# Does an Assault Weapons Ban make sense? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130 "2013-04-08T02:36:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/101 "2013-04-10T12:09:10Z")
**JXJohns** , do you really not accept any limits to your capacity to defend yourself? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/102 "2013-04-10T12:12:40Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Reasonable is not the standard for truncating constitutional rights. Of course it is, why do you think we’re discussing restrictions on rifles and handguns instead of restrictions on machine guns, hand grenades and RPGs? It’s because the “arms” that people are allowed to “bear” have been “infringed” for about 80 years, to non-military grade weapons. It’s been decided that there is no reason for a citizen to have access to that level of firepower, so we don’t have it. The only remaining question is where does that line of reason cross. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/103 "2013-04-10T12:54:32Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Of course it is, why do you think we’re discussing restrictions on rifles and handguns instead of restrictions on machine guns, hand grenades and RPGs? It’s because the “arms” that people are allowed to “bear” have been “infringed” for about 80 years, to non-military grade weapons. It’s been decided that there is no reason for a citizen to have access to that level of firepower, so we don’t have it. The only remaining question is where does that line of reason cross. The traditional standard for infringment upon Constitutional rights is [strict scrutiny](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny), not mere reasonableness ([rational basis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review)). However, this issue is complicated by the fact that the standard for Second Amendment rights hasn’t been established. From [DC v Heller:](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller/Opinion_of_the_Court) > [@](#): > > JUSTICE BREYER moves on to make a broad jurisprudential point: He criticizes us for declining to establish a level of scrutiny for evaluating Second Amendment restrictions. He proposes, explicitly at least, none of the traditionally expressed levels (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis), but rather a judge-empowering “interest balancing inquiry” that “asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute’s salutary effects upon other important governmental interests.” > > … > > But since this case represents this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field, any more than Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879), our first in-depth Free Exercise Clause case, left that area in a state of utter certainty. So, as of now, there is no level of scrutiny established for Second Amendment laws. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/104 "2013-04-10T14:39:46Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > No one knows how many people are killed in the US with assault weapons because an intelligent murderer will discard the weapon where it can’t be found, such as in deep body of water. And you can’t determine the magazine size from the bullet in a murder victim’s brain. Uh, okay. How about if we just look at all homicides committed with rifles then? According to the FBI here’s how it breaks down. 2006: 438 2007: 453 2008: 380 2009: 351 2010: 358 Even if we don’t know the exact number of homicides involving assault rifles we know it’s can’t be very many. Tack on an extra 100 deaths for “other” firearms and you still get a miniscule number of deaths that could have possibly been caused by assault rifles. > [@](#): > > There are no statistics kept on the number of people specifically killed with baseball bats, any more than there are statistics on the number killed with assault weapons. That’s true but we can look at how many homicides involving blunt objects by year. 2006: 618 2007: 647 2008: 603 2009: 623 2010: 540 So according to the FBI, at least from 2006 through 2010, more people were murdered with blunt objects than with any kind of rifle. That’s even if you tack on “other” firearm to the rifle category. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/105 "2013-04-10T14:44:22Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Now, I don’t think trying to win a culture war over guns mostly through the legal system will work. Gun death – and most gun deaths are suicide – should primarily be looked at as a public health problem, like traffic accidents and cigarettes. Lowering the magazine limit from 30 to 10 is analogous to lowering the cigarette nicotine content, and reducing exposure to second hand smoke. I don’t want to destroy ability to smoke, but if we can make it a bit less dangerous at the edges, go for it. I don’t know if I’ve seen any evidence that a ten round magazine capacity will make it a bit less dangerous around the edges. It certainly won’t do anything to prevent firearms from being used in suicides. How many homicides do you think it will prevent? