Assault Weapons

Johns Hopkins Study: No Evidence ‘Assault Weapon’ Bans Reduce Mass Shootings

A study released by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health declares there is no evidence “assault weapon” bans lead to a lower “incidence of fatal mass shootings.” The push for an “assault weapons” ban is central to the Democrats’ gun control agenda nationally and is front and center for Democrats at the state level in places like Arizona and Virginia. According to the Johns Hopkins study, researchers”did not find an independent association between assault weapon bans and the incidence of fatal mass shootings.” Researchers did claim licensing requirements like those in Connecticut help reduce the number of mass shootings, but their study omitted the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School in which 26 were killed at the school and another victim was killed in a private home. In other words, a study which claims licensing reduces instances of mass shootings omitted one of the most often cited mass shootings in U.S. history, even though that shooting occurred in a licensing state. Moreover, John Hopkins’ criteria for licensing laws allowed them to bypass Illinois which, in turn, allowed them to sidestep the never ending gun crime of Chicago. But the study was clear there is no evidence tying “assault weapons” to a lower incidence of mass shootings.

Gee..  Imagine that…  This is the type of story you will NEVER see on CNN, MSNBC, PBS/NPR, or any other organ of the dominantly liberal mainstream media, as it totally undercuts their fascist anti-gun narrative.

Dianne Feinstein Falsely Claims ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Lowered Crime

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) claims the 1994 “assault weapons” ban lowered crime even though a Department of Justice report shows it had no impact on recorded figures. On August 20, 2019, Feinstein tweeted: “While the federal assault weapons ban was in effect (1994-2004), the number of gun massacres fell by 37% and the number of gun massacre deaths fell by 43% compared to the previous decade. After the ban lapsed, gun massacres rose by 183% and gun massacre deaths by 239%.” She followed that tweet with a second that said, “It’s long past time to reinstate a ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines before more lives are lost.” On February 19, 2018, Breitbart News reported the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report showing the federal “assault weapons” ban could not be credited with any reduction in crime. The NIJ report was authored by University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper. And the Washington Times quoted Koper saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

Exactly…  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a former mayor of San Francisco, is infamous for pulling bs stats out of her butt to push her anti-gun narrative.  The actual facts say something completely different.  The ’94 ban, which since has expired, did nothing to reduce gun violence.  It was all political theater and bs.  Thanks to AWR Hawkins for this little piece.     🙂

Analysis: What Is an ‘Assault Weapon?’

With incessant calls to ban “assault weapons” arising from the Democrat Party — calls that sometimes hit a fever pitch when you add in the voices of Democratic surrogates in the media and gun control groups — it seems to be a good time to ask a key question: What is an “assault weapon?” Is it a gun that shoots a certain round? Say a .223 or a 5.56? Or is a gun that has a flashlight on it? What about a laser or an aftermarket grip, or a heat shield, or flash hider? Does the term “assault weapon” only apply to black guns? Or can an “assault weapon” be white or green or red or brown or camouflage? Can it be pink? Does an “assault weapon” use magazines or does it use what Sen. Tim Kaine called “ammunition clips?” After all, President Obama recently described the Glock handgun Omar Mateen carried in Pulse Orlando as a gun that “had a lot of clips in it.” Is a clip like a bullet or do Kaine and Obama simply not understand firearm basics? Here’s the point: “assault weapons” is a made up term that applies to whatever best serves Democrats who are pushing gun control at any given time. After all, the New York Times reports that the term “assault weapons” is a “myth” Democrats created in the 1990s. And according to the NYT, the “myth” came into play when the Democrats — who were eager to find a scapegoat for escalating crime in the early 1990s — created a “politically defined category of guns” they could then demonize and ban. They subsequently achieved an “assault weapons” ban in 1994, and it lasted until 2004. And when today’s Democrats appeal to that ban as one that should be re-instituted, they prove they understand little about it. For starters, the 1994 did not ban “assault weapons.” Rather, it banned cosmetic features that Democrats consider part and parcel to “assault weapons.” To put it another way, the 1994 ban did not ban AR-15s in general. Rather, it banned flash hiders, certain fore stocks and grips, collapsible and folding rear stocks, “high capacity” magazines, etc. It banned things that made the gun look like the scary guns Democrats think about when they think about an “assault weapon.” But it did nothing to change or ban the actual gun. Were certain guns explicitly banned? Yes. But the larger scope of the ban was so cosmetically based that manufacturers could simply remove certain features, lengthen the barrel slightly, label the gun a “target rifle,” and continue selling them. For example, according to the Washington Post, while the Colt AR-15 James Holmes used in his attack on the Aurora movie theater would have been banned, a “Colt Match Target rifle” would not. The difference between the AR-15 and the target rifle is largely cosmetic. Note: None of the differences in the two guns impacts basic operation, just as the presence or absence of a collapsible stock has no effect on bullet velocity. In addition to all these things, if you owned an “assault weapon” when the 1994 ban took effect, you were allowed to keep it. The prohibitions on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles only applied to new guns. Do you see the myriad problems? For starters, the very term “assault weapons” was created for the purposes of banning what it defined. But the ban, based on cosmetics, only prohibited certain external features of certain guns that Democrats wanted to eliminate. Yes, a certain number of guns were banned outright — that number was less than 20 — but beyond that, manufacturers could simply drop the cosmetic features Democrats hated most and continue selling guns that operated identically to those they manufactured in 1993, 1992, 1991, etc. As stated earlier, these things appear to be lost on today’s Democrats who talk as if the ban really banned a majority — or even a plurality — of semiautomatic rifles. Of course there are certain Democrats on whom it is not lost but who will never let you know what they know. And that is because they view any chance to enact a new “assault weapons” ban as an opportunity to expand the list of cosmetic features that qualify a firearm as an “assault weapon.” And a few of them want the opportunity to do what they did not do in 1994, namely, actually ban “assault weapons” altogether — banning both the manufacture and possession of weapons like the AR-15, America’s most popular rifle.

Excellent!!  That great piece was written by AWR Hawkins.  AWR, however, left out one very critical component to this discussion..  The term “assault weapon,” as it’s understood in the current lexicon/dialogue, is a fully automatic firearm.  And, a regular citizen cannot simply purchase, or own, a fully auto firearm.  The AR-15s, and AKs, that you can get at gun stores and gun shows are SEMI-automatic firearms.  THAT is the very salient difference between full-auto (or truly “assault weapons”) and semi-auto weapons.