[Glenn]

I'm not a gun sort of guy, but I wonder while reading these articles exactly how often these "weapons" were used during a crime. The media make it sound as though it was the criminals choice of weapon pre 1994.

[NRA1995]

The whole ban thing was a reesult of reporters watching "Boyz N The Hood" one time too many

[mbynack]

I saw a study a year ago that said that these types of weapons were involved in less than 3% of violent crimes. Some states have never recorded ANY felonies that were committed with "Assault Weapons". They are not the weapon of choice for most criminals because they're expensive and difficult to conceal.

[snooker]

You ask the wrong question. Criminals will use any weapon they can get until they can get no more locally. Then they will just import or buy them from Al Quada. Those high capacity magazines make fine cocaine shipping containers so they get a twofer by importing them.

The whole argument about what guns criminals use is specious to begin with. We call them criminals for a REAL reason. Disarming law abiding citizens doesn't affect criminals one wit.

But arming citizens does. Criminals tend to go into another line of work when citizens are armed. Works everywhere it's tried.

[Redbob]

"I wonder while reading these articles exactly how often these "weapons" were used during a crime."

Wonder no more.
According to the federal gummint, the answer is "Not hardly ever."

The original "Ban" legislation mandated a federal study to determine the effects on crime, if any, of the ban.
The conclusion was that no relationship could be established, in part because the numbers of crimes committed with weapons of the sort banned were statistically insignificant, and also in part because functionally identical weapons with only cosmetic differences were NOT banned.

According to that same Justice Dept study, there may have been one small unintended consequence of the Ban: making new manufacture of the firearms illegal made the existing ones highliy collectible, driving up the prices and making it likely that a criminal would sell his at a profit rather than using it in crime and risking losing it!