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/106 "2013-04-10T14:45:40Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You make it sound like having a gun in the house makes you more likely to be shot and killed by an invader. That study attributes almost all the extra death to suicide and much of what is left is murder by another member of the household. If I’m not mistaken that study apparently wasn’t able to get the reliable outcome they wanted the first time through, so they reran the data and oversampled african-americans under 35 (second page of the pdf, top right paragraph). That sounds racist to me. Also they only counted suicides in the home so anyone who jumped off a building or in front of a train didn’t count. Lies, damn lies… ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/107 "2013-04-10T14:52:38Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Uh, okay. How about if we just look at all homicides committed with rifles then? According to the FBI here’s how it breaks down. > > 2006: 438 > 2007: 453 > 2008: 380 > 2009: 351 > 2010: 358 > > Even if we don’t know the exact number of homicides involving assault rifles we know it’s can’t be very many. Tack on an extra 100 deaths for “other” firearms and you still get a miniscule number of deaths that could have possibly been caused by assault rifles. > > That’s true but we can look at how many homicides involving blunt objects by year. > > 2006: 618 > 2007: 647 > 2008: 603 > 2009: 623 > 2010: 540 > > So according to the FBI, at least from 2006 through 2010, more people were murdered with blunt objects than with any kind of rifle. That’s even if you tack on “other” firearm to the rifle category. And [knives](http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/how-people-are-murdered-in-united-states.html), which several have dismissed, are also fairly large killers in the US per year (at least relative to ‘assault weapons’…in actuality, it’s small beer, unless you have an agenda): > [@](#): > > Weapons 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 > > Knives or cutting instruments 1,830 1,817 1,888 1,836 1,704 [QUOTE=PhillyGuy] No one knows how many people are killed in the US with assault weapons because an intelligent murderer will discard the weapon where it can’t be found, such as in deep body of water. And you can’t determine the magazine size from the bullet in a murder victim’s brain. [/QUOTE] The irony here is that you don’t even realize how ridiculous this make the whole made up ‘assault weapons’ term, since clearly (according to you…and it’s actually the case) you can’t distinguish between ‘assault weapons’ and (what they actually are) simply ‘semi-automatic or even bolt action rifles’ because THEY USE EXACTLY THE SAME AMMUNITION. Regardless, it’s pretty clear that whether you use the made up (and very scary sounding) ‘assault weapon’ term or not, we aren’t talking about a really large issue here…yet it’s one that folks are willing to spend a lot of political capital on to try and get such bans put in place. Does it make sense? Of COURSE it doesn’t make sense…it’s stupid, and silly and basically a distraction to the real issues. But anti-gun advocates continue to beat on this drum, and use the scary sounding ‘assault weapons’ term to try and generate fear in the public’s mind and to try and hide the fact that it’s not really a major and pressing issue. If they can keep repeating the meme, however, I’m sure they hope that like nuclear energy, eventually they can get the public to jerk their knees about ‘assault weapons’ and go along with a ban, even when it makes no sense, but because they have been trained to be afraid (and trained not to be critical, and actually look at the freaking numbers and judge relative risks). ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/108 "2013-04-10T15:37:14Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > **JXJohns** , do you really not accept any limits to your capacity to defend yourself? If I have to defend my life, my one and only life, I don’t want it to be a fair fight. I accept the limitations that are in place today as I have no other choice. I will not roll over and accept any more limits without at least challenging them. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/109 "2013-04-10T15:56:58Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > If I’m not mistaken that study apparently wasn’t able to get the reliable outcome they wanted the first time through, so they reran the data and oversampled african-americans under 35 (second page of the pdf, top right paragraph). That sounds racist to me. This is abjectly silly for several reasons. First, there’s nothing there to suggest “they reran the data.” If you believe this is true, please quote the specific text. Secondly, the survey data come from the 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey. This is data that was collected independently from the paper you are referencing and independently from the authors of this study. It is part of a series. The first National Mortality Followback Survey was in 1966, and the second was in 1986. The methodology for the 1986 survey also included oversampling African Americans and younger people (as did the 1993 survey). Just to clarify, by the way, they didn’t oversample “african-americans under 35” as you suggest. Rather, > [@Dahlberg et al](#): > > To produce more reliable estimates, Blacks, persons less than 35 years of age or older than age 100 years, and persons who died from external causes of homicide, suicide, and unintentional injury were oversampled in this survey. So, they oversampled African Americans,[comma] persons less than 35 or those older than 100, and persons who died from external causes. Can you think of why you might oversample groups in a survey? It’s kind of the opposite of racism. It’s because in your random sampling, you will be more likely to get lower levels of smaller groups. So, fewer people die