The Assault Weapons Ban Didn’t Work Then and It Won’t Work Now

Townhall.com ^ | December 30, 2012 | Doug Giles

[Kaslin]

Senator Dianne Feinstein is queuing up come January 2013 to retable—yet again—an Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) in order to “severely mitigate the possibilities of another Sandy Hook atrocity.” Great idea, Dianne, as the first AWB that Clinton signed into law worked wonders in schools from 1994-2004. It was awesome. It panned out wonderfully aside from the following:

• November 7, 1994: Wickliffe, Ohio: (Wickliffe Middle School shooting) Keith Ledeger, 37, a former student at the school, shot and killed custodian Pete Christopher and wounded four other adults.
• January 12, 1995: Seattle, Washington: A 15-year-old Garfield High School student left school during the day and returned with his grandfather’s 9mm semiautomatic handgun. He wounded two students.
• October 12, 1995: Blackville, South Carolina: (Blackville-Hilda High School shooting) Anthony Sincino, 16, killed one teacher and wounded another before committing suicide.
• November 15, 1995: Lynnville, Tennessee: (Richland High School shooting) James Rouse, 17, killed a student and teacher and seriously wounded another teacher with a .22-caliber rifle.
• February 2, 1996: Moses Lake, Washington: (Frontier Middle School shooting) Barry Loukaitis, 14, killed a teacher and two students and wounded another student when he opened fire on his algebra class.
• August 15, 1996: San Diego, California: (San Diego State University shooting) Frederick Martin Davidson, a 36-year-old graduate student killed three professors that he believed were involved in a conspiracy against him.
• September 17, 1996: State College, Pennsylvania: (Hetzel Union Building shooting) Jillian Robbins, 19, shoots and kills one student and injures two outside.
• February 19, 1997: Bethel, Alaska: Bethel Regional High School student Evan Ramsey, 16, shot and killed the school’s principal and one student, and wounded two other students.
• October 1, 1997: Pearl, Mississippi: (Pearl High School shooting) Luke Woodham, 16, murdered his mother at home before killing his ex-girlfriend and another student and wounding seven others at Pearl High School. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.
• November 27, 1997: West Palm Beach, Florida: Conniston Middle School student Tronneal Magnum, 14, fatally shot Johnpierre Kamel, 14, outside school after an argument over a wristwatch.
• December 1, 1997: West Paducah, Kentucky: (Heath High School shooting) Three students were killed and five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle.
• December 15, 1997: Stamps, Arkansas: Joseph “Colt” Todd, 14, concealed in a wooded area on school grounds, shoots and wounds two students as they were entering Stamps High School.
• March 24, 1998: Craighead County, Arkansas: Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, killed four students and one teacher and wounded ten others as Westside Middle School emptied during a fire alarm intentionally set off by Golden.
• April 24, 1998: Edinboro, Pennsylvania (Parker Middle School dance shooting) Andrew Wurst, 14, fatally shot teacher John Gillette, 48, and wounded two students and a teacher at an 8th grade graduation dance.
• May 19, 1998: Fayetteville, Tennessee: Jacob Davis, 18, shoots Robert Creson, 18, in a dispute over a girl.
• May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon: After killing his parents at home, Kip Kinkel, 15, drove to Thurston High School where he shot and killed two students and wounded 25 others.
• June 15, 1998: Richmond, Virginia: A 14-year-old student of Armstrong High School wounds a teacher and a school volunteer.
• December 10, 1998: Detroit, Michigan: Professor Andrzej Olbrot is killed by graduate student Wlodzimierz Dedecjus, 48.
• April 20, 1999: Littleton, Colorado: (Columbine High School massacre) Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and one teacher, and wounded 21 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School.
• May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia: (Heritage High School shooting) Six students injured by Thomas Solomon Jr., 15.
• November 19, 1999: Deming, New Mexico: A 13-year-old girl fatally shot at Deming Middle School by Victor Cordova Jr., 13. Cordova stated he had intended to commit suicide but was jostled by others and the gun moved.
• February 29, 2000: Elementary School, Flint, Michigan: 6-year-old Dedrick Owens, youngest-ever school shooter. Kayla Rolland was the single fatality.
• May 26, 2000: Lake Worth, Florida: Lake Worth Middle School Florida teacher Barry Grunow was fatally shot by his student, 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, who had returned to school after being sent home at 1 p.m. by the assistant principal for throwing water balloons. Brazill returned to school on his bike with a 5-inch Raven and four bullets stolen from his grandfather the week before. Brazill was an honor student. Grunow was a popular teacher and Brazill's favorite.
• August 28, 2000: University of Arkansas shooting at Fayetteville, Arkansas: At approximately 12:14 pm, Dr. John R. Locke, 67, Director of the Comparative Literature Program was shot and killed in his office by James E. Kelly, 36, a Comparative Literature PhD candidate who had recently been dismissed from the program for lack of progress toward his degree. Kelly shot Dr. Locke three times before taking his own life in Dr. Locke's office after it was cordoned off by campus police.
• September 26, 2000: Darrel Johnson, 13, offender in Louisiana school shooting with 1 student fatality.
• March 5, 2001: Charles Andrew William, age 15, offender in California school shooting at Santana High School, 15 wounded 2 of whom died.
• March 30, 2001: Donald R. Burt Jr., age 18, offender in Indiana school shooting with 1 student fatality.
• September 24, 2003: John Jason McLaughlin, age 15, offender in Minnesota school shooting with 2 student fatalities.
• February 2, 2004: Unidentified offender in Washington, DC school shooting with 1 student fatality.
• May 7, 2004: Unidentified 17-year-old offender in Maryland school shooting with 1 student fatality.

