September
13, 2004---The 1994 Clinton "Assault Weapons" ban expired
today amid a flurry of complaints from politicians, police chiefs,
and the media that the ban should be renewed.
The ten-year "sunset" provision
was added to the bill during debate in 1994 to appease moderate
legislators. Ostensibly, the sunset provision was to give the
government time to assess the effectiveness of the ban. Since
that time, the Department of Justice, and other federal agencies,
have found that the ban had little to no effect on crime, and
that the banned weapons were never widely used in crimes to begin
with.
The 1994 law specifically banned 19 firearms
by name, and went on to ban any semiautomtic firearm which could
accept a detachable magzine and which possessed two or more of
the following features: a pistol grip; a folding or telescoping
stock; a bayonet lug; a flash suppressor; a grenade launcher;
or a threaded barrel. The law also banned any semi-automatic shotgun
that could hold more than five shells in the tube, and which possessed
two or more of the above features. Additionally, the law prohibited
further manufacture of magazines that held more than ten rounds
of ammunition.
In the aftermath of the 1994 law, manufacturers
removed flash suppressors, bayonet lugs and other largely cosmetic
features from their firearms in order to stay in compliance with
the law. Nevertheless, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-California),
one of the original authors of the ban, complained on "60
Minutes" that manufacturers were circumventing the law by
removing the cosmetic features while the operating mechanisms
didn't change. The 1994 bill never made any distinction as to
the internals of the banned firearms, since the operating mechanisms
of many "good" guns are nearly identical to those of
the banned guns.
When asked if she would prefer to ban
all semiautomatic firearms, she said "If I could have gotten
51 votes, I would have said, 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them
all in.'"
The ban has often been considered the
brainchild of Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center. In
1988 he wrote, "The semi-automatic 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."
During the past week, many media outlets
sought to continue the confusion over semiautomatic and fully
automatic firearms. ABC News, Nightline, and Good Morning America,
as well as other TV news outlets, interspersed pictures of the
banned semiautomatic firearms with footage from the infamous North
Hollywood bank shootout, in which two robbers fired hundreds of
rounds from illegally converted fully-automatic rifles at police.
In his 2000 campaign, President Bush said
that he would sign a renewal of the ban if it reached his desk.
However, many congressmen, most notably House majority leader
Tom DeLay (R-Texas), predicted that a bill renewing the ban would
never make it through the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Renewing the ban has been a priority for
anti-gun groups nationwide. In March, a new and more restrictive
bill authored by Senator Feinstein was attached to a bill which
would have granted gun makers immunity from lawsuits filed against
them for the criminal misuse of their products.
The immunity bill, which the National
Rifle Association and other gun groups wanted, had to be scuttled
in order to keep the new "assault weapon" ban from passing.
Senator John Kerry, in the midst of a tough primary fight, returned
to Washington to vote for Feinstein's new ban, along with a bill
authored by Senator Ted Kennedy which would have banned many popular
calibers of hunting ammunition. (See 3/2/04
John Kerry shows his true colors on guns).
Last week on the campaign trail, John
Kerry blasted President Bush for not making an effort to push
for a renewal of the ban.
In a written statement, Senator Kerry
asked, "Why is George Bush making the job of terrorists easier
and making the job for America's police officers harder?"
Campaigning in Missouri, John Kerry spent
more time on the issue. He told a crowd at a town hall meeting
in St. Louis, "You can't fight a war on terror and you can't
make our streets safe ... (by) selling assault weapons in the
streets of America."
"But George Bush who says 'Oh, I'm
for that' never asked the Congress to pass it, never pushed the
Congress to pass it, never stood up, caves into the NRA, gives
into the special interests and America's streets will not be as
safe because of the choice George Bush is making," Senator
Kerry continued.
Walking a fine line between courting gun
owners and alienating them, Senator Kerry tried to explain his
position to hunters. "I am a hunter and I'm a gun owner and
I have hunted since I was about a teenager and I respect it ...
and I believe in the Second Amendment," he said. "And
I'll tell you this, as a hunter, I've never ever thought about
going hunting with an AK-47 or an Uzi or anything else. Never."
For the record, importation of AK-47's,
Uzi's and other foreign-made military-style semiautomatic firearms
was prohibited by a 1989 executive order issued by President George
H.W. Bush. Further, fully automatic firearms such as the AK 47
and others are available for as little as $300 in many Mideastern
countries that harbor terrorists, whereas legal fully automatic
firearms cost several thousands of dollars in the US.
Meanwhile, many manufacturers have been
gearing up to begin producing their firearms in pre-ban configurations.
Armalite has run ads which offered customers the opportunity to
place advance orders for pre-ban style AR15's.
While the 1994 ban is now officially expired,
the possibility still exists that a new ban will be introduced
in the next legislative session. Whether a ban is indeed introduced
depends not only upon the chances of John Kerry being elected,
but also upon how much heat President Bush takes on the issue
in the final days of the election.
|
