The provision is mainly symbolic its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control.Ī genuine assault weapon, as opposed to a legal definition, is a hand-held, selective fire weapon, which means it's capable of firing in either an automatic or a semiautomatic mode depending on the position of a selector switch. Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. No one should have any illusions about what was accomplished (by the ban). If assault weapons are so rarely used in crime, why all the hoopla when certain military-style-semi-automatic weapons were banned by the Crime Control Act of 1994? A Washington Post editorial (September 15, 1994) summed it up best: There are close to 4 million assault weapons in the U.S., which amounts to roughly 1.7% of the total gun stock. (Our deadliest mass murders have either involved arson or bombs.) (There has been no consistent trend in this rate from 1978 through 1996.) Between 19 less than 4% of mass murders, committed with guns, involved assault weapons. However a higher percentage are used in police homicides, roughly ten percent. It is estimated that from one to seven percent of all homicides are committed with assault weapons (rifles of any type are involved in three to four percent of all homicides).
Assault weapons are used in about one-fifth of one percent (.20%) of all violent crimes and about one percent in gun crimes.
30 caliber bullets normally used in deer hunting rifles (see this hunting rifle ammunition chart).Īssault weapons are not the weapons of choice among drug dealers, gang members or criminals in general. A smaller caliber bullet is more likely to wound the animal (and allow it to escape and suffer a slow death) than the more powerful. Rifles of this caliber, when used for hunting, are generally used on small game rather than deer.
For example, the AR-15 (a semi-automatic version of the U.S. In fact most assault weapons are less powerful than hunting rifles. Further, a bullet fired from a semi-automatic weapon is no more powerful than one of the same caliber fired from a corresponding non-semi-automatic handgun, rifle, or shotgun. Military-style semi-automatic firearms (so-called assault weapons) do not differ materially from non-military style semi-automatic firearms (one bullet is fired for each pull of the trigger) and are no more powerful than other semi-automatic weapons.
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