Anti-Gunners Hope to Defibrillate Moribund Assault Weapons Issue
October 20, 2003
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
Eleven months from now the Clinton gun and magazine ban is due to sunset, and many pro-gunners say good riddance. The anti-gunners, on the other hand, are absolutely frantic.
In its nine-year and one-month run to date, there has been no empirical evidence that the ban on semi-automatic, civilian versions of military-style rifles, shotguns and pistols—as well as magazines of over 10 rounds—has had any impact on criminals, terrorists, gang bangers or anyone else.
Among the reasons proponents gave for the ban back in the late ’80s and early ’90s was that it would make police safer, disarm drug dealers and reduce the number of drive-by shootings. Almost 10 years later, it has failed to do any of those things. Police are no safer, citizens are no safer and the drug and gang-inspired drive-by murders and woundings continue at an unhealthy pace.
One of the reasons for the failure of the Clinton-Feinstein-Schumer 1994 gun ban is that, in the highest tradition of elitist policy-makers the world over, they aimed at the wrong target.
Another reason is that the guns they banned were never used by criminals as frequently as the anti-gunners claimed.
Finally, the law firm of Clinton, Feinstein and Schumer ignored two factors: 1.) the determination of criminals to pursue their careers at any cost and regardless of any law, and 2.) the substitution factor.
California First
California led the way with the 1989 Roberti-Roos “Assault Weapons” Act and they soon were followed by a few other states until the Clinton gang managed to narrowly pass the federal ban. None of the research before passage of the ban, and none of it since, has supported the ban.
Before New York Gov. George Pataki and the Long Island Republican dwarfs in the state Senate passed a bill that Democratic former-Gov. Mario Cuomo failed repeatedly to enact, The New York Post reported that state police statistics proved that you were five times more likely to be killed by bare fists and shoed feet than you were by one of those so-called assault weapons.
Nothing has changed since the federal ban and several state bans were enacted. If anyone needs further proof, check the Page 1 report in this issue of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) task force report on a review of 51 published “gun control” studies. If a gang of historically anti-gun bureaucrats like the folks at the CDC can’t find an honest report proving that gun control—including the Clinton ban—actually works, there isn’t any.
Sure, the gnomes at the Violence Policy Center, the Brady Campaign and their allies can confect all the trumped up “studies” and “reports” they want. But so can the National Rifle Association, the Second Amendment Foundation and Gun Owners of America. The partisan studies on either side don’t count except to generate headlines. Needless to say, the studies candied up by the anti-gunners are worthless except to a media biased against guns and gunowners eager to push the civilian disarmament and public control agenda.
The CDC bureaucrats can hide from their own task force report by saying that their findings didn’t mean that gun control does work, just that they just couldn’t prove things one way or the other. But to paraphrase the words of defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, “if the facts don’t fit, you must acquit.”
The international evidence is also running against the gun grabbers.
In England, reports keep coming in that the almost total gun ban has increased crime and violence with firearms, not decreased. British citizens are not safer; they are in graver danger.
And an October report from our neighbors to the North shows that more people were killed with knives than guns in 2002, according to Statistics Canada, a government agency. (I think I mentioned the substitution factor earlier in this column.)
And Canada’s homicide rate rose after two years of relative stability.
While the proportion of homicides committed with firearms fell to an all-time low, stabbings, the most common method in 2002, accounted for 31% of homicides, followed by shootings at 26%, beatings, 21%, and strangulation or suffocation 11%.
If further evidence that gun control lows are irrelevant to citizens safety—if not counterproductive, Statistics Canada reported that the 98 homicides committed with a handgun in 2002 were consistent with the annual average over the past decade.
It seems like only yesterday than Handgun Control Inc.—now called the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence to avoid the “control” word—was touting England and Canada with reports of less than a dozen handgun-related murders in each country. That was before both countries tightened their gun laws further.
But none of this is deflecting or stopping the anti-gunners and their allies.
State Campaigns
In states like Maryland, Iowa and Illinois, the anti-gun state organizations are ginning up a push for more “assault weapons” legislation at the state and federal levels.
In Maryland, where the 2002 “Beltway snipers” case alarmed most citizens, the anti-gun lobby group formerly known as Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse, now known as CeaseFire Maryland, is zeroing-in on the “assault weapons” issue.
While they had three anti-gun bills to push in the state capital last year—bills that went nowhere—they will be focusing on one from now on, and they will be using the Bushmaster semi-auto linked to last Fall’s shooting as a centerpiece of their campaign.
The anti-gunners in Maryland, and elsewhere, are using the prospect of the federal bill’s sunset as a prod to get state legislatures to enact more restrictive “assault weapons” bans.
And the state people are being aided by the traditional anti-gun national groups, some openly, such as Arlington, VA-based Handgun-Free America Inc., some in their Halloween masks. Among the leading masqueraders is the Consumer Federation of America (CFA).
In early October, CFA issued a press release claiming that a new survey had found that over a majority of the public supports renewing the federal “assault weapons” ban and supports new measures to strengthen the ban.
The CFA claimed that an important finding of their survey is that a high percentage of Americans want President Bush to persuade Congress to renew the ban. They also claim that a majority of gunowners support renewing and strengthening the assault weapons ban.
McCarthy/Lautenberg
On Oct. 1, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), who ran for Congress after her husband was killed and son wounded in the Long Island Rail Road shootings, made a pitch for an extension of the assault weapons ban with the mother of one of the victims of “Beltway snipers.”
McCarthy is pushing a permanent extension as well as an expansion of the ban.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is sponsoring Senate legislation that matches McCarthy’s proposal. Captioned “The Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2003” the bill numbers are S-1431 and HR-2038.
The anti-gunners are united and focused now. They not only want to maintain the gun and magazine ban, they want to expand upon it and make it permanent. They bought one sunset provision in 1994 in order to weasel enough votes to pass the ban. Now, they are trying to hang on to what they won then.
That the ban enacted in 1994 didn’t accomplish anything beneficial is beside the point. It is one of the principal jewels in the anti-gun crown. They are mounting a full court press, and even if their legislation doesn’t get considered by a committee, they will try to offer it an amendment to other bills including appropriation’s bills.
All of the anti-gun groups will be harnessing every device they have, not just in the remaining 2003 part of this Congressional session, but right out of the box in 2004. Their campaign is already in full swing and they have taken ads out in Roll Call, a major newspaper on Capitol Hill, calling on Congress and the President to act.
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