The details of the tragic Sunday shooting in Boulder, Colorado, that left 10 people dead are still being discovered. But we do know that the gunman, who opened fire in a grocery store, reportedly used a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle and that Democrats are immediately using the tragedy to renew their push for gun control.
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© Barry Thumma/AP Back in 1993, then Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led the bid to ban semi-automatic weapons like the TEC-9 semi-automatic weapon he is holding at a hearing. This horrific shooting has drawn particular focus to proposals for an “assault weapons” ban over other forms of gun control due to a set of unique circumstances. The city enacted such a ban in 2018, yet it was struck down as illegal by a state judge last week. Democrats are thus responding by renewing calls for the ban, assuming it would’ve prevented the tragedy even though many other firearms not covered by bans on “assault weapons” are capable of essentially the same firepower.“I don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps or save lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act,” President Biden said on Tuesday. “We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again.”
Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised that the “Senate is going to debate and address the epidemic of gun violence in this country.”
We shouldn’t be so hasty. Sound policy decisions are rarely made in the heat of the moment. And charged emotions do not change the fact that banning “assault weapons” would restrict the constitutional self-defense rights of millions without making anyone safer.
Why?
Well, “assault weapons” is actually a meaningless term. Which guns count under a given law’s definition of “assault weapon” often has more to do with accessories and aesthetics than fire rate or lethality. And according to 2019 FBI data, only about 2.6% of homicides are committed using a rifle.
Indeed, more are killed annually with blunt objects such as clubs or with bare fists than with AR-15s. There are at least 16 million AR-15s in the United States. Each year, about 300 people are killed with any kind of rifle. Therefore, it’s no exaggeration to say that 99.99% of AR-15s are never used to murder anyone.
So, as heartbreaking as high-profile mass shootings with these weapons may be, the facts simply don’t support the notion that banning vaguely defined “assault weapons” will reduce gun violence. And we don’t actually have to speculate. Thanks in part to work Biden himself did as a senator, we had a ban on “assault weapons” in place from 1994 to 2004.
It didn’t work.
Subsequent research and policy analyses almost unanimously found that it had no significant public safety impact.
For example, criminologists from Northeastern University concluded that the 1994 ban had “virtually no effect.” Their research isn’t an outlier. A comprehensive review of available research by the Rand Corporation found “no qualifying studies” showing that banning assault weapons reduced mass shootings or violent crime.
Even an analysis by the liberal outlet Vox admitted that there’s “not much empirical weight behind” assault weapon bans and that “studies on assault weapons bans have generally ranged from inconclusive to unfavorable toward a ban.”
So, there is no reason at all to think that banning “assault weapons” would do anything to stop tragedies like what just happened in Boulder. And objective evidence still matters when emotions run high.
Yes, banning “assault weapons” to satisfy the emotional urge to “do something” might win anti-gun politicians some political points. But it would limit the rights of millions without making anyone any safer.
Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a Washington Examiner contributor and host of the Breaking Boundaries podcast.
Tags: Opinion, Beltway Confidential, Blog Contributors, Gun Control, Colorado, Mass Shootings, Joe Biden, Assault Weapons
Original Author: Brad Polumbo
Original Location: Democrats are using the Boulder shooting to push a gun control proposal that already failed
Likely almost , or more than , 20 million Ar-15's in Middle America
from Our cold, dead hands - fiden and criminal DPST cabal.
Thee will be a wall - of revolt from Middle America against the voter fraudulent criminal fiden reime.
We will not disarm to face the jackboot marxist totalitarian orwellian horror the DPST's plan to inflict on America .
an armed America is teh only thing keeping the DPST totalitarians in any semblance of control of their Tyrannical Ambition to rule America singlehandedly in perpetuity!
