Annoyingly, one of my senators, Dianne Feinstein, is a co-sponsor of the bill that poposes extending the "assault weapons" ban. Her arguments in favor of the extension, however, are completely vacuous.
“Over the past 10 years, however, the assault weapons ban has worked. It has dried up the supply of these weapons, and their use in crime has dropped by two-thirds. It would be a grave mistake to allow these weapons to once again flood our cities' streets.”But has the reduced supply actually reduced crime? No one makes that claim.
The Million Mom March also has some pointless statistics about assault weapons.
Assault Weapons: Key FactsSo what? Was there less crime, or did criminals simply start using other guns?- Assault weapon bans work. In 1989, when President Bush stopped the import of certain assault rifles, the number of imported assault rifles traced to crime dropped by 45% in one year. After the 1994 ban, there were 18% fewer assault weapons traced to crime in the first eight months of 1995 than were traced in the same period in 1994.
- Although assault weapons comprised only 1% of privately-owned guns in America, they accounted for 8.4% of all guns traced to crime in 1988-91.Again, so what? What are the statistics now? Is any of the reduction of crime over the past decade or so related to the AWB? If there were any such evidence you can bet the ban's proponents would be pointing it out.
The ban is nonsense, and hasn't saved a single life. All it does it restrict liberty, cost us money, and waste our legislators' time.
