Plan B Forum

May 3, 1994

To Members of the U.S. House of Representatives:
We are writing to urge your support for a ban on the domestic manufacture of military-style assault weapons. This is a matter of vital importance to the public safety. Although assault weapons account for less than 1% of the guns in circulation, they account for nearly 10% of the guns traced to crime.

Every major law enforcement organization in America and dozens of leading labor, medical, religious, civil rights and civic groups support such a ban. Most importantly, poll after poll shows that the American public overwhelmingly support a ban on assault weapons. A 1993 CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll found that 77% of Americans support a ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of semi-automatic assault guns, such as the AK-47.

The 1989 import ban resulted in an impressive 40% drop in imported assault weapons traced to crime between 1989 and 1991, but the killing continues. Last year, a killer armed with two TEC9s killed eight people at a San Francisco law firm and wounded several others. During the past five years, more than 40 law enforcement officers have been killed or wounded in the line of duty by an assault weapon.

While we recognize that assault weapon legislation will not stop all assault weapon crime, statistics prove that we can dry up the supply of these guns, making them less accessible to criminals. We urge you to listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of these weapons.

Sincerely,

Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan

Big RR wrote:I am still confused about the difference between the so-called "assault weapons" (like the AK 47) and other semiautomatic rifles. Basically the only difference I have seen is the appearance, but I am not certain. I have never heard of a blanket ban on all semi automatic rifles (except in a few states), only "assault rifles".

rubato wrote:

Big RR wrote:I am still confused about the difference between the so-called "assault weapons" (like the AK 47) and other semiautomatic rifles. Basically the only difference I have seen is the appearance, but I am not certain. I have never heard of a blanket ban on all semi automatic rifles (except in a few states), only "assault rifles".

Yeah, when I hunt I want 30 rounds of small caliber high velocity ammo, designed to wound rather then kill outright, ready to go. Everybody does. What if there's a whole HERD of deer?

yrs,
rubato

The AR-15 used to be illegal. President Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban, which was in effect from 1994 to 2004, banned the AR-15 and other guns that were too similar to military-style weapons. However, this law did not prohibit Americans from owning semi-automatic weapons;1 it capped how many military features an individual gun could have. During the ban, a semi-automatic rifle like the AR-15 could legally have any one of the following features, as long as it didn’t have two or more of them: a folding stock (making the gun slightly easier to conceal), a pistol grip (making the weapon easier to hold and use), a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor (making it harder to see where shots are coming from), or a grenade launcher.

A 2004 report commissioned by the Department of Justice on the effects of the assault weapons ban concluded that the law was largely ineffective at limiting access to weapons with the power of the AR-15. According to the report, the ban focused on “features that have little to do with the weapons’ operation, and removing those features is sufficient to make the weapons legal.” The report noted that several semi-automatic rifles were functionally equivalent to the AR-15 and untouched by the ban. It’s hard to know whether Mateen’s AR-15-style weapon would have been covered by the old ban, though some versions of the Sig Sauer MCX rifle he used are sold with more than one of the components that were limited by the law. Depending on how many military-style features the rifle had when he bought it, it might have been legal under the assault weapons ban. And he would have been able to modify the gun himself, even under the old law.

The review for the DOJ concluded that bans on specific models or features of assault weapons had little to no discernible impact on gun deaths. If the law had any effect, the report said, it was most likely the result of bans on large-capacity magazines, which contain 10 or more rounds. (Large magazines allow shooters to keep firing without pausing to reload, a point at which their targets could run or fight back.) Calculations based on homicide reports in Jersey City, New Jersey, suggested that restricting large-capacity magazines might lower the number of gunshot victims by up to 5 percent. However, there are a huge number of high-capacity magazines already in circulation. The report authors concluded that a ban on them probably wouldn’t make it hard to keep a determined shooter from legally buying a pre-ban magazine and pairing it with an AR-15 equivalent

Big RR wrote:I am still confused about the difference between the so-called "assault weapons" (like the AK 47) and other semiautomatic rifles. Basically the only difference I have seen is the appearance, but I am not certain. I have never heard of a blanket ban on all semi automatic rifles (except in a few states), only "assault rifles".