Obama to Seek New Assault Weapons Ban

I have always been comfortable with the line that is drawn between arms and ordinance. Arms being man portable rifles, shotguns, pistols, etc. Once you get to crew served weapons, RPGs, cannons, or such, you get into ordinance territory and they should be treated differently.

Not even taking into account situations where states refuse to certify the training of normal people or make the courses prohibitively expensive, making a something as innocuous sounding as a “common sense training requirement” into a de facto ban, a “training requirement” is sort of like a literacy test and a poll tax rolled into one.

What line are you talking about?

The “line” as far as I can follow, would be between what are legitimate safety “best practices” and what’s trying to craft onerous restrictions to achieve an illegitimate goal.

Most ordinance would be regulated differently simply by virtue of the amount of hazardous material (e.g. Explosives) they contain. My neighbor couldn’t have a bomb in his garage because his house’s construction and location don’t meet the bunker rating or stand-off requirements of a Hazard Class 1 storage facility… i.e. not because he’s simply not permitted to own a bomb.

Private ownership of cannon was known at the time the Second Amendment was written, yet it was not called out as an example of something that could be restricted without violating the Second Amendment… or an example of anything much out of the ordinary, AFAIK.

Hmm, never been to a place where calling someone a liar is forbidden. Color me surprised, but ok, my fault. Seriously though, who reads the TOS of any website before posting? :stuck_out_tongue: I’ll admit laziness on my part, but I’m not buying a house here, I’m posting on a message board

And here is where your critique of me is flawed. Do you want to quote me on my first post in this topic? I asked a question, with a simple 2 sentence elaboration. Should I have launched into a nuanced, thousand word essay on every aspect of gun control? I gave a simple response to the topic about a hundred posts in, that’s it. I wasn’t looking to articulate my entire stance on guns and for you or anyone else to take that as anything but a beginning is an intellectually dishonest debate tactic.

Then people questioned that premise. Should I have nitpicked them and assumed that those replies were their ONLY objection with gun control? Your reply included "Assault weapons also have no functional definition and the term is a meaningless scare phrase. " Shall I assume that is your ONLY objection to the AWB? You didn’t mention anything about incompentent writers of the bill at all, yet you use it as a foundation for your later objections! And you’re criticizing me for that? Your entire post mentions nothing of the DoJ, additional research, or anything else except what I posted.

Just as you are attributing my supposed moving of the goalposts, you have done exactly that. I was not ignorant enough to assume that your reply was your only position, kindly do not assume the same with mine. And if that was insulting, then pre-emptive apologies. However your debate tactic of falsely attributing a single, 3 sentence post as my entire argument is nothing short of extreme strawman and a sad waste of what could have been a decent debate, beginning with insults you decided to hurl first. Again, apologies if pointing that out is against forum rules

That cite only states that a court didn’t hear a case. The fact that the case wasn’t heard means there’s no judicial precedent either way, and a case can still be heard.

Anyone with common sense.

He’s not referring to your first post. He’s referring to all of your posts, taken as a whole.

Perhaps you should go back and read them. I’m pretty sure you don’t know what you said, at this point.

Excuse the size of this response. The report was, after all, like a hundred pages. I’ll generally cite the page numbers and then quote the passage and put my responses following.

P7-8

“The AW provision targets a relatively small number of weapons based on features that have little to do with the weapons’ operation, and removing those features is sufficient to make the weapons legal. The LCM (Large Capacity Magazines, covering almost everything with more than 10 rounds) provision limits the ammunition capacity of non-banned firearms.”

~Those features are part of the reason why those weapons are bad. Like the ban says, on p7, it “…is directed at semiautomatic firearms having features that appear useful in military and criminal applications but unnecessary in shooting sports or self-defense…” Which is basically what I’ve said in previous posts. For the great majority of people, you do not need bayonets and silencers and things of that nature.

P8

“AWs were used in only a small fraction of gun crimes prior to the ban” however “LCMs are used in crime much more often….14% to 26%…”

“AWs and other guns equipped with LCMs tend to account for a higher share of guns used in murders of police and mass public shootings, though such incidents are very rare”

“Following the implementation of the ban, the share of gun crimes involving AWs declined by 17% to 72%…”

“However, the decline in AW use was offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns equipped with LCMs…The failure to reduce LCM use has likely been due to the immense stock of exempted pre-ban magazines…”

~So much for the myth that an AW ban, if successful, would be completely insignificant. The provision on the LCMs impacted much more crimes than simply AWs. As the report will go on to say, LCMs are certainly not an insignificant part of crimes, and I suspect those opposing the AWB purposely ignore the provision on LCMs when crafting their responses.

P8-9

“It is premature to make definitive assessments of the ban’s impact on gun crime”

“Because the ban has not yet reduced the use of LCMs in crime, we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. However the ban’s exemption of millions of pre-ban AWs and LCMs ensured that the effects of the law would occur only gradually. Those effects are still unfolding and may not be fully felt for several years into the future, particularly if foreign, pre-ban LCMs continue to be imported into the US in large numbers”

~You know what this says? That the ban wasn’t strict enough. The conclusion reached by the authors of the report, if one is objective, is definitely skewed towards a tougher AW ban that does not exempt millions of guns that existed prior to the ban. The researchers themselves state that the exemption “ensures” the slowness of the ban’s effect. That doesn’t tell me or anyone who is objective that we should let the law expire or wipe it off the books, it paints a realistic portrait of the good that would happen (decrease in gun crimes) if the law was much more stringent. Of course, such a move must also coincide with tougher policing of foreign imports, which would be something even gun advocates cannot argue against (less border control? Hot damn, sounds like paradise! /sarcasm).

P9

“The ban’s reauthorization or expiration could affect gunshot victimizations, but predictions are tenuous”

“Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. AWs were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban. LCMs are involved in a more substantial share of gun crimes, but it is not clear how often the outcomes of gun attacks depend on the ability of offenders to fire more than ten shots (the current magazine capacity limit) without reloading.”

~As was stated before, the exemption was too weak due to the exempted grandfathered weapons, but it had a measurable effect “17% to 72%” decrease in gun violence. While correlation does not mean causation, there is something to be said about correlation if it gives you the result (lowered gun crimes) that you are seeking even if you cannot pinpoint the cause. If I sneezed and somehow got a thousand dollars in my bank account each time, I would be inhaling pepper. I don’t care how it happened, I just want it to happen. Same thing here. An authority YOU picked stated there was a correlation between this law and gun violence and implied that a tougher version would do more to reduce said violence. That’s not cherry picking, that’s taking the whole damn tree and running with it.

“Nonetheless, reducing criminal use of AWs and especially LCMs could have non-trivial effects on gunshot victimizations. The few available studies suggest that attacks with semiautomatics - including AWs and other semiautomatics equipped with LCMs - result in more shots fired, more persons hit, and more wounds inflicted per victim than do attacks with other firearms. Further, a study of handgun attacks in one city found that 3% of the gunfire incidents resulted in more than 10 shots fired, and those attacks produced almost 5% of the gunshot victims.”

~That’s a pretty concise and damning evidence FOR more gun control, including the AWB. It makes logical sense too. What kind of self-defense are you perpetrating where you need to fire off 10+ shots in rapid succession? Things that seem silly at first in the AWB (flash suppressors, bayonets) make sense when you look at it from an objective standpoint.

“Restricting the flow of LCMs in the country from abroad may be necessary to achieve desired effects from the ban, particularly in the near future…”

~If you had a problem with me inferring a pro-gun control stance from the researcher’s data earlier, then here it is, spoken by the researcher himself: To have the necessary goals of the ban be achievable, we must restrict and strengthen the law, not relax it. Yes, Koper was talking about imports specifically and not the AWB, but he blatantly says the two are linked; “…necessary to achieve the desired effects from THE BAN…” entwines the two issues.

