"A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion ... as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils and imaginary defenses against them." --H. L. Mencken, 1918

The sunset of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban is getting me excited. I'll be able to buy an assault rifle of my very own!

I'm libertarian on social issues, which makes me liberal on many social issues, but gun control is one area where I've never agreed with liberals. Depending entirely on the police for protection from crime has always struck me as being a poor plan, and the crime-deterring effects of gun control have always been questionable. If a criminal is willing to break one law (against robbery, homicide, etc.) there's no reason he won't break a gun law.

The Assault Weapons Law was a trendy law, designed to make it appear that Congress was doing something about a series of high profile but non-representative crimes that were in the news in the early nineties. This was similar to attempted bans in the early eighties on "cop-killer" Teflon-coated bullets that had never actually killed any cops.

Even with Democrats controlling the House the assault weapons bill barely passed on a 216-214 vote. When the Republicans regained seats in '96, Bill Clinton blamed it in large part on political fallout from the ban.

The law outlawed "scary weapons" that met a bureaucratic set of guidelines on largely cosmetic factors, such as pistol grips, flash suppressors, and folding stocks. There was no correlation between the guidelines and reality. Specifically, the ban used a point system that prohibited any weapon with more than two of 1) detachable magazine 2) pistol grip 3) threaded barrel/flash hider 4) collapsible stock 5) bayonet lug 6) grenade launcher. Since most guns of military heritage have a detachable magazine and a pistol grip, they already had two points that couldn't be avoided. It was if - instead of making it an offense to break the speed limit - Congress made it an offense to own a car that had more than two of 1) a steering wheel 2) a transmission 3) a spoiler 4) mag wheels 5) a hood scoop 6) a chrome-tipped exhaust.

The one practical effect of the ban was to outlaw magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds. Many high capacity magazines were already in circulation, and the ban did nothing to remove them from the streets. Having to constantly reload is one of the annoyances of sport shooting. Being able to buy a big clip is getting me pumped up about my birthday in October, 2004. I can finally get an AR-15 or Uzi with a legit clip.

Anything that could properly be called an assault rifle has selective fire: it can be fired one shot at a time, or in multi-shot bursts (either fully automatic or in fixed bursts). Oddly enough, the assault weapons ban only affected semi-automatic weapons, which fire one shot per pull of the trigger.

Without a renewal, the ban will expire on September 14, 2004. With Republican control of Congress and no Congressional elections between now and then, the ban's demise is almost certain. Still, it never hurts to sign the petition to let it expire.

UPDATE The NRA has released a video response (requires RealPlayer) to CNN's misleading segment on the ban. CNN asks a gun expert to demonstrate the difference between a currently-legal rifle and a similar rifle that will be legal after the ban expires. There should be no difference, since the guns fire the same ammunition. But in demonstrating the guns' firepower, the gun expert fires the banned gun at cinder blocks, smashing them. He then fires the legal gun at a different target, while the camera rolls on the cinder blocks, which of course aren't damaged because they weren't being shot at!

The second half of the CNN segment shows the banned gun firing in fully automatic mode (like a machine gun). The ban has no effect on fully automatic weapons, so in fact that gun's status won't change at all, and it shouldn't have been used for comparison . The inclusion of a fully automatic rifle is either an intentional red herring, or symptomatic of the ignorance of the reporter and his supposed gun expert. Either way, it doesn't reflect well on CNN.

MORE UPDATES Clayton Cramer has phone numbers for contacting Congress. Cramer has another post discussing the cynical politics on both sides of the aisle: Democrats who know that most Americans don't want gun control but need to give lip service to their anti-gun constituency, Republicans whose constituency is mostly pro-gun but who don't want to turn off urban voters, and a president who is saying he'll sign the bill if it comes across his desk but who tells his fellow Republicans to make sure it doesn't cross his desk.

Which One Should I Buy?

• AR-15.com - History and mods for the AR-15/M-16/H4.
  
• Bushmaster - AR-15 rifles and accessories
  
• Israeli Military Industries - Uzi Submachine Gun