Minimal amount of crime was overstated?
We pro-gun types have often point out that supposed assault weapons were (and still are) rarely used in crime. It turns out, that number may have even been inflated when the assault weapons issue was invented in the 1980s:
“Should it be renewed, the (assault weapons ban) ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” That bombshell admission appears in a report prepared for the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Jerry Lee Center of Criminology.
The report also revealed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives apparently overstated the use of these firearms in crimes during the 1980s and 1990s. The report also noted that even before the ban took effect, so-called assault weapons were used “in only a small fraction of gun crime — about 2 percent according to most studies.”
Of course, I have yet to see the NIJ study mentioned prominently in a major media piece addressing the ban.