“If the ban is lifted, gun and magazine manufacturers may reintroduce AW models and LCMs, perhaps in substantial numbers.”

~Since it was already shown that LCMs and AW with such military-style capabilities did have a measurable and substantial effect on gun violence (despite LCMs taking the bulk of the credit), then this sentence seems to point to the obvious: Don’t lift the ban, and strengthen it while renewing it.

“In addition, pre-ban AWs may lose value and novelty, prompting some of their owners to sell them in undocumented secondhand markets where they can more easily reach high-risk users, such as criminals, terrorists, and other potential mass murderers. Any resulting increase in crimes with AWs and LCMs might increase gunshot victimizations for the reasons noted above, though this effect could be difficult to measure.”

~There are 2 conclusions one can draw from this, both of them falling on the gun control side. One, even if you are against gun control, the conclusion of this researcher is that if we remove the status quo and repeal the ban, gun violence would either stay neutral or increase. It will NOT decrease. And two, because the law already has an effect, changing it now by repealing it will likely increase gun proliferation, possibly into dangerous hands. Of course, since the AWB’s expiration in 2004, things may have changed. Perhaps there’s another DoJ report you’d like to cite?

~You will also probably be noting to yourself at this point that the researcher makes a lot of speculations. Maybe you are ready to point those out and accuse me of taking excessive liberty with unspoken inferences. Yet a closer read would show you that practically all of the inferences, if they were in fact uneducated speculations, point towards my point of view. He’s speculated several times about the AWB’s effects, either neutral or significant on crime, and speculated here about changing the status quo, making the assumption of an increase in crime or a plateau. Speculation is all well and good to point out, but when they all fall towards a pro-gun control side, then you cannot in good conscience state that the speculation is all irrelevant, or cancel each other out.

P12

“Though often overlooked in media coverage of the law, this provision (the one regarding LCMs) impacted a larger share of the gun market than did the ban on AWs. Approximately 40 percent of the semiautomatic handgun models and a majority of the semiautomatic rifle models being manufactured and advertised prior to the ban were sold with LCMs or had a variation that was sold with ana LCM (calculated from Murtz et al., 1994). Still other could accept LCMs made for other firearms and/or by other manufacturers. A national survey of gun owners found that 18% of all civilian-owned firearms and 21% of civilian-owned handguns were equipped with magazines having 10 or more rounds as of 1994 (Cook and Ludwig, 1996, p. 17)”

~Ridicule the AWB all you want, but some of the provisions, if not the more esoteric ones on things like flash suppressors or barrel shrouds, like the one on LCMs did its job and did its job well. The only thing that prevented it from doing its job better was the exemption, something I hope Obama will not allow once he gets the new and improved AWB into law

~Pages 13-14 went over some of the “sillier” provisions that I’ve been attacked for not knowing about. I’ll admit that I trusted the writers of the AWB and looked to them for guidance; my trust was not unfounded. Why should the AWB ban certain specific features? Here’s why:

Barrel Shrouds: It cools the barrel of the gun during rapid firing, allowing the user to grip the barrel. Why should something that’s supposedly only for self-defense need, 1) automatic fire that heats up the gun to that degree, and 2) for you to grip the barrel? Are you defending yourself from a ninja? Is he jumping from roof to roof? No, this is a military-style ability designed for use in mass scale attacks, the kind you do not need as a home or body protection weapon.

Flash suppressors: Reduces flash so you can remain concealed while firing at night. Unless you are Jack Bauer and sneaking up on terrorists and firing from a distance, you do not need this. If you’re being robbed and you pull a gun on the robber, you are not hidden, nor are you hidden in the dark when you are accosted on the street. This is a military-style function that should totally be banned.

Barrel Mount: Designed to accommodate a bayonet, which, and I quote “…serves no sporting purpose.” Might seem like a silly provision but hey, the writers of the AWB did it again, and it was reasonable!

Folding Stock: “Sacrifices accuracy for concealability and mobility in combat situations.” See that? “Combat situations”, ‘nuff said. A good restriction.

Pistol Grip: Lets a weapon be “spray fired” from the hip. So unless you are Frankenstein facing a mob of villagers with pitchforks, or a stampede of rhinos (hello sarcasm!), you do not need this and this is yet another reason why the AWB is a good law.

~And in case people are still saying the ban is bad because it doesn’t cover enough things and that makes it useless: its ok, they thought of that and expanded it. On page 14, “In April of 1998, the Clinton administration broadened the range of the AW ban by prohibiting importation of an additional 58 foreign semiautomatic rifles that were still legal under the 1994 law but that can accept LCMs made for military assault rifles…” That’s another good amendment because unlike the mindless apes gun advocates have painted them to be, the AW supporters know that their law was limited in scope and as situations change, they have smartly added more provisions to the original law to make it more effective. My trust in the AWB writers were, again, not misplaced, despite epitaphs from people like you calling them uneducated on the subject of guns.

~While it is true many guns have been able to get away from the AWB by modification, to say that the law itself was bad is like saying all laws on drugs are bad because some legal drugs are not illegal even though they are essentially the same as crack or heroin, with slight differences. That simply means the law needs to be modified in order to accommodate such loopholes. What? You think that a perfect law can be crafted immediately? It will take a lot of tinkering to get the AWB to ban everything that should be banned.

~I think that, rather than actually read the whole thing and try to understand it objectively, you merely reiterated the researcher’s summaries about the AWB being bad. Never have I read a study with such a markedly different tone between its findings and its results. For example, on page 17, a summary is given for the chapter:

“In the broadest sense, the AW-LCM ban is intended to limit crimes with semiautomatic firearms having large ammunition capacities - which enable shooters to discharge high numbers of shots rapidly - and other features conducive to criminal applications. The gun ban provision targets a relatively small number of weapons based on outward features or accessories that have little to do with the weapons’ operation. Removing some or all of these features is sufficient to make the weapons legal. In other respects (e.g., type of firing mechanism, ammunition fired, and the ability to accept a detachable magazine), AWs do not differ from other legal semiautomatic weapons. The LCM provision of the law limits the ammunition capacity of non-banned firearms.

~Now you can either take his word for it or…………take his word for it. After all, back on page 8, he said that LCMs were used in 14% to 26% of gun crimes, hardly an insignificant amount as he seems to imply in his summary. On pages 13-14, he actually lists the specific types of modifications made illegal by the AWB and proceeds to tell us why they should be illegal (unless, as some might try to claim, “serves no sporting purpose” and “mobility in combat situations” is your idea of being anti-gun control), again seemingly contradicting his innocuous statement in the summary stating “Removing some or all of these features is sufficient to make the weapons legal.” Somebody should tell Mr. Koper that those features are exactly why those guns should be illegal, as nobody defending himself from a home or street robbery would need a bayonet mounted silencer shotgun with a 30 round capacity. Of course, you are free to point to only the summary and attribute your entire response to that one paragraph with the harsh language towards gun control, and exempt your comments from the rest of the data Koper produced. I, however, will not be so ignorant in my analysis.

I’m going to skip directly to page 25, where the researcher makes his summary of chapter 3, Criminal Use of Assault Weapons, and refer back to the sections I skipped as it comes up.

P25

“In sum, AWs and LCMs were used in up to a quarter of gun crimes prior to the 1994 AW-LCM ban. By most estimates, AWs were used in less than 6% of gun crimes even before the ban. Some may have perceived their use to be more widespread, however, due to the use of AWs in particularly rare and highly publicized crimes such as mass shootings (and, to a lesser extent, murders of police), survey reports suggesting high levels of AW ownership among some groups of offenders, and evidence that some AWs are more attractive to criminal than lawful gun buyers.”

