Class 3 Weapons Crime Numbers
Posted on October 19, 2011 by admin
It might suprise you to learn that “machine guns” are not as evil as some would lead you to believe. Watching TV, Movies and the news reports, you might think that there are violent crimes involving fully automatic weapons every weekend.
How many deaths would you say were attributed to class 3 weapons in 2010?
How many deaths would you say in the last decade were attributed to class 3 weapons?
How many civilians were killed with class 3 weapons since the ban was instituted?
Do you have you numbers ready? Well, there isn’t a true clearing house for all of these numbers and there are some discrprencies in the reports, but the numbers are staggering.
According to GunCite.com, in 1995 there were about 240,000 “machine guns” registered with the ATF. About half of those are registered to private civilians with the rest belonging to police and military.
GunCite.com says that there have been 2 crimes committed by legal owners of “machine guns”. The first was committed by a policeman in Dayton, Ohio in 1988. The second occurred in 1992 and little information can be found about this one.
http://www.class3weaponslicense.com/162/class-3-weapons-crime-numbers
Here are FOUR police killings in ten years:
Crime Involving Illegally Owned Machine Guns
Again in Targeting Guns, Kleck writes, four police officers were killed in the line of duty by machine guns from 1983 to 1992. (713 law enforcement officers were killed during that period, 651 with guns.)
In 1980, when Miami’s homicide rate was at an all-time high, less than 1% of all homicides involved machine guns. (Miami was supposedly a “machine gun Mecca” and drug trafficking capital of the U.S.) Although there are no national figures to compare to, machine gun deaths were probably lower elsewhere. Kleck cites several examples:
•Of 2,200 guns recovered by Minneapolis police (1987-1989), not one was fully automatic.
•A total of 420 weapons, including 375 guns, were seized during drug warrant executions and arrests by the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad (Will and Grundie counties in the Chicago metropolitan area, 1980-1989). None of the guns was a machine gun.
•16 of 2,359 (0.7%) of the guns seized in the Detroit area (1991-1992) in connection with “the investigation of narcotics trafficking operations” were machine guns.
http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcfullau.html
“The first was committed by a policeman in Dayton, Ohio in 1988.”
That is the ONLY one I’ve ever heard of. Didn’t know there was a second. I wonder if there are any stats out there for silenced weapons used in a crime or SBRs? Contrary to the anti-gunners agenda, the folks who go through all the paperwork, background checks, long waiting periods, and high expense to obtain class 3 items, very seldom (if ever) use any of them for crimes. It seems the people who jump through all the hoops to obtain these items legitimately, are not the sort to use them for criminal purposes.