Assault Weapons Ban did not reduce gun violence

[task0778]

“We had an assault weapon ban for 10 years: 1994-2004,” said Dr. Joanne Freeman, a historian at Yale University. “The world didn’t end. People kept their (other) guns. They bought new guns. It was hardly an attack on gun ownership.”

The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 targeted firearms deemed “useful in military and criminal applications but unnecessary in shooting sports or self-defense.”

Freeman is right that the ban lasted a decade before expiring on September 13, 2004. She’s also right that the world “didn’t end” and Americans continued to use and purchase other types of firearms.

What Freeman didn’t bring up was the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the government’s Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Nearly two decades ago the Department of Justice funded a study to analyze this very topic, and it concluded that the assault weapon prohibition had “mixed” results.

Researchers noted there was a decline in crimes committed with firearms classified as assault weapons, but noted “the decline in AW use was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns.”

In other words, there was a decline in crimes committed with firearms that were banned, but the drop was replaced by crimes committed with other types of firearms that were not banned.

While gun violence overall fell in the US during this period—just like many other countries around the world—the decline continued even after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban ended in 2004. Authors of the government-funded study plainly stated “we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence” and any future reduction in gun violence as a result of the ban was likely “to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

One might contend that this is just one study. No study is irrefutable, after all, even ones commissioned by the Justice Department. However, other studies since then have yielded similar conclusions.

A RAND review of gun control studies, which was updated in 2020, concluded there’s “inconclusive evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings.” Research published in Criminology & Public Policy the same year (2020) concluded that bans on assault weapons “do not seem to be associated with the incidence of fatal mass shootings.”

The Federal Government’s Own Study Concluded Its Ban on 'Assault Weapons' Didn't Reduce Gun Violence | Jon Miltimore

The Department of Justice funded a study to analyze the government's previous ban on "assault weapons." The DOJ noted that decline in the use of assault weapons "was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns.”

fee.org

Even the DOJ, says the ban didn't reduce gun violence.

The AW ban ended in 2004. It is my opinion that the world has significantly changed since then, and gun violence has increased quite a bit just over the past couple of years, partly due to the pandemic and resultant lockdowns but also the issues with defunding the police and social justice. Criminals who commit crimes with a gun are not prosecuted as much as they ought to be and the result is you get more gun crime and gun violence. Would another AW ban make a difference? I doubt it.

 

[White 6]

“We had an assault weapon ban for 10 years: 1994-2004,” said Dr. Joanne Freeman, a historian at Yale University. “The world didn’t end. People kept their (other) guns. They bought new guns. It was hardly an attack on gun ownership.”

The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of 1994 targeted firearms deemed “useful in military and criminal applications but unnecessary in shooting sports or self-defense.”

Freeman is right that the ban lasted a decade before expiring on September 13, 2004. She’s also right that the world “didn’t end” and Americans continued to use and purchase other types of firearms.

What Freeman didn’t bring up was the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the government’s Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Nearly two decades ago the Department of Justice funded a study to analyze this very topic, and it concluded that the assault weapon prohibition had “mixed” results.

Researchers noted there was a decline in crimes committed with firearms classified as assault weapons, but noted “the decline in AW use was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns.”

In other words, there was a decline in crimes committed with firearms that were banned, but the drop was replaced by crimes committed with other types of firearms that were not banned.

While gun violence overall fell in the US during this period—just like many other countries around the world—the decline continued even after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban ended in 2004. Authors of the government-funded study plainly stated “we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence” and any future reduction in gun violence as a result of the ban was likely “to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

One might contend that this is just one study. No study is irrefutable, after all, even ones commissioned by the Justice Department. However, other studies since then have yielded similar conclusions.

A RAND review of gun control studies, which was updated in 2020, concluded there’s “inconclusive evidence for the effect of assault weapon bans on mass shootings.” Research published in Criminology & Public Policy the same year (2020) concluded that bans on assault weapons “do not seem to be associated with the incidence of fatal mass shootings.”