~To which I say, why have 6% when you can have 0%? It has already been shown that the features which make an AW an AW are military-style, and often criminal uses. Why not ban those? You can still have your self-defense and your sport shooting. To NOT ban it would be criminal, as these are not items that have any legitimate use by civilians at all (rhino hunting aside). It is unconscionable to have a dangerous, useless weapon available for wide purchase when we don’t need it, especially when data suggests that it is very often used for the exact kind of illegal purposes that AWB targets.

“In contrast, guns equipped with LCMs - of which AWs are a subset - are used in roughly 14% to 26% of gun crimes. Accordingly, the LCM ban has greater potential for affecting gun crime.”

~Unless your position is, and I know it isn’t, that we should not renew the AWB and instead pass a tough LCM ban, then your position against the AWB holds no water. Your main line of attack against me has been that the AWB is useless, and now we have the very researcher YOU picked saying that an LCM ban would be more effective. And guess what? An LCM provision is in the AWB! My position has always been that even if the AWB doesn’t affect a lot, at least it affects something, and since we don’t need AWs anyways, why not get rid of them. If even in the face of a better and more restrictive law you cave to your pro-gun tendencies, then your arguments against my position on the AWB matters little: you only hate gun laws and you don’t care at all if they are effective or not. Your insincerity would make you against all gun control, and that is a position not only borne of ignorance but wallows and thrives in it.

“However, it is not clear how often the ability to fire more than 10 shots without reloading (the current magazine capacity limit) affects the outcomes of gun attacks (see Chapter 9). All of this suggests that the ban’s impact on gun violence is likely to be small.”

~I could have been shifty and not included that last sentence. I think that a less fair debater would have, as it detracts from their point. I have no need to hide, however. If you look back on page 9, I’ll requote what he said:

“Nonetheless, reducing criminal use of AWs and especially LCMs could have non-trivial effects on gunshot victimizations. The few available studies suggest that attacks with semiautomatics - including AWs and other semiautomatics equipped with LCMs - result in more shots fired, more persons hit, and more wounds inflicted per victim than do attacks with other firearms. Further, a study of handgun attacks in one city found that 3% of the gunfire incidents resulted in more than 10 shots fired, and those attacks produced almost 5% of the gunshot victims.”

~Maybe you only see that “3%” in the whole paragraph, I don’t blame you. Koper seems to be stuck on what he wants to report, changing from a pro gun control tone to against it. But even if one were spectacularly biased to say that “3%” is his entire point, a fairer observer would note that at the very least, the rest of the paragraph’s “non-trivial effects on gunshot victimizations” and “more shots fired, more persons hit, more wounds inflicted” would neutralize whatever anti-gun control argument the guy’s making. In short, it’s a wash at the least. At best, however, the LCM damnation that the researcher’s been surprisingly consistent about skews the conclusion in my favor: That an LCM ban would do a lot more in curbing gun violence. And thank goodness, the AW ban has that provision.

~Of course, many are probably incense that I skipped over perhaps “crucial” pages in order to make my point; cherry picking, as it were. That is not the case. In fact, pages 20, 21, and 24 are statistics that I’ve acknowledged (that AWs are used in a minority of crimes), but have addressed (the AWB provides for limits on LCMs, which are used substantially more in crimes. Plus, so what if it’s the minority of crimes? They’re useless for defense). It would do little good to rehash them again, and littler still would be the point made my recounting the anecdotes about specific mass murders.

Yet on page 22, an interesting tidbit is discovered:

P22

“The relative rarity of AW use in crime can be attributed to a number of factors. Many AWs are long guns…Moreover, a number of the banned AWs are foreign weapons that were banned from importation into the US in 1989. Also, AWs are more expensive (see Table 2-1) and more difficult to conceal…”

~Is that acknowledgement by the researcher that a gun ban works? Perhaps. Is that acknowledgement that making guns more expensive works? Maybe. Bigger guns that are harder to conceal are harder to use in crimes? Sounds reasonable. But does there seem to be at least a correlation between a gun ban and gun use? You betcha! Does this conflict with the summary at the end of the chapter? That, I suppose, depends on your point of view. But at least I have provided reasoned backing for my point of view, using the author’s own words as justification. You who have derided me for not reading a government bill before supporting it (who does that really? Not even Congressmen do that) seem to have failed in your own critical assessment of a document you believed provided irrefutable proof of the AWB’s ineffectiveness. I believe I have shown that it has not. There’s no reason to think that if imports can be policed with more vigor and a stronger gun ban put into place, it wont have the same effect, as history has already shown us.

~Not only has the author stated that the bill has affected gun crimes, now he backpedals, or clarifies for those of us who are objective, the statement about AW use in seemingly insignificant amount of crimes, on page 23:

“At any rate, the 2.5% figure is comparable to most of the AW crime gun estimates listed above; hence, it is not clear that AWs are used disproportionately in most crimes, though AWs still seem to account for a somewhat disproportionate share of guns used in murders and other serious crimes.”

~Now I don’t know about you, but a serious crime worries me more than a minor crime. If banning AWs can prevent a disproportionate number of murders and other serious crimes, which I would guess to be rape, robbery, and assaults, then let’s ban it and have more minor crimes!

P24-25

“Perhaps the best evidence of a criminal preference for AWs comes from a study of young adult handgun buyers in California that found buyers with minor criminal histories (ie., arrests for misdemeanor convictions that did not disqualify them from purchasing firearms) were more than twice as likely to purchase Assault Pistols (APs) than were buyers with no criminal history (4.6% to 2% respectively) (Wintemute et al., 1998a). Those with more serious criminal histories were even more likely to purchase APs…”

~I hope it is not a novel idea to suggest that we take what hardcore and repeated criminals like to use away from them. Maybe, you’ll say, they will simply migrate to other things. You’d be right, that’s a possibility. But like the researcher said on page 22, AWs are more expensive, harder to obtain (due to a gun ban in 1989), and harder to conceal. If I were a betting man, I would certainly want to take my chances on not being shot with something rarer, more expensive, and harder to conceal than with something cheap, prolific, and easier to hide. Up to this point in the DoJ report, this is the most concise and clear explanation of why the AWB works.

P28
4.2.2. The AW-LCM Ban and Gun Markets

“In the long term, we can expect prices of the banned guns and magazines to gradually rise as supplies dwindle. As prices rise, more would-be criminal users of AWs and LCMs will be unable to unwilling to pay the higher prices. Others will be discouraged by the increasing non-monetary costs (ie., search time) of obtaining the weapons. In addition, rising legal market prices will undermine the incentive for some persons to sell the AWs and LCMs to prohibited buyers for higher premiums, thereby bidding some of the weapons away from the channels through which they would otherwise reach criminal users. Finally, some would-be AW and LCM users may become less willing to risk confiscation of the AWs and LCMs as the value of the weapons increases. Therefore, we expect that over time diminishing stocks and rising prices will lead to a reduction in criminal use of AWs and LCMs.”

~Reread that last sentence again. You want to talk about this report as being completely in your favor? There’s your “except”. There is the conclusion that throws this thing from black and white, as you claimed, to somewhat of a different color, a mauve or taupe towards my support of gun control and the AWB. Despite Koper’s oddly paradoxical summary in the previous section, here he is saying definitively that yes, the law has an effect, and will have an increasing one as the law ages on the books.

