Turns out the Assault Rifle Ban of 1994 is going to sunset next year, and our Republican dominated Congress may not renew it.
I say, GOOD. The Assault Rifle Ban was just a symbolic thing that in reality didn’t do diddley squat to stop crime from happening. Only a tiny percentage of crimes involve “assault rifles”. The only thing banning them accomplished did was frustrate largely law abiding gun enthusiasts
That and drive the prices up for “high-cap” magazines and rifles with more then the perscribed number of evil features.
Agree. Most folks I’ve met who favor ‘assault weapon’ bans don’t even understand what is meant by ‘assault weapon.’
One reason they don’t understand is that some media and politicians are telling them wrong stuff. I heard a sound bite of Senator Schumer talking about assault weapons with the sound of machine guns in the background. Of course, Dopers know that machine guns are regulated by other federal statutes. CNN made a similar mistake. The NRA called them on it, and they were forced to change their story.
I support the right to bear arms, and in the future, I intend to be a hunter. My question is: Why do you need an assault rifle? It seems like they’re mainly used in combat to spray down the opponent, and it wouldn’t be that effective while hunting. Thanks for the feedback.
It depends on your definition of “assault rifle” WS. Mainly, it’s just a buzzword with little or no actual meaning.
At best, it refers to a semi-automatic weapon that is just black and meaner looking than a similarly powered hunting rifle.
Anybody have a cite or list of the specific weapons banned in 1994? From what I understand it was mainly based on appearance and names of the weapons. For instance, certain 9mm semi-automatic weapons were banned that were identical in function to standard 9mm weapons that were unaffected. However, those that were banned were alarmingly named.
What Debaser said. As fully automatic weapons were heavily regulated already, the “Assault weapons” that the ban effected could not be used to “spray down” anything. They fired just like a semi-auto hunting rifle. one trigger pull, one shot.
I say go ahead and sunset the ban, but my question is, how many illegal shots fired per weapon owned, taking into account the increased muzzle velocity of a rifle vs a handgun. Only that statistic would be a meaningful measure of their relative dangerousness.
one mistake people tend to make is that the “right to bear arms” is intended for people who want guns to hunt with. the original reason for the amendment was for personal protection.
i heard people in the news when the ban was first made saying things like “these guns are specifically designed to kill people”, like that’s supposed to make us think there should be no such weapon. if they want to ban things designed to kill people, why didn’t the ban cover all handguns?
guns designed for personal protection should be specifically designed to kill people. the banned guns tended to be semiautomatic versions of fully automatic guns and guns that are “just black and meaner looking than a similarly powered hunting rifle,” as Debaser said.
Well, the type of rifle you’re talking about is a classification of machine and submachine fully automatic rifles that are already regulated by many federal statutes, but I will answer this question anyway.
Not every purpose of having one either a fully automatic or select-fire capability rifle relates to either hunting or committing crimes. I, for one, love to go to the range and target shoot with an H&K MP5 select fire and punch a bunch of holes in a sheet of paper on fully automatic mode because it’s fun. That’s the same reason I like to take my semi-automatic AK-47 to the range and punch a bunch of holes in a sheet of paper. I have a very enjoyable time testing my skill at making holes in paper accurately at varying distance.
I’ve got no interest in taking an H&K MP5 deer hunting, however if I were in the midwest needing to clear a grazing ground for cattle of prarie dogs that could do thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of damage to livestock, I’d consider using the Ruger Mini-14 or a very similar gun made by another manufacturer, namely the Colt AR-15 which although functionally the same as the Mini-14 is more ‘evil looking’ and has been banned. They’re both .223 caliber, both are semiautomatic, both have detachable magazines, and would fire the same number of rounds at the same velocity in a given time. The main difference is that the Ruger Mini-14 has a wooden conventional looking stock, but the Colt AR-15 has a black synthetic miltary looking stock. The stock has nothing to do with the functionality of the gun itself, so it seems silly to ban one of them because it’s ‘ugly’.
It’s important to note that the fully automatic weapons are already highly regulated, and that the rate of fire of a semi-automatic rifle depends on how fast the shooter is pulling the trigger, so there’s no reason to think that there would be more ‘illegal shots fired’ from the now-banned Colt AR-15 than there would be from a currently not banned Ruger Mini-14.
There has only been one crime committed with a legally owned fully automatic rifle since the 1934 regulation, and that was the murder of Lawrence Hileman by Patrolman Roger Waller, who used his fully automatic MAC-11 to commit the slaying. I could not find any reference online for how many shots Waller fired at Hileman who was said to be his drug snitch, however. Also be aware that Waller was a police officer, and the 1986 ‘ban’ on the sale of new machine guns did not apply to law enforcement.
