Showing posts with label 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 2, 2019

NRA choking...going down


WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2019 NEWS BYTES

The latest attack on gun violence...   
Assault weapons ban did work

Apparently the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) made a trip to Moscow that is a no-no for their non-profit status. If it did break the law governing nonprofit spending, the gang of gun nuts could lose its tax-exempt status. That could put the NRA out of business. And that could spark parades and flag waving throughout the country. David Love on Aljazeera says, "The tide is turning for gun control in the US."...
"In what would have been inconceivable just a few years ago, the ground is shifting in the United States on the issue of gun control and halting the proliferation of firearms. The once omnipotent gun lobby is now weakened, if not dying, and the public support for gun restrictions is increasing beyond party lines."
That combined with the NRA's internal problems from Oliver North to Maria Butina has prompted the investigation in a report...
"compiled by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee and released on Friday, investigates the relationship between NRA leadership and Russian nationals with Kremlin ties. Those nationals include Maria Butina, a 30-year-old Russian who was convicted last year of conspiring to act as a foreign agent."
We can't let this happen...


In a 2015 trip to Russia by NRA officials, Butina promised an introduction to "powerful officials" and "those executives were told they would be given opportunities to advance personal business interests." The catch here is, "aside from the fact that the NRA is accused of willingly establishing relationships with Russian nationals with close ties with the Kremlin — is that tax-exempt nonprofits aren’t allowed to use their funds for personal gain."

There's more...
"New York Attorney General Letitia James also opened an investigation into the organization’s nonprofit status back in April following reports of financial mismanagement. The District of Columbia’s attorney general said his office launched a similar inquiry in July, sending subpoenas to the NRA and its charitable arms to collect 'financial records, payments to vendors, and payments to officers and directors.'”
House Democrats are cowards on assault weapons ban...


Aljazeera comments on American business CEOs concerned over out-of-control gun violence in the U.S....
"Other businesses have followed suit, as the chief executive officers of 145 companies wrote a letter to the US Senate, proclaiming the country is experiencing a public health crisis, and saying it is "simply unacceptable" to take no action on gun violence and mass shootings. The CEOs added that new laws mandating background checks for gun purchases 'are a common-sense solution with overwhelming public support and are a critical step toward stemming the gun violence epidemic in this country.'"
And to support the general consensus that more gun control is needed, a recent study has determined the former assault weapons ban was, in fact, effective. Here are the findings...
"The research from Stanford Law professor John Donohue and student Theodora Boulouta found that from 1994 to 2004, the Clinton-era federal assault weapons ban was associated with a marked decrease in mass shootings and victims of those shootings."
Here are the facts...
"in the decade preceding the assault weapons ban, there were 33 percent additional mass shootings and 65 percent more associated fatalities. Ten years after the ban expired in 2004, the number of mass shootings more than tripled and the number of fatalities spiked more than fourfold."
BINGO! But, then, facts don't seem to affect the votes of a cowardly Congress that has feared the NRA's wrath since head gun nut Wayne Lapierre took over. But that may all be changing as the new wave to curb gun violence begins to take hold. And when Senate challenger Mark Kelly (Gabby Giffords astronaut husband) running against Republican Martha McSally as a gun control advocate wins that seat, we'll have even more support in the Senate.

The course is clear, more reasonable gun control laws in 2020 as we get the guns off the streets.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Did the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban work? Actually…yes


Alex Seitz-Wald has done an excellent job in Salon of organizing and evaluating statistics that relate to the success of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.  Having expired in 2004, the question was whether or not it had helped reduce gun violence while in effect.  The answer is that it did, especially when you consider the main obstacle the results were up against.  In 1996 Congress passed a law limiting the use of gun violence data collected that could be used to analyze this issue.  Naturally, this was backed and promoted by the National Rifle Assn. (NRA). 

Although Obama has issued a memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other agencies to conduct more gun violence research in the future, fortunately one group did not wait for this to happen and compiled their own data on the success of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.  In the Salonarticle, it accuses the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) of misleading the American public on assault weapons.  It’s full of loopholes, Seitz-Wald says, and there are studies confirming that the ban was effective. 

Congress required an assessment of the law in 1999 which was paid for by the National Institute of Justice, a research arm of the Department of Justice.  Conducting the investigation were two criminologists, Christopher Koper and Jeffrey Roth.  The report was updated in 2004, evaluating everything from homicides to gun prices.  To start, it was found that banned guns and magazines were used in up to 25% of gun crimes before the ban.  Assault pistols were used more than assault rifles also finding large-capacity magazines were the biggest problem.

Comments on 2013 assault weapons ban:

I did a blog back in January, “NRAafraid of gun violence statistics,” that examined this issue of the missing gun violence data.  I came to the conclusion that, although the NRA made sure we can’t use the numbers, we still know that the gun violence is caused by guns.  No matter who is doing it or where they got the weapon, it was a gun that caused the injury or death.  Without the “death data” the gun manufacturers continue to sell more firearms and pour more money into the coffers of Wayne LaPierre and the NRA.  It is truly a vicious circle.

Not in the defense of assault weapons but more facing the reality of just what kind of gun control legislation might pass a much prejudiced Congress, my blog, “Would banning highcapacity magazines and requiring universal background checks be a good start tostricter gun control?” asks whether limiting these magazines to no more than ten rounds would at least be a start.  The Salon article reported that assault weapons accounted for only a fraction of the total gun deaths overall.  It was the high-capacity magazines that really caused the mayhem.
 
The infamous AR-15
 

As an example, Seitz-Wald says, “the same .223 Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle was used  in the Aurora, Colo., theater massacre, the shooting at the Clackamas Mall in Oregon, the Newtown elementary school shooting, and, just a few days ago, the killing of two firefighters in upstate New York.”  Jared Loughner in Tucson used a 33-round high-capacity magazine, Seung-Hui Cho used a 15-round magazine at Virginia Tech.  The big question here is whether curbing the size of the magazine would limit the effectiveness of the assault weapon?

Following are additional factors found in the recent independent gun violence research:

· An October 2012 study from Johns Hopkins concluded that “easy access to firearms with large-capacity magazines facilitates higher casualties in mass shootings.”

· Data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) also shows a significant drop (66%) in assault weapon usage in gun crimes following the 1994 ban.

· The 10-year ban was also complicated by the fact that millions of pre-ban assault weapons and large-capacity magazines meant that any progress in stopping the violence would be gradual. The real results of the ban may not be known for years.


Seitz-Wald concludes with a comparison between American gun violence and our lack of gun control and Australia’s enactment of an assault weapons ban following a 1996 massacre killing 36 people.  Gun-related homicide plummeted by 59 percent.  In my 2012 blog, “Australia: Another gun control successstory,” I wrote about this carnage where the shooter also used an AR-15 assault rifle.  Are the citizens of Australia and some European countries with tough gun control laws more intelligent than the U.S. or do they just love life more?

I urge you to read the Salonarticle.

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