“However, the expected timing of the market processes is uncertain. We can anticipate that AW and LCM prices will remain relatively stable for as long as the supply of grandfathered weapons is adequate to meet demand. If, in anticipation of the ban, gun manufacturers overestimated the demand for AWs and LCMs and produced too many of them, prices might even fall before eventually rising…”

~You know that old saying, “Things will get worst before they get better”? That’s what may be happening here. To me, gun control is a long-term crime reduction tool, aimed not for next week or next year but for the next decade. That’s why it annoys me whenever someone uses the ignorant pander of “If we outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns!” That’s right, but after a while, as supplies fall and prices rise, the scales will become tilted towards less guns overall. I always try to explain that in every gun debate but sadly, people refuse to listen. Now here it is in black and white, the conclusion of a researcher who for some reason you think is solely against gun control.

Continuing on the paragraph:

“…Market responses can be complicated further by the continuing production of legal AW substitute models by some gun manufacturers. If potential AW buyers are content with an adequate supply of legal AW-type weapons having fewer military features, it will take longer for the grandfathered AW supply to constrict and for prices to rise. Similarly, predicting LCM price trends is complicated by the overhang of military surplus magazines that can fit civilian weapons (eg military M-16 rifle magazines that can be used with AR-15 type rifles) and by the market in reconditioned magazines. The “aftermarket” in gun accessories and magazine extenders that can be used to convert legal guns and magazines into banned ones introduces further complexity to the issue.”

~I believe you were the one who kept saying this is a black and white issue, right? That the AWB is bad, the things it bans are put in by ignorant non-gun owners, and this report supports your point of view utterly? In fact, it seems the report, despite its conclusion, suggests ways in which an AWB would work better if it was renewed and updated. Take the fight to the gun manufacturers, for one, and limit what they are allowed to produce. There may be a lot of Americans who would happily break the law to get their hands on some banned guns, but reducing the supply from the source works. Also, tighter enforcement of the borders works as well, as the researcher has stated. I hope that any future AWB put into place does not provide for an exemption on these AWs that existed prior to the ban, as they seem to be a major source of the criminal arms used in gun crimes.

~I’d like to pause here a second and remind you that no, I am not that myopic and yes, I do realize that had I simply gone the way of your debating tactics and picked what conclusions supported mine and ignored the rest, I’d be no better than you. I fully realize that part of the report has conclusions, such as the one above, which supports mine. And I realize that part of the report supports your stance. By highlighting the one that supports my point of view, however, I am drawing a more pronounced contrast between what you believe this report to be (100% supporting your point of view) and what I have discovered. It does me or you no good for me to point out things on the fence, that are maybe-perhaps-kinda 50% my side and 50% your side. You’d claim victory, that along with those 50%, plus the assumed conclusion that this report is biased in your favor, that the whole report would thus be biased that way. I’m showing you balance. Many parts of the report does not support you at all, it supports me, and by countering the perceived bias of this report with 100% pro-gun control arguments, it dissolves the supposedly black and white research into something vaguely magenta-ish, and neither fully supporting your side nor mine. That’s objective debating.

P29

We’ll tackle the next 2 paragraphs together as one

“…Analysis of national and local data on guns recovered by police showed reductions in criminal use of AWs during 1995 and 1996, suggesting that rising prices made the weapons less accessible to criminal users in the short-term aftermath of the ban.”

“However, the speculative increase in AW prices also prompted a pre-ban boost in AW production; in 1994, AW manufacturers produced more than twice their average volume for the 1989-1993 period. The oversupply of grandfathered AWs, the availability of the AW-type legal substitute models mentioned earlier, and the steady supply of other non-banned semiautomatics appeared to have saturated the legal market, causing advertised prices of AWs to fall to nearly pre-speculation levels by late 1995 or early 1996…”

~So even despite an increase in manufactured weapons and lowered prices, the immediate aftermath of the ban triggered a REDUCTION in the criminal use of AWs! I mean, that just blows your mind, doesn’t it? It blew mine for sure. How is it that lowered prices and wider availability of such guns could lead to a decrease in their use? Don’t take my word for it, but I think it has something to do with the AWB. Despite wild claims to the contrary, gun laws seem to work, even with more and readily affordable guns. Or are you going to tell me that suddenly people just got a lot less criminal overnight?

Of course, it’s not all sunny news, here’s the rest of the paragraph:

“This combination of excess supply and reduced prices implied that criminal use of AWs might rise again for some period around 1996, as the large stock of AWs would begin flowing from dealer’s and speculators’ gun cases to the secondary markets where ineligible purchasers may obtain guns more easily.”

~So my question is, got another study from 1996? As I recall, gun violence decreased in the 1990’s to some of their lowest levels, right? A study on specifically AW usage in 1996 and 1997 would be a fun read. Because while this part of the paragraph seems to support you, it doesn’t. The researcher already stated that AW use decreased in the immediate aftermath of the AWB, in 1995-96. That’s fact. And he only speculated that it might start increasing in 1996, which we already know from history was part of a decades long decline in gun violence. Fact vs. speculation, I going with fact, gun use decreased. Thanks AWB!

“…However, available data did reveal speculative, pre-ban price increases for LCMs that were comparable to those for AWs (prices for some LCMs continued to climb into 1996), leading us to speculate - incorrectly, as this study will show (see Chapter 8) - that there was some reduction in LCM use after the ban.”

~I suppose I must give credit where credit is due, LCMs seemed to have not been impacted as AWs were. One out of two isn’t too bad though! And again, my objection to AWs are broad and not limited to simply one particular feature, so this does little to deter my beliefs that in general, AWs are too dangerous to have around, it was impacted by the AWBs, and we should do more to stop such violence. Like I’ve said before, the next AWB should be tougher and more restrictive, and get rid of that stupid grandfather clause. If you take this researcher at his word, he will probably tell you that such a law would definitely reduce gun violence.

P30

~You should read the entire page 30 before crowing victory, as I’m sure that you will only see one sentence: “These analyses (on AW affected by the AWB) revealed no ban effects, thus failing to show confirming evidence of the mechanism through which the ban was hypothesized to affect the gun murder rate.”

~Hopefully you also read the next sentence: “However, newly available data presented in subsequent chapters suggest these assessments may have been premature, because any benefits from the decline in AW use were likely offset by steady or rising use of other guns equipped with LCMs, a trend that was not apparent at the time of the earlier study.”

~So in effect, he said the ban may have no effect, but took that right back in the next sentence. Lest you accuse me of cherry picking, we already know a lot of conclusions that Koper already has stated (ones he hasn’t taken back immediately). Those are conclusively on the side of the ban working to some degree.

~Lastly, and here’s the important part, when Koper said “These analyses revealed no ban effects…”, he wasn’t talking about the analysis of the research on the whole of the AWB, but specifically referring to only “Using a number of national an localdata sources, we also examined trends in measures of victims per gun murder incident and wounds per gunshot victim…”. So had you attempted to use the above sentence as some kind of definitive, all-encompassing conclusion about the AWB, know first that he wasn’t referring to his research at all but others, ones that he immediately said might have been premature.

~The rest of the paragraphs, for those who didn’t read it, state many things supporting gun control, even if not necessarily the AWB. The researcher said that the gun murder rate dropped right after the ban and that the decline was larger than anticipated. None of these sentences support your position that the AWB doesn’t work.

~Chapter 5 examines the prices of AWs before and after the AWB, so mostly useless information. It’s the interpretations of the data that is the meat of the chapter! I’m going to skip directly to the summary again (cause this thing’s getting too damn long!)

~But first, a little crowing! Remember how I said you could simply substitute other AWs for your hunting and defense needs? Look who agrees with me!

P43

“All of this suggests that rifle owners, who have a lower prevalence of criminal users than do handgun owners, can more easily substitute rifles with fewer or no military features for the hunting and other sporting purposes that predominate among rifle consumers.”