I searched for crimes committed with illegal machine guns in the US and found no references, and a search for crimes committed with assault weapons found these results:
Assault weapons are used in less than .0003 percent of crimes in New Jersey, according to testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Of 14,988 guns seized by police in Chicago in 1988, only 3.1 percent were semiautomatics.
Of 217 homicides committed in Dade County (Miami) Fla., in 1989, only three involved an assault weapon.
source
The “assault weapon” ban of 1994 was primarily a codification of what looks “scary.” I’m not kidding. Here’s the definition from H.R. 3355, which became P.L. 103-322. You can look it up at www.congress.gov, but I still don’t know how to link to a search result there. I can quote at length because we already paid for this one:
I read that as, “if it looks cool, it’s banned.” Anyway, I thought you might like the official definition for use in this thread.
Being a quaint ol’ Brit who squints over the Atlantic in polite befuddlement at America’s love of and legislation regarding firearms, might I ask:
How does assault rifle legislation differ from that regarding explosives (Semtex, rocket-propelled grenades etc)? Both seem inappropriate for hunting or self-defense (but would undoubtedly be effective!), and the “enthusiast” argument would seem to apply equally well to both?
The 1994 Federal ban was a ban on assault WEAPONS, not assault RIFLES!
An assault rifle is a precise military term referring to a low-kick rifle capable of selective fire operation. In other words, an assault rifle is, when you flip the right switch, a fully automatic weapon.
Assault weapon is a legal term made up to describe semiautomatic rifles, shotguns, and handguns with certain “scary sounding” cosmetic features. Its exact definition varies between Federal laws and the laws in some States. Neither the military, nor firearms manufacturers, uses the term.
Come on, we’re Dopers here! We shouldn’t be making these kinds of terminological blunders.
Well, ** SentientMeat ** the “assault weapons” (not assault rifles, a similar, but different category of weapons) are basically semi-auto rifles that look scary. The only real difference between the perfectly legal, Mini-14 (which you can buy at Walmart), and the restricted AR-15
is, as ** catsix ** mentioned, is that the AR-15 looks scarier. Really. Also, many these types of weapons are perfectly appriate for hunting and self defense - my Uncle uses a pre-ban AR-10 for hunting deer (Its just like any other semi-auto hunting rifle, only with a black stock and pistol grip) and ** catsix ** mentioned that lighter weapons like the AR-15 are very good for shooting groundhogs. Also, the fact that these weapons ARE scary looking makes them more effective for self defense, beyond just being semi-auto rifles.
DreadCthulu: You are absolutely right about many of those guns being just fine for hunting.
Other than the fact that PA law already bans hunting with a rifle capable of holding more than 3 rounds, I could easily hunt deer with the AK-47 and not create Swiss venison.
It’s a 7.62 mm (think .308 Winchester) round, same size as one of the other rifles I have used for deer hunting, and one shot from it over open sights would be no different from one shot from any other rifle of the same caliber.
I think the best evidence for the “scary” argument (which must be sounding silly to some readers) is the preclusion of bayonet mounts.*
Think about that for just a minute. Congress is banning particular types of rapid-fire, semiautomatic rifles in part because they give the user the ability to stab someone?
No, I think it’s because bayonets are frightening.
-Yep. Silly, isn’t it?
The whole “grenade launcher” thing is yet another level of silliness to the whole law: True grenade launchers are AOW (All Other Weapons) and thus controlled like short-barreled shotguns and suppressors.
The grenades themselves are strictly controlled- and have been for many decades prior to the '94 law- as explosives, and horrifically expensive even if you wanted to jump through the legal hoops in order to buy one.
Now, the civvies among us can buy the 37mm “flare launcher”, which is a version of the 40mm “grenade” launcher, since no one now or has ever manufactured an explosive projectile for the 37mm.
The only projectiles available for the 37mm include flares (simply larger versions of the boating flares sold in every K-Mart and Wal-Mart in the nation) and (though more controlled) smoke cannisters and ‘tear gas’ cannisters.
So basically, the '94 law prevented us civvies from attaching a $350 single-shot nonlethal device to the underside of our $1,250 semiautomatic rifle, so that we can shoot $50 and $75-a-pop flares and smoke bombs.
Ooooo, that’ll teach them crooks and druggies a what for!
As I understand it, what Congress was attempting to do in that subsection (B) definition was to regulate semiautomatic rifles that are specically designed for military use. That’s why, after specifically regulating that shopping list specific models, they added subsection (B) and defined it with reference to certain specific features: folding stocks, pistol grips, bayonet mounts, flash suppressors, and grenade launchers.
The logic is not entirely clear–what the hell does a pistol grip have to do with anything?–but Congress is rarely entirely logical. On the whole though, targeting weapons that are designed for military use makes a certain amount of sense, as those weapons are presumably designed with the intention of making it easier for the user to kill multiple people.
Interesting couple of quotes…
So?