The Federal Government’s Own Study Concluded Its Ban on 'Assault Weapons' Didn't Reduce Gun Violence | Jon Miltimore

The Department of Justice funded a study to analyze the government's previous ban on "assault weapons." The DOJ noted that decline in the use of assault weapons "was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns.”

fee.org

Even the DOJ, says the ban didn't reduce gun violence.

The AW ban ended in 2004. It is my opinion that the world has significantly changed since then, and gun violence has increased quite a bit just over the past couple of years, partly due to the pandemic and resultant lockdowns but also the issues with defunding the police and social justice. Criminals who commit crimes with a gun are not prosecuted as much as they ought to be and the result is you get more gun crime and gun violence. Would another AW ban make a difference? I doubt it.

I suspect it did keep the number of victims shot at one time to lower numbers, than we have seen with the blooming popularity of the AR design. I don't favor a ban, but I do favor increased regulation, as it has become the go-to weapon of choice on walk-in mass shootings, due to it's efficiency and ease of operation, and these walk-in killing events (not property or theft crime) is really what brings the discussion to the surface again, isn't it?

 

[TroglocratsRdumb]

Left Wing prosecutors release violent criminals all of the time.
People want to be able to protect themselves from the Corrupt Democrat Party's violent criminal voter base.

Suspected Texas high school gunman released on bail — one day after teacher and students shot

The Texas student who allegedly opened fire at his high school, injuring four people, including a teacher, was sprung from jail on Thursday afternoon.

nypost.com

The Texas student who allegedly opened fire at his high school, injuring four people, including a teacher, was sprung from jail on Thursday afternoon — as an attorney who joined him insisted that the case wasn’t a “standard-issue school shooting.”
Timothy George Simpkins, 18, who attends Timberview High School in Arlington, will report to home confinement after he posted $75,000 bond at Tarrant County Jail, news station WFAA reported.

 

[Polishprince]

Violence did not end between 1994 and 2004, in spite what the Brady Bunch and their control freak allies say.

Columbine happened in 1999. The very violent 9/11 terror attacks happened in 2001.


But the thing is that the Draconian Gun Control Act of 1994 didn't even simmer down the radical gun-grabbers.

They saw the whole bill as just a camel's nose under the tent and used to push for even CRAZIER gun control.

I can't see any positives at all to it.

 

[task0778]

I suspect it did keep the number of victims shot at one time to lower numbers, than we have seen with the blooming popularity of the AR design. I don't favor a ban, but I do favor increased regulation, as it has become the go-to weapon of choice on walk-in mass shootings, due to it's efficiency and ease of operation, and these walk-in killing events (not property or theft crime) is really what brings the discussion to the surface again, isn't it?

Mass shootings, particularly in schools does kinda bring the issue of AWs to the forefront. But banning them doesn't seem to change the overall deaths due to gun violence.

A very broad definition of "mass shootings" compiled by the Gun Violence Archive tabulated 465 fatalities across 417 incidents in 2019. Those deaths represent about 2.8 percent of the 16,425 total homicides that year. Rifles were used in only 6 percent of all gun-related homicides in that same year. Many of these incidents were more commonplace types of criminal activity, such as shootouts over drugs or gang turf. Few of these incidents constitute a "shooting spree" of indiscriminate violence. Rare randomized killing sprees get disproportionate news coverage and politicians rush to the soapbox to proclaim that they are taking decisive action.
.
.
The 2007 Virginia Tech shooter was not armed with an assault weapon, just a 9mm Glock, a .22 caliber target pistol, and a duffel bag full of spare 10-round magazines at his hip during his 10-minute rampage. In 1991, a man crashed his truck into a Texas restaurant. Over 15 minutes, armed only with a pair of handguns, he fatally wounded 13 people and systematically executed 10 more. The 1946 "Walk of Death" in Camden, New Jersey, was perpetrated by a disturbed veteran armed with a 9mm pistol, two eight-round magazines, and some loose ammo in his pocket.

