In the wake of the recent school shooting, politicians are starting to talk about placing a “ban on assault weapons.”
Here’s the problem: “assault weapon” does not mean what you think it means.
It sounds like a scary thing, right? Dangerous weapons of war. Things that kill lots of people. But the fact is that whether or not a rifle is considered an “assault weapon” has almost nothing to do with how well it kills.
What many people are thinking of when they say “assault weapon” is actually an Assault Rifle. An assault rifle is defined as a select-fire automatic rifle with medium-grade ammunition.
And here’s the thing: since 1986, almost no civilian in the United States can own an assault rifle unless it was grandfathered in. Regulation of assault rifle ownership is extremely tightly regulated. Civilians who own AK-47s and the like have had them modified to be semi-automatic. The Connecticut shooter wasn’t using an assault rifle.
As opposed to the technical term “assault rifle,” “assault weapon“ is a political term. Its only official definition lies in the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which lists a set of features–cosmetic accessories–which make a rifle an “assault weapon.” (Civilians cannot own a rifle that possesses more than two of these features.) These features include:
Folding stocks
Collapsible stocks
Pistol Grips
Flash Suppressors
Barrel Shrouds
Bayonet Lugs
Notice that almost none of these have to do with how powerful the rifle is, how large the caliber is, or how effectively it kills. There are rifles chambered in .22LR (a varmint round for hunting rabbits) that are considered “assault weapons” under this ban.
All that we know so far about the rifle that Adam Lanza stole from his mother is that it was a semiautomatic .223 Bushmaster. Most news reporters keep using the terms “high powered rifle” and “military style rifle,” almost meaningless terms: my guess is that it was something in the style of an AR-15. But that’s the key word. “Style.” Whether or not that gun was an assault weapon has to do with “style.”
Many deer rifles–some of the best deer rifles, in fact–are semiautomatic, sometimes magazine-fed. (Granted, the mags are usually smaller-capacity, but still.) They are not “assault weapons,” they do not look military, but the fact is, such a deer rifle could have been equally deadly in this school shooting than the Bushmaster that was used. The .223 is one of the smallest centerfire cartridges in terms of diameter, and it isn’t enough for hunting anything bigger than a coyote. A larger-caliber deer rifle could have fired just as quickly, reloaded just as quickly, and yet delivered more impact trauma.
Even non-semi-automatic rifles could have been almost as deadly. A lever-action or pump-action must have its action manually cycled between shots, but that happens very quickly, and one can top-up its magazine without having to remove it. What about those?
So my question is: how much would a further “assault weapon ban” accomplish? If it isn’t really the style of gun that made this killing so deadly, what would banning that style do?
…
There’s a form of gun control that I am highly in favor of, and that I don’t see being discussed enough.
That is, control of one’s own guns.
The fact is, these weren’t Adam Lanza’s guns, they were his mother’s. And his mother, I should point out, was his first victim.
As a responsible gun owner, I have to ensure that my firearms do not get into anyone’s hands but my own, with the possible exception of a trusted spouse. Leaving a rifle in a closet or under the bed is unacceptable–and doubly so with a handgun. At any point when my rifle is unattended, it should be locked up, the ammunition should be locked up in a separate place, and perhaps even the bolt removed and locked in a third place.
Lanza should never have been able to access guns that did not belong to him. That is gun control that I will support. All this other stuff, all these proposed bans, I can’t see them helping much.
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