Clear target of the assault weapon law

Source:
The Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/

Clear target of the assault weapon law
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20030512-7414000.htm

May 12, 2003

by Jacob Sullum

“The most critical improvement” to the federal “assault weapon” ban,
according to the Violence Policy Center, http://www.vpc.org/ “is to ensure
that the term ‘assault weapon’ includes all guns that are, in fact,
assault
weapons.” Don’t think about that assertion too much; it might cause your
head to explode.

The gun banners at the VPC http://www.vpc.org/ are unfazed by the fact that
“assault weapon” is not an objective category: They know one when they see
it. Legally, however, “assault weapon” means whatever Congress says it
means.

The 1994 ban, which is scheduled to expire next year but would be renewed
by legislation recently introduced in the House and Senate, identifies
several specific brands and models as “semiautomatic assault weapons.” It
also bans any semiautomatic gun that accepts a detachable magazine and has
at least two features from a list of five (four in the case of shotguns).

Although the justification for the ban was that “assault weapons” are
especially dangerous, the criteria Congress chose – including bayonet
mounts, folding stocks, pistol grips and barrel shrouds – for practical
purposes have nothing to do with lethality. The targeted guns are
distinguished mainly by their sinister, military-style appearance.

The VPC complains that “the gun industry moved quickly to make slight,
cosmetic design changes in their ‘post-ban’ guns to evade the law.” That
was possible because the focus of the law – the essence of what makes a
gun
an “assault weapon” – is slight and cosmetic.

The VPC says the solution is a broader definition: Instead of two features
from a list, for example, one should suffice. But that approach makes the
difference between legal and illegal guns even slighter, while evading the
basic question of why these weapons were singled out to begin with.

As President Bush’s support for renewing the law reflects, the “assault
weapon” ban is widely seen as the very model of reasonable gun control.
Yet
it is based on arbitrary distinctions unrelated to public safety or crime
control.

The anti-gun lobby decided to target firearms that look like military
weapons for tactical reasons. As the VPC’s Josh Sugarmann observed in
1988,
“The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over
fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons -
anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun -
can
only increase that chance of public support for restrictions on these
weapons.”

The VPC continues to capitalize on this confusion. “Civilian assault
weapons,” it says, “are semiautomatic versions of military weapons
designed
to rapidly lay down a wide field of fire often called ‘hosing down’ an
area.” Contrary to the impression left by that ambiguous statement,
so-called assault weapons fire once per trigger pull, like any other
semiautomatic.

Functionality aside, are “assault weapons” especially popular with
criminals? Police statistics from across the country indicate that they
represent 2 percent to 3 percent of guns used in crimes.

To get around the fact that “assault weapons” are rarely used by
criminals,
the VPC is now claiming that from 1998 through 2001 “one in five law
enforcement officers slain in the line of duty was killed with an assault
weapon.” This estimate is padded by the inclusion of weapons that Congress
does not define as “assault weapons” but that the VPC does. In any case,
it
indicates that the vast majority of police killers use guns that no one
considers to be “assault weapons.”

Notice, too, that banning guns does not prevent them from being used in
crimes, which makes you wonder what good even an “improved” ban could be
expected to accomplish. Even if police killers were fond of “assault
weapons” and if passing a law could magically eliminate them, it’s absurd
to imagine that violent criminals could not find adequate substitutes.

The “assault weapon” ban sets a dangerous precedent precisely because the
justification for it is so weak. It suggests that you don’t need a good
reason to limit the right to keep and bear arms, and it invites further
restrictions down the road. As far as the gun banners are concerned, that
is the whole point.

In 1996, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who favors banning
gun possession by civilians, conceded that the arguments advanced by
supporters of the “assault weapon” ban were “laughable.” The “only real
justification” for the law, he said, “is not to reduce crime but to
desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for
their ultimate confiscation.”

Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason magazine, is a nationally
syndicated columnist.