younger, and fewer people die older than 100. Fewer African Americans will be included in the sample, unless you make efforts to sample more of them. This allows you to have enough people in different groups so that your estimates are reliable. You then adjust your models to account for the oversampling, so that where relevant, you aren’t misrepresenting population levels of those groups. So, you are wrong that Dahlberg and colleagues had anything to do with the survey or sampling methods. You are wrong that they reran anything. You are wrong that oversampling is racist. > [@](#): > > Also they only counted suicides in the home so anyone who jumped off a building or in front of a train didn’t count. So? The purpose was to examine the risk of violent death in the home. > [@](#): > > Lies, damn lies… Your ignorance of statistics, research methods, reading research studies, or understanding their findings does not make other people liars. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/110 "2013-04-10T17:26:45Z")
Yeah, like I said, they oversampled from the population that they figured more likely to give them the results they want. I expected you to apologize for them. Not sure why PhillyGuy brought it up in the first case cause it says nothing about assault weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/111 "2013-04-10T17:38:34Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > Yeah, like I said, they oversampled from the population that they figured more likely to give them the results they want. I expected you to apologize for them. Not sure why PhillyGuy brought it up in the first case cause it says nothing about assault weapons. See, when you say that, you continue to give the impression that you think the authors of the study were also the ones who did the sampling. They were not. If you are suggesting the survey was done with the intention of making guns look dangerous, it was clever of them to do the survey in 1993 and then not publish this particular paper until 2004. Whereas someone might think that what happened is a set of authors decided to make use of a publicly existing data set to conduct a set of analyses, you have sussed out the more nefarious intentions and collusion of the survey group and the authors of the study. Also, when you say that, it makes it seem like you’re still not grasping the issues of oversampling in a population survey. It makes it hard to help you understand these things when you appear to not bother to read what other people are writing for you. ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/112 "2013-04-10T18:22:12Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > If you are suggesting the survey was done with the intention of making guns look dangerous, it was clever of them to do the survey in 1993 and then not publish this particular paper until 2004. Good point! I thought the year looked cherry picked as well but I forgot to mention it. Thanks for bringing it up. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/113 "2013-04-10T18:32:16Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > Good point! I thought the year looked cherry picked as well but I forgot to mention it. Thanks for bringing it up. This also makes no sense. Which year seems “cherry picked” to you? What do you mean by “cherry picked”? Also, the way you wrote that makes it seem like I made a statement indicating there was some actual deception involved. I’m assuming most people were able to perceive the sarcasm in my statement. Apparently you struggle with this, so let me be clear: a suggestion that the survey was established to make guns look bad is silly, and made sillier by the recognition that a decade passed between the survey and this particular paper. Sorry to assume you would be able to perceive sarcasm! ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/114 "2013-04-10T18:34:37Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You misunderstand the nature of rights, and the proper role of government. Gun owners do not have to prove to you that the hardship is undue. You have to prove that it is not undue. > > Simply saying “I want to ban such-and-such, there is no evidence that it will do much good, but it won’t burden you very much so you have to convince me not to do it” is not how it works. > > Think of gun rights as you would about abortion rights. A 24 hour waiting period is not that much of a burden on a woman wanting an abortion, but it is still an infringement. Therefore you have to show what good a waiting period would do, to outweigh the infringement. > > Regards, > Shodan Agree 100%. We have to look at it from the fundamental rights perspective like we do with abortion. What’s the argument against waiting periods? That it affects only the poor, the scared, the young, and is just a pretext to keep people from having abortions. Same with magazine limits. What about the old man with arthritis who can’t reload without help? He’s done after six rounds, but if his son loads a 30 round mag, he has better access to self-defense. Plus he will be unable to go to the “30 round to 6 round mag” exchange program at the local gun turn in because it will cost him money to drive there. In my post, I’ve implicated gun rights, abortion, and voting, but the point is the same: if you are trying to restrict a fundamental right, just saying that a person can do it with less or with more expense or hassle is not good enough. And the argument that “more people will die” without regulation X is sort of a tautology with the second amendment. If you have a constitutional right to have guns, more people will die at the hands of guns. That’s a given. Just like the first amendment means that more hate-mongering assholes will speak. You can’t put increasingly more restrictions on the first amendment because of that or else nobody can speak about anything. Further, don’t give me the “can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” and compare it to gun laws. A better analogy would be “can’t open fire in a crowded theater.” That is a reasonable restriction. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/115 "2013-04-10T19:00:09Z")
