Assault Weapons ban question

[WestCoastLib]

I have a really simple question.

The Assault Weapons Ban- enacted in 1994 - Expired in 2004.

According to this article,

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/gun-deaths-set-outstrip-car-fatalities-first-time-152632492.html

The high water mark for gun deaths was in 1993. Gun deaths declined until they reach a low point in 2000. They have been rising since then.

So my question is, was it coincidence that the decline began when the Assault weapons ban was introduced and that it has been rising since near the time of when it expired?

It's an honest question that I don't know the answer to, but am curious to know what people's thoughts are.

[Recursion]

1. Gun deaths have not been rising

Well, the actual count may have, but the rate has been going down steadily since I think 1993.

The 1994 assault weapons ban only said that the kind of rifle that the shooter used in Newtown couldn't have a bayonet mount or a folding stock. That's why the DoJ concluded it had no effect on crime and didn't ask for Congress to renew it.

[WestCoastLib]

2. So you answer is yes its coincidence?

[Recursion]

3. The increase you mentioned didn't happen and the decrease you mentioned was worldwide

So, yes, the half of what you said that happened was not related to the banning of bayonet mounts.

[WestCoastLib]

6. So what would you suggest the decrease was related to?

It seems to me it's easy to dismiss the ban as ineffective in reducing deaths, because a small number of deaths are committed using these types of weapons.

But that's far too simple of a way to look at it. What about the idea that focusing on a ban of that type at all sending a better message to our youth and to our populace at large that we, as a society, value human life enough that we won't condone weapons for the general public that's intention is solely for the killing of other people?

Do you not think such legislation has an effect, not only in making it harder for people to obtain those weapons, but an effect in educating people in general to value human life and to have an impact on gun violence with legal weapons?

Perhaps it was simply even the matter of the raised awareness, and perhaps this incident will have a similar effect, law changes or not, but to dismiss it out of hand in despite of numbers seems a little silly.

[Recursion]

7. Roe v. Wade and lead abatement

But that's far too simple of a way to look at it. What about the idea that focusing on a ban of that type at all sending a better message to our youth and to our populace at large that we, as a society, value human life enough that we won't condone weapons for the general public that's intention is solely for the killing of other people?

Manufacturers took the bayonet lugs off their AR-15s and their sales skyrocketed, so if we were trying to send that message we screwed up.

[WestCoastLib]

8. That's something the gun collectors understand, not the general public

Again, because gun collectors and hobbyists understood that doesn't mean the general public does. General public heard Assault Weapons ban and, if they didn't have a major interest in guns, didn't think about ways to get around the ban, or what weapons were still produced.

The message was still sent, even if the people more educated on the issue that the masses, didn't get it.

[Recursion]

9. Well why not just call something an "Assault Weapons Ban" and ban nothing at all?

Why bother with making manufacturers take off bayonet lugs?

I do agree with you that most people (particularly most people who support the AWB) are completely wrong about what it actually does.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. This article...

...quotes the absolute number of deaths. The commonly compared metric is deaths per 100,000 of population which is a rate. Specifically, if a given population doubled, we would expect deaths form all means (gunfire, auto accidents, drowning, cancer...) to also double.

I have read that the rate of gun deaths has been dropping for maybe more than 20 years. I sure another poster will have some links.

Welcome to the group.

[gejohnston]

5. coincidence

because everything was grandfathered, and what wasn't, manufacturers and importers changed the cosmetic features that made it an "assault weapon". Although these guns were low hanging fruit (they weren't that popular before the ban. IIRC, the AR-15 has been on the civilian market since 1963 and they rarely sold. The SKS was kind of popular with US and Canadian hunters mostly because it was inexpensive.) Also, most gun deaths are suicides. Besides, they were rarely used in murders. They still are, they just show up in ones that make the news.

[Atypical Liberal]

10. Why crime declined.

The assault weapon ban was functionally useless. I bought my first assault weapon, a civilian AK-47 variant, during and because of the AWB! The only thing different about my "post-ban" SAR-1 is that it did not have a threaded muzzle and it did not have a bayonet lug.

That's it.

Oh, it had to have a certain number of US-made parts swapped in for the foreign-made ones, too.

It uses the same high-capacity magazines (I have six 20-round magazines) and it shoots the exact same 7.62x39 bullets the exact same way.

There have been many theories why crime has declined since the 1990s.

One of the biggest reasons cited is because we have incarcerated an entire generation of African Americans. This is a demographic that has suffered centuries of repression and denial of opportunity that have only started to be addressed in the last 50 years, and is still a massive social problem that makes a life of crime look appealing to people with poor educational and life opportunities. Of course throwing them all in jail was not the correct solution to this social problem but it undeniably removed a big swath of people likely to commit crimes from society.

