"One in five law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty is killed with an assault weapon."
I would like to see a cite on this. Having been in law enforcement in one capacity or another for over 20 years, 20% does not jive with what I’ve been told/read. This sounds like a play on words to me: I want to know what he considers an “assault weap:rolleyes:n”.
Is it just the guns on Clintons ridiculous list back in '94? Is it anything that shoots high power ammo (which would include virtually ALL hunting rifles). Where does he get this 20% figure from?
Just a thought… basically the gist is that assault weapons are a tiny, tiny percentage of the total makeup of gun owners. banning them would just affect law abiding citizens…
as we all know, criminals don’t care about the brady bill, or weapons bans, or waiting periods…
California. In 1990, “assault weapons” comprised thirty-six of the 963 firearms involved in homicide or aggravated assault and analyzed by police crime laboratories, according to a report prepared by the California Department of Justice, and based on data from police firearms laboratories throughout the state. The report concluded that “assault weapons play a very small role in assault and homicide firearm cases.” Of the 1,979 guns seized from California narcotics dealers in 1990, fifty-eight were “assault weapons.”
Chicago. From 1985 through 1989, only one homicide was perpetrated with a military caliber rifle. Of the 17,144 guns seized by the Chicago police in 1989, 175 were “military style weapons.”
Florida. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Uniform Crime Reports for 1989 indicate that rifles of all types accounted for 2.6% of the weapons used in Florida homicides. The Florida Assault Weapons Commission found that “assault weapons” were used in 17 of 7,500 gun crimes for the years 1986-1989.
Los Angeles. Of the more than 4,000 guns seized by police during one year, only about 3% were “assault weapons.”
Maryland. In 1989-90, there was only one death involving a “semiautomatic assault rifle” in all twenty-four counties of the State of Maryland.
Massachusetts. Of 161 fatal shootings in Massachusetts in 1988, three involved “semiautomatic assault rifles.” From 1985 to 1991, the guns were involved in 0.7% of all shootings.
Miami. The Miami police seized 18,702 firearms from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 1993. Of these, 3.13% were “assault weapons.”
New Jersey. According to the Deputy Chief Joseph Constance of the Trenton New Jersey Police Department, in 1989, there was not a single murder involving any rifle, much less a “semiautomatic assault rifle,” in the State of New Jersey. No person in New Jersey was killed with an “assault weapon” in 1988. Nevertheless, in 1990 the New Jersey legislature enacted an “assault weapon” ban that included low-power .22 rifles, and even BB guns. Based on the legislature’s broad definition of “assault weapons,” in 1991, such guns were used in five of 410 murders in New Jersey; in forty-seven of 22,728 armed robberies; and in twenty-three of 23,720 aggravated assaults committed in New Jersey.
New York City. Of 12,138 crime guns seized by New York City police in 1988, eighty were “assault-type” firearms.
The SKS (NOT an AKS, as defined in (a)(i)) qualifies as an “assault weapon” only if it has a bayonet mount and flash suppressor both. Items which ironically had zero impact whatsoever on the shooting, as anyone with a brain would know. So the answer is “depends”, as there is not enough information in the article to tell.
The Armalite is a copy of the AR-15 and may be an “assault weapon”, if not of a later version that is acceptable under the law. The article is not descriptive enough. Note that the suspect also had bombs “strapped to their body”, which was illegal. Somehow, that didn’t stop them from doing it. One has to wonder if the the AR-15 had been illegal if they would have left it at home, choosing to just go with the bombs.
This one is a lie, as the Mini-14 not only is not an “assault weapon”, it is exempted by name under Federal Law - something that anyone could find with a Google search. See:
The MAK-90 was a weapon specifically made to not be an “assault weapon” under the law, as it does not have a separate pistol grip, nor a flash suppresor or bayonet mount. Even with that, however, it may still apply - it is unclear.
Not only is the M1 Carbine exempted, it is exempted by name. Maybe someone could do a Google search?
So what do we have? We have several “questionable” definitions of “assault weapon”, and 3 references to “assault weapons” that are specifically designated under Federal Law as being NOT assault weapons.
You’d think that someone could actually look up the law and see for themselves, but oh well. Alternately, they could be applying a State or local definition to the term “assault weapon”, however, as Kerry is using this with respect to National policy, a local definition is not valid for National application. You’d also think if Kerry was making the claim he would back it up, or make a note that the study is flawed. Perhaps no one really read it?
Also, the text of a couple of the articles contains a bit of implied hysteria over the penetration of “bullet proof vests”, which has nothing to do with the weapons being “assault weapons”, as debunked numerous times here. And of course as known by anyone who owns a protective vest or understands the science.
That study does not clearly say what they define as an assault weapon; as Una Persson pointed out, they appear to be using a definition that differs from the Federal assault weapons ban’s definition. The number of incedents they list involving assault weapons is pretty small compared to the total number of murders, too, 41 killings nationwide in four years. It does not even say what the most common weapon used to kill officers in the line of duty is.
My conclusions are that (1) the statistic may be somewhat lower depending on how assault weapons are defined, and (2) this is not enough information to know whether laws about assault style semiautomatic weapons would have any measurable effect on crime as a whole.