~Its sad really. Some of you mocked my suggestion that you could simply substitute your AWs with something else. I thought then, as I do now, that it would be a fitting compromise if by chance you guys were arguing sincerely and not simply shouting down any proposition of gun control cause you’re obsessed with guns. Who knew that it would be easier to prove this than I had hoped for? All that BS about bayonets and flash suppressors that I was attacked for, well guess what? You don’t fucking need them! They should be banned completely and utterly. Just substitute something else for your rhinos and flash mob attacks (again, sarcasm!).

~Now onto the summary. Chapter 5’s summary ties neatly in with Chapter 6’s, so I’m going to reference both right here.

P44 (from Ch. 5 summary)

“In sum, this examination of the AW ban’s impact on gun prices and production suggests that there has likely been a sustained reduction in criminal use of APs since the ban, but not necessarily ARs. Since most AWs used in crime are APs, this should result in an overall decline in AW use. In the following chapter, we examine the accuracy of this prediction.”

P57 (from Ch. 6 summary)

“Consistent with predictions derived from the analysis of market indicators in Chapter 5, analyses of national ATF gun tracing data and local databases on guns recovered by police in several localities have been largely consistent in showing that criminal use of AWs, while accounting for no more than 6% of gun crimes even before the ban, declined after 1994, independently of trends in gun crime. In various places and times from the late 1990s through 2003, AWs typically fell by one-third or more as a share of guns used in crime. Some of the most recent, post-2000 data suggest reductions as high as 70%. This trend has been driven primarily by a decline in the use of APs, which account for a majority of AWs used in crime…”

~”…independently of trends…” is a powerful statement. The AWB, whatever you think of it, and we all know you hate it, declined the rate of AW use in crime. This despite any other trends that may have existed proves that the AWB worked.

~Going back to the bodies of these two chapters, we see how he reached his conclusion.

P33

“None of the yearly coefficients in Table 5-1 is statistically significant, thus indicating that average annual AP prices did not change during the 1990s after adjusting for inflation.”

P35

“For comparison, Table 5-1 and Figure 5-1 illustrate price trends for a number of non-banned, cheaply priced, and readily concealable semiautomatic handgun models….By a number of accounts, SNS-type guns (so-called Saturday Night Specials), and Davis and Lorcin models in particular, are among the guns most frequently used in crime (ATF, 1995; 1997; Kennedy et al., 1996; Wintemute, 1994)….Prices of SNS handguns dropped notably throughout the 1990s…This suggests that although AP prices remained generally stable throughout the 1990s, they increased relative to prices of other guns commonly used in crime.”

P36

“Results shown in Table 5-2 and Figure 5-2 demonstrate that AR prices rose significantly during 1994 and 1995 before falling back to pre-ban levels in 1996 and remaining there through 1999.”

P38

“Prices for these guns (talking about non-banned AWs, legal models) remained steady throughout the decade (see Table 5-2 and Figure 5-2)…Therefore, the rifle price spikes in 1994 and 1995 were specific to assault rifles.”

~I suggest highly that you read pages 45-47 in full, as it explains and examines gun traces and how that data is used to determine gun usage. While it may seem that the amount of cautions and caveats the researcher makes note of when using tracing data hurts my position, some things stand out. Specifically, the researcher believes conclusions can still be drawn by emphasizing certain years that stand out. Despite AWs being of a higher percentage of traces, and therefore disproportionately represented among gun statistics, years in which total gun traces and gun crime fell should more accurately tell us the truth.

P50

“The years when total traces declined or were relatively flat are arguably the most informative in the series because they appear to have been less affected by changes in tracing practices. For example, there was a 6% decline in total trace requests from 1994 to 1995 (the years featured in our earlier study) that coincided with a 10% drop in gun murders (Table 6-1, column 1). Therefore, it seems tracing practices were relatively stable (or, conversely, reporting effects were relatively small) from 1994 to 1995. The 19% reduction in AW traces during this same period implies that AW use was declining faster than that of other guns. Furthermore, there were fewer AW traces in 1995 than in 1993, the year prior to the ban. The fact that this occurred during a period when the AW issue was very prominent (and hence police might have been expected to trace more of the AWs they recovered) arguably strengthens the causal inference of a ban effect.”

~Told you so :stuck_out_tongue:

“Total traces also declined slightly (2%-3%) in 1999 and 2000. In each of those years, the decline was greater for AWs (11%). Thus, in years when tracing declined overall, AW traces fell 3 to 6 times faster than did total traces…”

~If you can’t understand that, here it is simply: Even with AWs being disproportionately traced, they still fell much more than expected. With overall traces declining, you cannot simply sneer and wave this decline off as a symptom of a general, nationwide crime decrease. This is due to the ban, period (especially if you remember that Clinton amended it in 1998).

~Unfortunately, some bad news appears. But fortunately, this bad news supports my contention that the AWB should have been strengthened:

P50-51

“The general pattern of AW traces increasing less or declining more than those of other crime guns was clearly apparent for APs but less consistent for ARs (Table 6-1, columns 4 and 5)…This is consistent with predictions derived from the price and production analyses described above. But not that the post-ban AR counts could be overstated because the data do not distinguish pre-ban from post-ban version of some popular AR-15 type rifles…”

~For more accuracy, and a better working gun ban, the choice is clear: don’t let the NRA bully you into an exemption for grandfathered AWs. Who knows how well the AWB could have worked, and it did work well, if it was as restrictive as it was when it finally ended? The researcher gives a startling account of the possibilities on page 51: “Finally, traces of the LCMM rifles banned by executive order in 1998 (Thanks Bill!) were generally rising to that point, reaching levels as high as those for AR-15 type rifles (Table 6-1, column 9). Since 1998, however, the number of traces for LCMM rifles has fallen substantially. Despite a 4% increase from 2001 to 2002, the number of LCMM traces in 2002 (865) was 30% lower than the peak number traced in 1998 (1227). Tentatively, this suggests that the 1998 extension of the ban has been effective in curtailing weapons that offenders may have been substituting for the ARs banned in 1994.”

~For such a good piece of legislation, I think Bill deserved a desk BJ, don’t you?

P51

“In 2002, tracing volume increased 7%, which closely matched the 6% increase in gun murders for that year. In contrast to the general pattern, AW traces increased by 19%, suggesting a possible rebound in AW use independent of changes in tracing practices, a development that we have predicted elsewhere (Roth and Koper, 1997) based on the boom in AW production leading up to the ban…”

~Remember when I acknowledged that things may get worse before they get better? Its unfortunately that paranoid people who love to break the law increased production of AWs prior to the ban. All it resulted was a slight rebound 8 years later, not a sustained gun growth. As the rest of the data clearly showed, the AWB worked, worked well, and has kept crime down independent of other factors. We’ll simply have to deal with a slight rebound. I can totally live with that.

“The disproportionate growth in AW traces was due to ARs, however, so it could partially reflect increasing use of post-ban AR-type rifles (see the discussion above).”\

~Again, get rid of the grandfather clause, toughen up the ban, and this problem should diminish. In light of all the good the law has done, I can forgive the slight increase. It reiterates that the ban should have been extremely restrictive to begin with. Certainly it doesn’t not imply that no AWB or a weaker AWB would have curtailed AW use.

~And before you crow about why I skipped the next paragraph, with its provocative description of the possible increase in use of AR-type rifles, you should understand why the researcher came to that conclusion. Basically, like I‘ve said before, it is because of the grandfather clause.

~In the next chapter, the researcher examines price effects for LCMs. The data suggests that the AWB affected it, yet another blow against those who state the AWB was worthless.