It has also been suggested that illegal drug markets have stabilized.

It's also possible that with increases in technology, including surveillance technology, that people don't feel that you can get away with crime so easily anymore and so don't try.

[Recursion]

13. I still lean towards lead abatement

But obviously locking up young males for long periods of time will help, though the decrease in violence has included prison violence, oddly enough.

[slackmaster]

11. The ban made no real difference in the availability of any functional category of firearm

Manufacturers responded to it immediately, by removing features that are really irrelevant to the suitability of a weapon for misuse, such as bayonet lugs, folding stocks, and threaded muzzles.

There were also a lot of magazines of capacity greater than 10 rounds in circulation. Their number was frozen during the ban, but it has expanded dramatically since the ban expired in 2004.

I think the most telling statistic is the lack of an obvious increase in firearm-related crime since the ban expired.

[dairydog91]

12. The "Ban" never functioned in the way that its supporters thought it functioned.

First, it banned companies from selling guns with certain names. So, if a company was selling a gun named a "Tec-9" before the ban, it could, and one company did, simply rename it the "AB-10" (AB = After-Ban).

Second, it forbade the sale of guns with particular parts. Specifically, to be a banned "Assault weapon," a rifle had to be semi-auto, magazine-fed, and have at least two additional features (grenade launcher, flash suppressor, folding/telescoping stock, bayonet lug, pistol grip). So, for example, the exact rifle that Lanza used was NOT an "Assault weapon," since Connecticut bans in-state sales using the same definition (His rifle was semi-auto, magazine-fed, and had a pistol grip, but no other banned features).

Edit: The ban also forbade companies from selling new magazines with capacities of 11 or more rounds onto the civilian market. Ones that were already on the market could be traded and sold freely, though prices went up during the ban.

[Recursion]

14. ^ That

And yet I get called crazy (not just on DU) when I say I oppose the law

[WestCoastLib]

15. Tec-9 sounds cooler than AB-10

Rappers in the 90's used to rap about their Tec-9's. Never heard any rap about the AB-10

[GreenStormCloud]

20. Tec-9 looked cooler too.

The vented barrel shroud gave it a wicked look.

[Lizzie Poppet]

16. Yes, coincidence.

That category of weapons (para-military semiautomatic rifles and carbines) was never much of a factor in gun-related crime, before or after the mostly cosmetic AWB. They won't be after whatever measures are enacted this time, either. Small, concealable handguns will remain the overwhelming choice of the people who commit the vast majority of gun crime.

I'm willing to bet there will be no change in the rate of spree-killings, either. Those have remained pretty much steady for three decades:

[jody]

17. I've read most reports claiming to show that gun ownership causes or prevents crime. None of them, I

repeat NONE OF THEM, can be supported with statistical analysis.

That's not surprising because we are not talking about science for which we can use statistical and mathematical models to confirm or reject hypothesized cause and effect relationships.

There are so many, many factors that contribute to crime that gun ownership and crime rates can only be very loosely related, somewhere between a WAG and SWAG.

WAG = Wild Ass Guess
SWAG = Scientific Wild Ass Guess

[ileus]

18. Roaring 90's..........Life and the economy was good then.

People had hope.

[Kennah]

21. And, someone help me here, but didn't some douchebag wander into the White House in January 2001?

[beevul]

23. The appointed one? N/T

[GreenStormCloud]

19. During that same period, shall-issue CCWs expanded greatly.

Criminals don't want to get shot.

More people are beat to death with hands and feet every year than are killed with long guns. Therefore the AWB could not have a signifigant effect on the gun crime rate. Most gun crimes are committed with handguns.

Further, not one single gun was banned by the AWB. Only some cosmetic features were banned. The gun companies complied with the law by changing the looks of the gun (but not the functioning) and continued to market the same gun with the new look, and a new name.

Look up the Tec-9 and the AB-10. The look almost identical, and are identical in function. Yet the Tec-9 was AWB-illegal and the AB-10 was AWB legal. (After Ban - 10, The name change was the maker's way of thumbing his nose at the gun banners.)

[Kennah]

22. Murders by firearm have continued to fall, not rise

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

[krispos42]

24. All rifles account for about 3% of annual homicides.

And yet, homicide rates have declined about 40% or so since the high-water mark during Bush the Elder. So there are factors here than go way beyond such a simple explanation.


Now to be honest, "assault weapon" also covers certain kinds of shotguns and handguns, but even still, the drop in crime is hugely disproportional to the law enacted.

Making people grind off the bayonet lug of their rifle, or weld a folding stock in place, to turn an "assault weapon" into a "sporting rifle" did not make the murder rate drop 40%. It just didn't.