There is little evidence that weapon type, caliber, or capacity has any relation to the number of casualties in a spree killing. The spree shooter will always have the best advantages: planning and surprise. Typically, they deliberately select locations where firearms are unlikely to be present. Without resistance they can maneuver aggressively and without fear of reprisal.

3 Reasons Why Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ Is a Terrible Idea


It seems to me that the focus needs to be more on the shooter than the weapon. And gun free zones are a terrible idea that needs to go. It's like advertising to every nutjob out there that they can go here and shoot a bunch of people without worrying about getting shot yourself. How is that not the definition of lunacy?

 

[2aguy]

I suspect it did keep the number of victims shot at one time to lower numbers, than we have seen with the blooming popularity of the AR design. I don't favor a ban, but I do favor increased regulation, as it has become the go-to weapon of choice on walk-in mass shootings, due to it's efficiency and ease of operation, and these walk-in killing events (not property or theft crime) is really what brings the discussion to the surface again, isn't it?

No, it didn't.....

And no, handguns are still the weapon of choice for mass public shootings........shotguns and hand guns have killed lots of people in mass public shootings and only one mass public shooting, Las Vegas, actually required a rifle vs. a pistol or shotgun....because the killer was shooting out to 400 yards.

The thing that lowers numbers of killed is how soon someone is shooting back at the bad guy.....the gun doesn't matter.

 

[MarathonMike]

I suspect it did keep the number of victims shot at one time to lower numbers, than we have seen with the blooming popularity of the AR design. I don't favor a ban, but I do favor increased regulation, as it has become the go-to weapon of choice on walk-in mass shootings, due to it's efficiency and ease of operation, and these walk-in killing events (not property or theft crime) is really what brings the discussion to the surface again, isn't it?

It is clear that the AR-15 style weapon is the choice for these nut cases. My concern is our worthless political leaders will put all their efforts into JUST THAT so they can pat themselves on the back exclaiming they 'did something'. Then there will be another mass shooting by another nut case with a glock and a back pack full of "legal size" magazines. And he will killl just as many. Then what? For every school shooter there are probably thousands more who are in a similar mental state.

 

[White 6]

Mass shootings, particularly in schools does kinda bring the issue of AWs to the forefront. But banning them doesn't seem to change the overall deaths due to gun violence.

A very broad definition of "mass shootings" compiled by the Gun Violence Archive tabulated 465 fatalities across 417 incidents in 2019. Those deaths represent about 2.8 percent of the 16,425 total homicides that year. Rifles were used in only 6 percent of all gun-related homicides in that same year. Many of these incidents were more commonplace types of criminal activity, such as shootouts over drugs or gang turf. Few of these incidents constitute a "shooting spree" of indiscriminate violence. Rare randomized killing sprees get disproportionate news coverage and politicians rush to the soapbox to proclaim that they are taking decisive action.
.
.
The 2007 Virginia Tech shooter was not armed with an assault weapon, just a 9mm Glock, a .22 caliber target pistol, and a duffel bag full of spare 10-round magazines at his hip during his 10-minute rampage. In 1991, a man crashed his truck into a Texas restaurant. Over 15 minutes, armed only with a pair of handguns, he fatally wounded 13 people and systematically executed 10 more. The 1946 "Walk of Death" in Camden, New Jersey, was perpetrated by a disturbed veteran armed with a 9mm pistol, two eight-round magazines, and some loose ammo in his pocket.

There is little evidence that weapon type, caliber, or capacity has any relation to the number of casualties in a spree killing. The spree shooter will always have the best advantages: planning and surprise. Typically, they deliberately select locations where firearms are unlikely to be present. Without resistance they can maneuver aggressively and without fear of reprisal.

