Today's New York Times prominently features an article on the Assault Weapons Ban. It expired and nobody noticed.
Despite dire predictions that the streets would be awash in military-style guns, the expiration of the decade-long assault weapons ban last September has not set off a sustained surge in the weapons' sales, gun makers and sellers say. It also has not caused any noticeable increase in gun crime in the past seven months, according to several metropolitan police departments.
Is anybody surprised? No, not really. Not even the Violence Policy Center.
"The whole time that the American public thought there was an assault weapons ban, there never really was one," said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control group.
What's more, law enforcement officials say that military-style weapons, which were never used in many gun crimes but did enjoy some vogue in the years before the ban took effect, seem to have gone out of style in criminal circles.
At BanAssaultWeapons.org VPC's ticking clock reads "0 days until the federal assault weapons ban ends-- unless President Bush and Congress act." There you will also find a web page describing "the problem". Oddly enough the problem described is not crime. At VPC the problem was never crime, the problem was that assault weapons exist. Should there actually have to be a reason to ban them? While the folks at VPC could hardly be expected to notice a drop in crime rate, we find Senator Dianne Feinstein clinging to her illusions.
"In my view, the assault weapons legislation was working," said Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, a chief sponsor of the new bill. "It was drying up supply and driving up prices. The number of those guns used in crimes dropped because they were less available."
But the Times counters,
Assault weapons account for a small fraction of gun crimes: about 2 percent, according to most studies, and no more than 8 percent. But they have been used in many high-profile shooting sprees. The snipers in the 2002 Washington-area shootings, for instance, used semiautomatic assault rifles that were copycat versions of banned carbines.
Gun crime has plummeted since the early 1990's. But a study for the National Institute of Justice said that it could not "clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence."
And the last words go to the Second Amendment side, from Stuart at TargetMaster and small arms manufacturer Taurus International Manufacturing Inc.
The only thing Clinton ever did for us was drive up the price of magazines," said a weapons specialist named Stuart at TargetMaster, a shooting range and gun shop in Garland, Tex. (He declined to give his last name.) "A 17-round Glock magazine crept up to $150 during the ban. It's $75 now."
Since September, the Web site of Taurus International Manufacturing Inc., a major maker of small arms, has celebrated the demise of the prohibition on magazines, flashing in red letters, "10 years of 10 rounds are over!"
Perhaps for the Times it's really desperate cry for help, ending their story this way. But for Dianne Feinstein and the folks at Violence Policy Center the Times might be consider guilty of the worst of sins -- balanced reporting. How could they! And on an issue of such importance!
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