Well we wouldn’t want anyone anywhere to be outgunned! Life is an arms race. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/116 "2013-04-10T19:01:16Z")
> [@XT](#): > > And [knives](http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/how-people-are-murdered-in-united-states.html), which several have dismissed, are also fairly large killers in the US per year (at least relative to ‘assault weapons’…in actuality, it’s small beer, unless you have an agenda): OTOH, [Jarts,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts) which have never killed more than a handful of people a year, are totally banned. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/117 "2013-04-10T19:16:42Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > OTOH, [Jarts,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts) which have never killed more than a handful of people a year, are totally banned. Pretty silly, isn’t it? But if it’s not protected, and if you can rile up enough people and spread enough fear, then something can be banned like that and there isn’t much that could be done about it. It’s not the actual number of folks who die…it’s the amount of fear you can generate and amount of public outrage you can get rolling. See nuclear energy for another example of how this works in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/118 "2013-04-10T19:25:38Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Pretty silly, isn’t it? But if it’s not protected, and if you can rile up enough people and spread enough fear, then something can be banned like that and there isn’t much that could be done about it. It’s not the actual number of folks who die…it’s the amount of fear you can generate and amount of public outrage you can get rolling. Actually, Jarts is a great example. Something that has no more benefit than being an amusing past-time is not worth the costs of even a small number of deaths. People tend not to have much problem banning or severely restricting products that result in needless deaths, unless 1) there’s a massive manufacturers lobby group masquerading as representatives of the users and 2) the product is inherently associated with enhancing the sense of self worth and assuaging the exaggerated fears of the users. > [@](#): > > See nuclear energy for another example of how this works in real life. First I didn’t realize that nuclear energy was banned. Secondly, it’s kind of hard to look at Chernobyl and come away with the idea that concerns about nuclear production facilities are overblown in any particular way. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/119 "2013-04-10T19:30:46Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] Actually, Jarts is a great example. Something that has no more benefit than being an amusing past-time is not worth the costs of even a small number of deaths. People tend not to have much problem banning or severely restricting products that result in needless deaths, unless 1) there’s a massive manufacturers lobby group masquerading as representatives of the users and 2) the product is inherently associated with enhancing the sense of self worth and assuaging the exaggerated fears of the users. [/QUOTE] It has not benefit for YOU, so you see no worth is what you actually mean. I see this as a great example as well, which is pretty funny actually, since we are both looking at this from such vastly different perspectives. 😛 > [@](#): > > First I didn’t realize that nuclear energy was banned. Secondly, it’s kind of hard to look at Chernobyl and come away with the idea that concerns about nuclear production facilities are overblown in any particular way. Seen any new nuclear plants in the US in the last couple of decades? It’s been effectively banned, since it’s been left to die on the vine. That could change, I suppose, but the American people have been conditions to be afraid of nuclear power, so I doubt it’s going to any time soon. As to your second point, this is exactly the sort of ridiculous fear mongering I’d expect from you, Hentor…thanks for providing such a great example. Thanks for underscoring my point so well in this post…appreciate that man. ---
**Author:** ![JXJohns](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jxjohns/32/469_2.png) [@JXJohns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JXJohns)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130/120 "2013-04-10T19:50:39Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > OTOH, [Jarts,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawn_darts) which have never killed more than a handful of people a year, are totally banned. Much like the ineffective “assault weapon” ban, pre-ban [JARTS](http://for-sale.yakaz.com/original-jarts-for-sale#lo=4&docid=017kmmpd5kdn3fhr)must have been grandfathered in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-an-assault-weapons-ban-make-sense/655130.md?page=7)