3 Reasons Why Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ Is a Terrible Idea


It seems to me that the focus needs to be more on the shooter than the weapon. And gun free zones are a terrible idea that needs to go. It's like advertising to every nutjob out there that they can go here and shoot a bunch of people without worrying about getting shot yourself. How is that not the definition of lunacy?

Maybe I'm just a selfish SOB. I ain't bad in a pinch and can hold my own with most anybody with pistols at up to 30, maybe even 50 meters. No way, I can hold my own or be of assistance to a group, a cop or even myself against an AR-15 and somebody with a few a day or so, experience with their killing toy, designed put a high number of round fairly precisely in to a small or even large area. I'd hope for the best, getting my family and myself the hell out of the killing zone and the unarmed unwilling participants would have to fend for themselves as best, they can, as I am not paid, nor sworn to defend, certainly not at the cost of my own life and would probably not attempt if hopelessly out gunned.

 

[2aguy]

Maybe I'm just a selfish SOB. I ain't bad in a pinch and can hold my own with most anybody with pistols at up to 30, maybe even 50 meters. No way, I can hold my own or be of assistance to a group, a cop or even myself against an AR-15 and somebody with a few a day or so, experience with their killing toy, designed put a high number of round fairly precisely in to a small or even large area. I'd hope for the best, getting my family and myself the hell out of the killing zone and the unarmed unwilling participants would have to fend for themselves as best, they can, as I am not paid, nor sworn to defend, certainly not at the cost of my own life and would probably not attempt if hopelessly out gunned.

Yeah...maybe you should ask this woman for some lessons....

West Virginia mass shooting stopped...

People like this West Virginia woman who stopped what could have become a mass shooting just a day after Uvalde.

Police said a woman who was lawfully carrying a pistol shot and killed a man who began shooting at a crowd of people Wednesday night in Charleston.


Dennis Butler was killed after allegedly shooting at dozens of people attending a graduation party Wednesday near the Vista View Apartment complex. No injuries were reported from those at the party.
Investigators said Butler was warned about speeding in the area with children present before he left.

He later returned with an AR-15-style firearm and began firing into the crowd before he was shot and killed.


“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said.
Officers did not go into detail, but said Butler did have an extensive criminal history.
Now, doesn’t that sound like an attempted mass shooting to you?
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t because the woman was there, had a gun, and had the will to use it at that crucial moment. Hazelett noted the woman won’t be facing any charges, which she shouldn’t.

West Virginia armed citizen stops potential mass shooting

 

[White 6]

Yeah...maybe you should ask this woman for some lessons....

West Virginia mass shooting stopped...

People like this West Virginia woman who stopped what could have become a mass shooting just a day after Uvalde.

Police said a woman who was lawfully carrying a pistol shot and killed a man who began shooting at a crowd of people Wednesday night in Charleston.


Dennis Butler was killed after allegedly shooting at dozens of people attending a graduation party Wednesday near the Vista View Apartment complex. No injuries were reported from those at the party.
Investigators said Butler was warned about speeding in the area with children present before he left.

He later returned with an AR-15-style firearm and began firing into the crowd before he was shot and killed.


“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said.
Officers did not go into detail, but said Butler did have an extensive criminal history.

Now, doesn’t that sound like an attempted mass shooting to you?
But it wasn’t.
It wasn’t because the woman was there, had a gun, and had the will to use it at that crucial moment. Hazelett noted the woman won’t be facing any charges, which she shouldn’t.

West Virginia armed citizen stops potential mass shooting

She did a great job and is a credit to her police force. I am not on anybody's police force, neither are most concealed carry permit holders. You are better off trying to convince the nut balls with their ARs not to fire at crowd, than to expect non-sworn permit holders to take on the task. It kind of depend on situation, opportunity and margin. Part of the permit class was instructor training, not to be a hero or vigilante. When I took senior Red Cross life-saving, part of the training included breaking a panicked swimmer's grip, violently if necessary and the admonition, the only thing worse than a drowning was a double drowning especially if it is you.