AWB Effectiveness
Despite giving DiFi early air time in the piece, this is not a bad piece on the assault weapons ban (at least by California newspaper standards):
Feinstein said that the expiration of the ban she fought hard to get in 1994 “will have deadly consequences on the streets of America.”
But has it really made much of a difference? Are the streets less safe?
There is no hard evidence one way or another.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has no statistics that would show whether there’s been an uptick in sales of assault-style weapons, and the Department of Justice has no statistics that would show whether there’s been an increase in their use in crimes
Err, wouldn’t that last paragraph there be the evidence you were looking for in the second to last paragraph? More:
Gun manufacturers say their shops are busy, but only because the 10-year ban created pent-up demand for weapons with features that weren’t available.
“It’s changed our market a bit,” said Mark Westrom, president of Armalite, an Illinois company that produces the military-style weapons.
But Westrom said the company is not selling anywhere near the volume that many gun-control advocates had forecast.
“It’s a non-story,” he said.
Ayup.