P68

“Turning to the time trend indicators (see Table 7-1 and Figure 7-1), prices for these magazines increased nearly 50% from 1993 to 1994, and they rose another 56% in 1995. Prices declined somewhere, though not steadily, from 1996 to 1998. Nevertheless, prices in 1998 remained 22% higher than prices in 1994 and nearly 80% higher than those in 1993”

P70

“Like their handgun counterparts, prices for rifle LCMs increase over 40% from 1993 to 1994, as the ban was debated and implemented (see Table 7-1 and Figure 7-1). However, prices declined over 20% in 1995. Following a rebound in 1996, prices moved downward against during 1997 and 1998. Prices in 1998 were over one third lower than the peak prices of 1994 and were comparable to pre-ban prices in 1992 and 1993.”

P71

“Prices of LCMs for handguns rose significantly around the time of the ban and, despite some decline from their peak levels in 1995, remained significantly higher than pre-ban prices through at least 1998. The increase in LCM prices for rifles proved to be more temporary, with prices returning to roughly pre-ban levels by 1998.”

~Price can be a tricky thing to analyze, as a high price can mean either a decrease in supply, increase in demand, or both. But a leveling off of prices greatly implies a fixed demand, as it would be much more difficult to have a demand decrease (lowering prices) and supply decrease (raising prices) at the same inversely proportionate level to hold prices steady. By the same token, it would be equally hard to have a demand increase (raising prices) and supply increase (lowering prices) exactly inversely proportional as well, especially since we know it is a fact that supplies did get impacted by the AWB in 1994 and the Clinton amendment in 1998. So why the price fluctuation differences between APs and ARs? Koper helps us out on that one:

P72

“The drop in rifle LCM prices between 1994 and 1998 may have due to the simultaneous importation of approximately 788400 grandfathered LCMs, most of which appear to have been rifle magazines…”

~So the increase in price for LCMs for APs were due to the AWB, but because of the grandfather loophole, the LCMs for ARs were not as hard hit. Another point for a tougher AWB and another point against the myth that the AWB had no effect.

~It is also worth it to note that my repeated calls of replacement ARs rang true. If legal substitutes for Assault Rifles, the rhino shooting kind, were obtained in such a high rate as to not affect the long-term price, then fuck yes, you gun owners can simply shut up about your bayonets, which you don’t need, and your flash suppressors, which you don’t need, and just substitute a different gun for your hunting. You don’t need the AWs banned in the AWB, so don’t pretend it’s a big loss. Just substitute it.

P73

“…It is perhaps too early to expect a reduction in crimes with LCMs, considering that tens of millions of grandfathered LCMs were available at the time of the ban, an additional 4.8 million…were imported from 1994 through 2000, and that the elasticity of demand for LCMs may be more limited than that of firearms…there may not be a reduction in crimes with LCMs anytime in the near future.”

~Just another argument to make the AWB permanent. The short-term bans with expiration dates play right into the hands of gun advocates, who probably know that due to the short period of a ban, along with the millions of imports and grandfathered legal substitutes, gun banning would not show a significant and permanent effect unless it was long-term. This doesn’t preclude smaller effects, as this research has already shown us, but it is difficult to estimate gun crimes 20 or 30 years down the line when your law only lasts 10 years. Nevertheless, there has been an effect on gun crimes, as he has shown over and over again and I have highlighted. Anyone bemoaning the uselessness of the AWB need only to read this WHOLE report before gloating.

~Pages 75-84 summarizes specific cities where LCM use was exclusively studied. I will acknowledge that the gathered data doesn’t seem to support my point of view. However, it’s worth it to note that in the summary on page 85, Koper says:

“The observed patterns are likely due to several factors: a hangover from pre-ban growth in the production and marketing of LCM guns (Cook and Ludwig, 1997, pp. 5-6; Wintemute, 1996); the low cost of LCMs relative to the firearms they complement, which seems to make LCM use less sensitive to prices than is firearm use; the utility that gun users, particularly handgun users, attach to LCMs; a plentiful supply of grandfathered LCMs, likely enhanced by a pre-ban surge in production (though this has not been documented) and the importation of millions of foreign LCMs since the ban; thefts of LCM firearms (see Rother and Koper, 1997, Chapter 4); or some combination of these factors…”

~Since it has already been documented that pre-ban production of AWs were significantly increased, I don’t think that one can simply look at the data from pages 75-84 and insist on it being 100% anti-AWB. Only a biased person would do that. The fact is, an increased supply would forecast an upswing or a steadiness to the amount of crimes perpetrated by AWs. Yet in Baltimore there was a decrease in police recoveries of LCMs and total LCM guns used in violent crime (with the exception of ARs with LCMs), a decrease in Anchorage in violent crimes with LCM guns, and a decrease in Louisville in recoveries of LCMs. Only Milwaukee didn’t show a decrease in LCM handguns, but did in LCM ARs. Now I know that correlation doesn’t mean causation, but if the AWB correlated with a general, although statistically insignificant, decrease in crimes committed with LCM guns, then it’s a good thing. Especially considering the quoted passage above, it seems like LCM guns would have increase significantly! You may not want to attribute the credit to the AWB, and its fine if you don’t, but that’s why we have different point of views. You’d think that at least somewhere, if gun bans and restrictions were so pointless as the gun advocate side constantly reiterates, that there would be significant increases, huge murder rates, going up anytime there’s a ban. But there isn’t. At the most, you guys get an insignificant decrease or plateauing, and given the steady supplies of guns being imported and manufactured, that says something wholly supportive of gun regulation laws.

~And finally, even if you want to ignore all that, you can certainly not ignore Koper’s caution on page 85 that “…we must be cautious in generalizing these results to the nation because they are based on a small number of non-randomly selected jurisdictions…” Don’t make the mistake and simply read the following sentence, as Koper was referring to statistically significant decreases in LCM gun usage, but not simply any decrease at all.

~The introduction to Chapter 9, pages 86-87, begins with caution on assuming anything definitive from the AWB. Now that might sound like a knock against my position until you read the reasoning, “Although criminal use of AWs has declined since the ban, this reduction was offset through at least the late 1990s by steady or rishing use of other guns equipped with LCMs.” Notice that part? Criminal use of AWs HAVE declined since the ban. I discussed this already in my explanation of why correlation should matter in this case and why even a statistically insignificant decrease should be taken into account. I am further bolstered by the next sentence, “As argued previously, the LCM ban has greater potential for reducing gun deaths and injuries than does the AW ban.” And this restates again what I’ve been saying all along: we need a stronger AWB with fewer exemptions for grandfathered items, and this time put Clinton’s 1998 import executive order into the original bill.

~But if you want to hear Koper say it himself, then be my guest.

P86-87
“This is not toe say that reducing use of AWs will have no effect on gun crime; a decline in the use of AWs does simply fewer crimes with guns having particularly large magazines (20 or more rounds) and other military-style features that could facilitate some crimes. However, it seems that any such effects would be outweighed, or at least obscured, by the wider effects of LCM use, which themselves are likely to be small at best, as we argue below.”

~What he’s not saying explicitly of course, which anyone should be able to pick out by now, is that a new AWB should take extra care to target these LCMs if they want the law to be more effective. Not simply “effective”, as we already know for a fact that the law had effects, but “more effective.”

P89

“The evidence most directly relevant to the potential of the AW-LCM ban to reduce gun deaths and injuries comes from studies examining shots fired in gun attacks and/or the outcomes of attacks involving different types of guns. Unfortunately, such evidence is very sparse.”

~In chapter 9, the researcher goes on to list some more direct evidence supporting the AWB, inferring in some places, and producing direct evidence in others. I shouldn’t have to mention this, but I will, that saying evidence is sparse does not mean there’s no evidence, nor does it mean the opposite, that the AWB increased gun violence or some other crazy nonsense like that. In fact, one reason why the evidence is sparse isn’t because there’s a lot of contradictory data, but because of the nature of the type of guns and the laws itself. On page 87, the footnotes mentioned other gun laws enacted prior to the AWB mixing the results, and on a previous chapter Koper mentioned that some police records do not specifically list LCMs, rather only the gun make and model, thereby deflating the total number of LCM guns recovered during crimes.

