatic weapons. The misinformation spread unintentionally by the press does influence people’s decision about the issue.

Not only are the distinctions between fully and semi-automatic; and banning rifles vs. banning features important, the crime statistics show that the Assault Weapons Ban has had no meaningful impact on crime (actually, a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control failed to find any correlation between any gun control laws – particularly bans that that target specific guns – and changes in crime statistics). The VPC released a study that concluded that of the 211 police officers killed in the line of duty from 1998 to 2001, 41 were killed with assault weapons. The problem is that this statistic includes guns that are not legally assault weapons. Analyze the VPC’s own data (which is questionable) and you will find that 19 police officers were killed with “assault weapons” as legally defined. Study further and you will also discover that the number of annual police deaths by firearm has been apparently unaffected by the relative explosion from the mid 1980’s of “assault weapons” (as defined by the VPC) into the general populace.

Other key facts about crime and the assault weapons ban:

Nationally, “assault weapons” were used in 1.4% of crimes involving firearms and 0.25% of all violent crime before the enactment of any national or state “assault weapons” ban.

The ban covered only 1.39% of the models of firearms on the market, so the bans effectiveness is automatically constrained. (sic)

To conclude, here is an amusing quote by Deputy Chief of Police Joseph Constance of Trenton NJ, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Aug 1993 before the passage of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban:

Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that assault weapons are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets.

Posted in uncategorized on February 21st, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |