Posted on 06/03/2003 11:54:25 AM PDT by 45Auto
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the tough conservative liberals love to hate, provoked a mini-furor by declaring that the Republican-controlled House would not renew Congress' 1994 ban on so-called assault weapons.
Only reflexive gun banners and the uninformed can have been disconcerted.
The 1994 ban proved predictably ineffective. Letting it expire on schedule in 2004 would change, well, almost nothing.
The ban, championed by California's formidable Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was sold on a singularly false (if well-intentioned) premise – that the semi-automatic (one shot for each trigger pull), civilian versions of certain military-type rifles were major contributors to crime. These firearms, we were typically told by ban advocates, were the "guns of choice for gang bangers, drug dealers and street criminals."
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
In fact, the truth was exactly opposite.
The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, the law enforcement statistics of every state bothering to count and the careful research of criminologists all told the same story:
Rifles of any type are used in only a tiny fraction of gun crimes (the preferred firearm for nearly all criminals being the easily concealed handgun). The criminal use of rifles dubbed assault weapons is rarer still. Indeed, so-called assault rifles are the least likel y firearms to be used in crime.
FBI statistics show that rifles of any description are used in only about 3 percent of homicides each year. Data compiled by criminologist Gary Kleck put the frequency of assault weapons use in all violent crime at 0.5 percent.
In California, a statewide survey of law enforcement agencies by the state Department of Justice found that a mere 3.7 percent of firearms used in homicides and assaults were assault weapons.
A Trenton, N.J. deputy police chief said his officers "are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets."
No wonder, then, that banning this arbitrarily defined class of firearms had no discernible effect on crime.
The U.S. Department of Justice conducted two studies of the consequences of the 1994 assault weapons ban. In 1999, Bill Clinton's Justice Department looked exhaustively at the ban's effects. It concluded that "the public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated." In 2001, a second Justice Department review similarly found no evidence that the ban had a statistically significant effect on violent crime. A congressionally mandated study by the Urban Institute reached comparable conclusions.
Banning Feinstein's 19 types of semi-automatic rifles and pistols because they have two or more military-style features – like a bayonet lug, pistol grip or flash suppressor – is irrelevant to crime. When was the last drive-by bayoneting?
The Feinstein ban's prohibition on newly manufactured ammunition magazines capable of containing more than 10 rounds, for rifles or handguns, might seem a prudent public-safety precaution. But, again, there is no conclusive evidence over nearly a decade that smaller-capacity magazines have any crime-reduction or violence-reduction effects.
But isn't there something to be said for the gun banners' chronic plea that any restrictions reducing the numbers of guns Americans own makes society safer?
In a word, no.
The 200 million-plus privately owned firearms in the United States grew by an estimated 37 million during the 1990s. If the simplistic notion that more guns equal more crime and more homicides had any validity, crime rates would have climbed during the decade. Instead, rates for serious and violent crime fell every year from 1991 through the end of the decade. Despite those 37 million more guns, murder rates in many major American cities fell to the lowest levels in 40 years.
Thirty-five states have enacted "right-to-carry" legislation allowing law-abiding citizens a license to carry a concealed weapon. In most if not all of these 35 states, homicide rates declined after ordinary citizens were permitted the means of self-defense.
Most of the 19 rifle and pistol types banned by Feinstein's 1994 amendment were already barred from import into the United States by order of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in 1989. Even if Feinstein's ban expires, the BATF's import restrictions would still be in place. The two domestic manufacturers of assault-style pistols are out of business.
That leaves a possible resumption in production of one domestically produced rifle, the Colt AR-15, on Feinstein's list as the sole likely consequence of the 1994 ban's expiration. Feinstein's magazine capacity restrictions would lapse with the ban's expiration. But they are widely circumvented now anyway by the vast numbers of pre-ban magazines legally available.
The gun banners also miscalculate the political support for more restrictions that limit the firearm-owning rights of law-abiding citizens.
Feinstein would expand her ban if she could but she cannot get 51 votes in the Senate. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a New York Democrat, proposes banning millions more semi-automatic rifles and pistols owned and used by American hunters, sport shooters and collectors. Her bill stands no chance.
A White House aide says President Bush favors extending the Feinstein ban, a position he took with no visible conviction during the 2000 campaign. Bush himself says nothing now, no doubt because he knows the gun-rights vote in swing states Arkansas, Tennessee and West Virginia made him president. DeLay predicts the House won't vote to make the 1994 ban permanent. He's probably right, and that's no loss to the country.
There's a conversion cylinder available for the 44 caliber ones that converts the gun to 44 colt (sometimes referred to as 44 long colt). You have to pop the cylinder out and take the back off to change the cartridges, but you still have 6 very reliable and powerful shots available. I suppose you could have several cylinders available and change them out like magsazines, but they run about $250.00 each. I used to shoot my ruger old army a lot with BP, and I can see it being the equivalent of any modern SA revolver with this kit. No federal laws on either the gun or the cyliinders as of the present. Probably not restricted from purchase and ownership by Felon and Domestic crime convicts as they are totally unregulated on the Fed level (I'd check with the BATF on that though if I were a restrcited person thinking about it), but some States may have regs on Cap&Ball stuff.
These things wouldn't be hard to make for any competant weekend machinist with a fairly well equipped home shop. Might even make a nice little cottage industry for someone, the design is basicaly from Remington's conversions back in the late 1800's so I doubt there would be any patent problems with the current manufacturers.
Most likely BATF under current administration will not make an issue of it, but a future administration might, under the viewpoint that any device or attachment which transforms a black-powder handgun into a cartridge handgun would be illegal if a Form 4473 was not then filled out, along with a Brady check
I would recommend getting a few of those cylinders now before they become regulated or banned
Then it was broadened by Clinton in IIRC '98 to better match the AW ban restrictions. To get the details you'd have to check the Executive Order.
A disarmed fed is a civil fed.
That would be the BUSH (#41) Executive Order banning importation of many high quality firearms including the extremely pricey HK PSG-1. I never heard of any crimes being committed with this weapon which costs over 10grand. Because BUSH 41 was a gun grabbing globalist that helped pave the way for the Clintonian excesses ahead, I will watch the son very closely.
Isn't it interesting that as I sit here typing this, the FX feature movie about the North Hollywood shootout is on. I wonder how many uninformed citizens are watching and are going to equate them with AW's? Semi-auto to full auto? I'm sure mom and pop Americans will say: "Hey what's the difference on the rate of fire? It's the firepower that needs to be banned...right?"
True for the wife and manager, but he killed a Jeffco deputy with either the .50 or his SKS as the deputy was rolling up in his marked car. Can't place the dirtbags name.
I'm fairly sure it was the SKS (but I could be wrong). I recall the .50 as being displayed along with everything else he had in the van. Seems like they would have played up the .50 aspect if it had been used. Of course, this was a few years back and it's likely the news people wouldn't know one from another anyway. I can't remember the killers name either.
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