P90

“A few studies have compared attacks with semiautomatics, sometimes specifically those with LCMs (including AWs), to other gun assaults in terms of shots fired, persons hit, and wounds inflicted (see Tables 9-1 and 9-2)…Results implied there would have been 9.4% fewer gunshot victims overall had semiautomatics not been used in any of the attacks. Similarly, studies of gun murders in Philadelphia (see McGonigal et al., 1993 in Table 9-1) and a number of smaller cities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa (see Richmond et al., 2003 in Table 9-2) found that attacks with semiautomatics resulted in more shots fired and gunshot wounds per victim.”

~Koper cautions again on the caveats of a small sample, possible changes in behavior, and changes in the design of guns, but the message from the data is pretty clear. Guns with faster firing rates, those with higher number of bullets per magazine, and basically the guns that the AWB affects resulted in more shootings on average than other types of guns.

~In fact, the only support that your point of view seems to get comes from a study on page 92, where offenders say, “…victims with AWs and other semiautomatics were no more likely to report having killed or injured victims than were other gun offenders who reported firing on victims (Table 9-1).” Then again, if you read that carefully, you’ll note that I said “offenders say”. That’s right, the only thing that supports your perspective is a national survey of PRISONERS. Oh, I’m sure that you’ll say they are quite trustworthy, having no reason to lie and all (except for the fact that it may affect their trial, their parole, their sentencing…) But hey, if you want to base your entire argument on what a bunch of criminals say, be my guest. Just ignore the fact that Koper himself says that “However, the measurement of guns used and attacks outcomes were arguably less precise in this study, which was based on offender self-reports, thani n other studies utilizing police and medical reports.”

P92-93

“Further, a study of Milwaukee homicide victims from 1992 through 1995 revealed that those killed with AWs were shot 4.14 times on average, while those killed with any gun having an LCM were shot 3.23 times on average (Table 9-2). In contrast, victims shot with guns having small magazines had only 2.1 wounds on average. If such a wound differential can be generalized to other gun attacks - if, that is, both fatal and non-fatal LCM gunshot victims are generally hit one or more extra times - then LCM use could have a considerable effect on the number of gunshot victims who die.”

~So would you like to be shot 2 times or 3 times? Your position is probably that it makes no difference. I think most others would disagree, including the researcher.

P93

“Similar conclusions can also be inferred indirectly from the types of crimes involving LCM guns. To illustrate, handguns associated with gunshot victimizations in Baltimore…are 20% to 50% more likely to have LCMs…But controlling for gunfire, guns used in shootings (with victims) are 17% to 26% more likely to have LCMs than guns used in gunfire cases resulting in no wounded victims…and guns linked to murders are 8% to 17% more likely to have LCMs than guns linked to non-fatal gunshot victimizations…These differences are not all statistically significant (meaning that at least some of them ARE), but the pattern is consistent.”

~LCMs are more likely to be used in crimes that are more violent, and gun crimes with victims (as opposed to ones where nobody gets shot), AND ones where people get murdered.

P95

“The findings of the preceding studies are subject to numerous caveats….Tentatively, nonetheless, the evidence suggests more often than not that attacks with semiautomatics, particularly those equipped with LCMs, result in more shots fired, leading to both more injuries and injuries of greater severity.”

~Like I asked before, why do you need these AWs? Not for hunting, not for self-defense. The only real reason why anyone gets these types of guns is for crime, so we should ban them all. This has no effect on your self-defense or hunting, so stop complaining. The government can and should make them illegal to own or sell because only criminals seem to own or sell them. Further down on the paragraph, the researcher asks if a 10 round limit on magazines will affect the outcomes of enough gun attacks to measurably reduce gun injuries and death. I, and many people who aren’t obsessed with guns, would agree that if you don’t need them, then ANY small affect on injuries and death is worth it, and should be implemented. Failing to find a significant reduction should be met not with yielding to the criminals, but a further limit, perhaps 6 rounds. I’ve said time and time again that the AWB, although good and effective, could have been more so had it been toughened. This chapter infers that if we cannot measure the AWB’s effect, then one possibly route to go from here is to strengthen it.

P97-101

~Given that you tend to cherry pick your conclusions based on a sentence or two here and there, and ignore the accompanying data and explanations, it is possible you’ll see the 5 above pages as your Holy Grail. Yet a careful reading of the summary on page 102 makes things clearer.

P102

“Although the ban has been successful in reducing crimes with AWs, any benefits from this reduction are likely to have been outweighed by steady or rising use of non-banned semiautomatics with LCMs, which are used in crime much more frequently than AWs. Therefore, 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, based on indicators like the percentage of gun crimes resulting in death or the share of gunfire incidents resulting in injury, as we might have expected had the ban reduced crimes with both AWs and LCMs.”

~Hold your celebration for a sec, lets see what he’s really saying. Koper acknowledges the ban has been successful in reducing crimes with AWs, that’s a given. But the only reason he says that we cannot credit the ban on reducing gun crime is because of the steady or rising use of non-banned LCM guns. Isn’t this what I’ve been saying all along? LCMs are the heart of the AWB, way back in the first chapter it was acknowledged that those types of AWs played a much better role in gun crime. And in Chapter 5, Koper acknowledges that reduction in LCMs would be harder to see because of its lowered price. Of course, that’s also factoring in numerous instances of the effect of the so-called grandfathered weapons AND the increase in production of guns prior to the ban. Taken all that into account, its amazing that gun crime didn’t actually rise! The problem when people start comparing gun bans to drug bans is that they simply say, ignorantly, that drugs are rampant despite a ban, so a ban doesn’t work. That’s not what you’re supposed to be comparing it to. The true comparison is between a control group, impossible to do in real life, of how the country would be with a drug ban compared to the same country with no ban. The same thing can be said of guns, though it takes a little more faith I’ll admit. Without the AWB, the gun rate probably would have went up instead of leveling off.

~And here’s where my objection to your position takes a rather strange turn. People like you seem to ignore logic. Forget for a second our difference on gun control. Most gun advocates seem to have the rather illogical and improbable position that if there are less guns, then there would be MORE shootings. Think about that for a second, it defies reason. You and I can argue about specific gun laws until the cows come home, but my ultimate goal is to reduce the amount of guns, through laws or litigation, and its rare that any of you will even address the inherent illogical fallacy that somehow having less guns will cause more gun shootings. Gun control laws will ultimately work because even given small contrary samples here and there, by implementing and enforcing anti-gun laws, we will have less guns overall, and gun crimes will decrease because of that.

~Anyway, back to the DoJ report, which seems to skew more and more towards my side, Koper also acknowledges the grandfather effect on page 102, saying “However, the grandfathering provision of the AW-LCM ban guaranteed that the effects of this law would occur only gradually over time. Those effects are still unfolding and may not be fully felt for several years into the future, particularly if foreign, pre-ban LCMs continue to be imported into the US in large numbers. It is thus premature to make definitive assessments of the ban’s impact on gun violence.” So a report you claim totally supports you has an ultimate conclusion that you cant really tell yet what the AWB’s effects are, and you want to claim victory? How laughable. If anything, this is a complete and utter declaration to make the AWB permanent, as we already know it affects gun crimes, we already know it should be stronger, and we already know AWs are completely and utterly unnecessary except to the military and criminals.

~And finally, in chapter 10, summaries are given, though I can probably guess which ones you read. Section 10.1 gives reasons why one should not take the conclusion at face value, something you’ve failed to do in the past when citing this report.

~10.2 postulates an upper bound estimate of a 5% gunshot reduction, seemingly insignificant. However, I have to say this again: we don’t need AWs, AWs are for criminals and the military. Thus, ANY decrease is a good thing, and an effective use of the AWB. This section also speculates on imports, which is something I’ve already addressed. Crack down on imports, make more types of AWs illegal, and we won’t have as big of a problem with them as we do now. It also states that simply debating about gun control is enough to affect demand, as gun manufacturers, and apparently their buyers, are a paranoid lot. Hopefully, and I don’t know how much of this is possible, Obama can simply issue an executive order without debate banning certain types of guns, as it would catch these jokers off guard and prevent the surge in production seen in 1993 and 1994 that affected supply for years thence.

~And lastly, on potential consequence of lifting the ban, page 107, “If the ban is lifted, it is likely that gun and magazine manufacturers will reintroduce AW models and LCMs, perhaps in substantial numbers. In addition, AWs grandfathered under the 1994 law may lose value and novelty, prompting some of their lawful owners to sell them in secondary markets, where they may reach criminal users. Any resulting increase in crimes with AWs and LCMs might increase gunshot victimizations, though this effect could be difficult to discern statistically.” Unfortunately its already 2009 so that part’s a little out of date. Given the paranoia of the gun industry, it probably holds true that many of those types of weapons have been reintroduced. This is yet another argument to make such gun bans permanent.

~You know with pretty much everything else imaginable such as murder, drugs, bootlegs, smuggling, stealing, nukes and bombs, speeding, poisons, weaponized viruses, nerve gas, nuclear secrets, espionage, and illegal aliens, this country hasn’t yet gone the way of defeatism and thrown up our hands and said “Well we can’t stop them, might as well join them.” And only a few times in our history have we eventually allowed things previously illegal to become legal, but not due to some fearful, defeatist mindset, but when there was an actual reason to. For prohibition, there was good reason to allow it. It was mostly a “moral” decision to illegalize alcohol and with proper restrictions, most people don’t abuse alcohol. Some drugs are legalized after a while, but only after studies show they aren’t harmful and/or can be controlled and show a benefit. Some of us want illegals to be given a pathway to citizenship, but not because we abhor the fight against them, but because we realize much of our agricultural industry is shouldered by their efforts. This kind of pathetic yielding to criminals is not the sort of thing I’d expect from the self-professed rugged American individual. You really should just admit that you like guns and want to be able to shoot things and not pretend this is some civil rights crusade or that you’re defending liberty. Or not, up to you. Hopefully you’re consistent enough to lobby for legalizing drugs and bombs too.

If you were going to raise a thread that’s been dead for three weeks, could you have at least waited until your second comment before putting your foot in it?

It doesn’t matter if people need bayonets or not, what you are claiming is that sticking a knife on the end of your semi-automatic rifle is somehow dangerous enough that this ability needs to be restricted. Rather than proving your point, this just demonstrates that the creators of this ban are the same corrupt bastards as last time.

See, and now we’re back to the “need” metric unfettered by anything else. Things like ~gasp!!!~ muzzle brakes/flash suppressors are “the reason why these weapons are bad”. And since we don’t “need” them (who wants to be able to keep their muzzle more stable when firing multiple rounds, anyways?), he gets to ban them.

We could wait to see if Yog is fair enough to apply his “need” metric to himself, and give away his car for a horse, his clothes for a burlap sack, and eat only protein pills, lard, and vitamins. But as we all know, restricting things based on need is for those who are less equal than he.

Of course, the “need” metric will soon be revised. It will probably become something like “need plus danger”. We won’t ever have it explained to us why a muzzle brake is a “dangerous” item or how many bayonet killings have been prevented. When asked why something like a muzzle brake must be banned, we’ll be told that it’s because assault weapons (which won’t ever be defined as anything other than “whatever the government chooses to call an assault weapon”) are only suited to kill large game of an indeterminate nature. Maybe we’ll see miniguns conflated with “assault weapons” again.

And, predictably, all of this will serve as “proof” for why we need draconian gun banning and violations of the US Constitution itself with the pesky steps inherent in amending it. Evidently adherence to the Rule of Law is also for people who are less equal.

If we’re really, really lucky we’ll see him retract his statements about guns and crimes and admit that the data shows that the rifles banned as “assault weapons” were actually used in a statistically insignificant percent of crimes in the first place. But that’s a sucker’s bet.

Maybe you should read the whole thing?

You definitely need to read the whole thing.

I read the whole thing.
It’s the same garbage you’ve been spouting, repeatedly, and now you’ve attempted to cherry pick and go against exactly what the report said, in order to make yourself appear correct, when you’re obviously not.
From the first statement alone…
~Those features are part of the reason why those weapons are bad. Like the ban says, on p7, it “…is directed at semiautomatic firearms having features that appear useful in military and criminal applications but unnecessary in shooting sports or self-defense…” Which is basically what I’ve said in previous posts. For the great majority of people, you do not need bayonets and silencers and things of that nature.

What about those features makes the weapons “bad”?

Why do I have to show ‘need’ for something?

LOL, did you even read the report?! The AWB has nothing to do with silencers!

It does, however, have something to do with threaded barrels, which are completely moot in that SILENCERS ARE ALREADY ON THE CONTROLLED ITEMS LISTS.

No, not allowed. You can’t quote his exact words that mention only need. You have to wait, until later, where he obfuscates the issue or tries to revise his shtick.

My single shot, break-action shotgun, after about 30 rounds through it, heats up quite noticeably. To the point where touching it creates nice warm skin oil discoloration patterns on the metal.

A barrel shroud would be simply lovely for it. As it is, I have to wear gloves.

Many of the rest of your points are equally inaccurate, as you are reading their words, but not thinking about what they mean. Anything can be asserted.

For clarification: A day’s trap shooting can be expected to be about 80 rounds, with another 10 for practice.

Funny, I thought you would have tried harder than this.

  1. What makes those features bad is addressed. Kindly read the whole thing as you’ve hounded me to do on your DoJ report, thanks.

  2. You have to show need because…well, that’s in my reply too :wink: Hey I can’t do all your work for you!

  3. Silencers are referenced specifically because of the threaded barrels, which you’ve just acknowledged was in there. If you can put 2 and 2 together, you’d realize that simply banning silencers is only half the work. Why ban half of the whole package if you can also ban threaded barrels as well so that if a silencer was illegally obtained, the AWB would do the job of making it harder to ALSO obtain the illegal weapon that can accommodate such a silencer? After all, if silencers are already banned, then why not simply ban the gun feature that can accomodate it?

Geez, more and more it looks like you are the one who haven’t read the report. Maybe you should take your own advice?

Consider a second gun, or not shooting so much. Nobody says that you sporting gun users should have everything exactly the same before and after the AWB. A little bit of inconvenience is assured.

Besides, if you had read the AWB, you’d realize that it takes 2 such military-style features to make the weapon illegal. You can have your shotgun with the barrel shroud and shoot as many birds or whatever as you want

It sure would be nice to have a cite, considering the implication is that you read what I wrote and the DoJ report

What report are you talking about? Was it mentioned earlier in this thread? I’m NOT going to re-read this zombie.

Here is the deal and what was conspicuously missed by yourself… The AWB did not take a single gun or magazine off of the street. Therefore I ask you, how, exactly did any of the changes occur?

Anxiously waiting your reply…

Your response wasn’t really worth it.

Please, reiterate for me.

Please, reiterate for me. I am kind enough to do so for you.

Because Silencers aren’t the only things that use threaded barrels. So do muzzle breaks (which aren’t banned in the AWB) (which are different from Flash Suppressors).

Maybe you missed the half dozen times I said I have read the report? Simply because you misunderstand it, does not mean I have not read it.