Common Folk Using Common Sense

“Assault weapon” is an invented term. In the firearm lexicon, there is no such thing as an “assault weapon”. The closest relative is the “assault rifle”, which is a machine gun or “select fire” rifle that fires rifle cartridges. In most cases, “assault weapons” are functionally identical to hunting rifles, though cosmetically similar to military guns.

But now that the Supreme Court has affirmed that law-abiding citizens have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, watch for local municipalities to start inventing creative new restrictions, like calling a deer rifle an assault weapon, making it then illegal to own.

Already in some states are laws to the effect that center fire rifles and shotguns holding more than six cartridges, and handguns holding more than 10 rounds, are now considered to be assault weapons – meaning about 90% of all firearms sold in the last few years. The District of Columbia states that any pistol that has more than 12 rounds in the magazine is considered to be a machine gun – and that would include all the handguns carried by law enforcement.

From Gun Facts version 5.0:

• In 1994, before the Federal “assault weapons ban”, you were eleven (11) times more likely to be beaten to death than to be killed by an “assault weapon”. In the first year since the ban was lifted, murders declined 3.6%, and violent crime 1.7%.
• Nationally, “assault weapons” were used in 1.4% of crimes involving firearms and 0.25% of all violent crime before the enactment of any national or state “assault weapons” ban. In many major urban areas (San Antonio, Mobile, Nashville, etc.) and some entire states (Maryland, New Jersey, etc.) the rate is less than 0.1%
• Even weapons misclassified as “assault weapons” (common in the former Federal and California “assault weapons” confiscations) are used in less than 1% of all homicides.
• Los Angeles: In 1998, of 538 documented gun incidents, only one (0.2%) involved an “assault weapon”
• San Francisco: In 1998, only 2.2% of confiscated weapons were “assault weapons”.
• San Diego: Between 1988 and 1990, only 0.3% of confiscated weapons were “assault weapons”.
• In the US, between 1980 and 1994, only 2% of confiscated guns were “assault weapons”. Just under 2% of criminals that commit violent crimes used “assault weapons”.
• Only 1.4% of recovered crime weapons are models covered under the 1994 “assault weapons” ban.
• In Virginia, no surveyed inmates had carried an “assault weapon” during the commission of their last crime, despite 20% admitting that they had previously owned such weapons.
• Most “assault weapons” have no more firepower or killing capacity than the average hunting rifle and “play a small role in overall violent crime”.
• Even the government agrees. “… the weapons banned by this legislation [1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban - since repealed] were used only rarely in gun crimes”
• Only 1% of police officers murdered were killed using “assault weapons”. They were twice as likely to be killed with their own handgun.
• One federal government study found zero “assault weapons” were used to kill cops.
• Only 8% of criminals use anything that is classified (even incorrectly) as an “assault weapon”, though less than 1% claimed to use these firearms when committing crimes.
• Criminals are as likely to carry single shot (derringer-type) handguns as they are to carry “assault weapons”.
• Since police started keeping statistics, we now know that “assault weapons” are/were used in an underwhelming 0.026 of 1% of crimes in New Jersey. This means that my officers are more likely to confront an escaped tiger from the local zoo than to confront an assault rifle in the hands of a drug-crazed killer on the streets.
• Only 0.15% of over 4,000 weapons confiscated in Los Angeles in one year were converted, and only 0.3% had any evidence of an attempt to convert to automatic firing.
• The number of shots fired by criminals has not changed significantly even with the increased capacity of handguns and other firearms. Indeed, the number of shots from revolvers (all within 6-8 round capacity) and semi-automatics were about the same – 2.04 vs. 2.53. In a crime or gun battle, there is seldom time or need to shoot more.

So whenever you hear someone at work, at church, or on the TV moaning about those Evil Assault Weapons™ you now know that they either have no idea what they’re talking about, are merely repeating the lies they’ve been told by either the media or the gun control lobby … or they’re just plain ignorant. I own an AK-47 variant (yep, an Evil Communist Assault Weapon™) that has never left home and killed innocent children and little puppies on its own … but it will absolutely blow away anyone dumb enough to break into my house and attempt to harm my loved ones.

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