And that’s excluding the Fairchild Air Force Base Massacre in 1994; the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Massacre in 1995; the Caltrans Maintenance Yard Massacre in 1997; the Connecticut State Lottery Headquarters Massacre in 1998; the Wedgewood Baptist Church Massacre of 1999; the Xerox Office Building Massacre in 1999; the Edgewater Technology Office Massacre in 2000; and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people (in which the culprits used box cutters and airplanes to pull that one off). We should have had an Assault Box Cutter and Airplane Ban in place I guess.

Yep, excluding the aforementioned, the AWB that the Left put into practice nearly two decades ago really mitigated murderous schoolyard and workplace evil for its ten-year run, right?

Ah, who am I kidding? The Assault Weapons Ban didn't work. School shootings shot through the roof, and lo and behold killers still found a way around the uber-strict regulations to carry out their death wishes with an assortment of weapons. Yep, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the biggest spike in school shootings in our nation’s short history occurred during the initial AWB. Google it and get back to me.

Oh, and another thing according to a comprehensive Congressional Research Service report on guns and gun control legislation: Less than 2% of 203,300 state and federal prisoners who were armed during the crime for which they were incarcerated “used, carried, or possessed a semiautomatic assault weapon.” If the hooligans did use a gun it was mostly your normal, non-funky firearm, i.e. mostly hunting guns and non-"assault" weapons. But we can rest assured that the Progressives would never come after our Remington 870s and our revolvers (because they promised). Never. Ever. Ever.

In addition to the AWB not really stemming the tide of gun violence in the public school systems, it sure didn’t calm things down in the “gun-free” Windy City, as Chi-town racked up a whopping 7,636 murders during the Clinton ban.

Speaking of Chicago, this year alone 446 kids have been shot where guns have been verboten, and just this week Chicago hit 500 murders that have now occurred in the “gun free” Toddlin’ Town for 2012.

It appears as if our former AWB and our current “gun free” zones don’t work.

[dljordan]

There’s lots of interesting facts about guns here:
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/publications/by-type/yearbook/small-arms-survey-2012.html

The amount of “illegal” guns in the gun-free paradise of the EU is greater than the legally held guns. People are just ignoring them and keeping their guns.

[Mouton]

That is exactly where they are going, ban all guns. What bothers me with commentary about how the assault weapons ban did not work is the left will use that as a basis for why they need to much further this time....ban all weapons or as close to it as they can get with a previso they enact registration of guns and gun owners of those remaining in public hands.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

What you aren’t considering is that violence was invented by the chinese when they invented gunpowder. There was never any violence before then. </sarcasm>

In reality, of course, firearms were developed to solve the problem of non-firearm violence. Non-firearm violence, of course, is harder by an order of magnitude and, in the absence of firearms, that fact naturally lends itself to domination by violent elites such as knights and noblemen.

Disarmament of the individual is sine qua non for unlimited tyranny.

To disarm in principle is to trust absolutely. Trusting someone who demands, rather than earns, trust is folly. Disarming in principle is yielding the very right to withdraw trust.

The Wind and the Sun

An Aesop Fable

The wind and the sun argued one day over which one was the stronger. Spotting a man man traveling on the road, they sported a challenge to see which one could remove the coat from the man's back the quickest.

The wind began. He blew strong gusts of air, so strong that the man could barely walk against them. But the man clutched his coat tight against him. The wind blew harder and longer, and the harder the wind blew, the tighter the man held his coat against him.The wind blew until he was exhausted, but he could not remove the coat from the man's back.

It was now the sun's turn. He gently sent his beams upon the traveler. The sun did very little, but quietly shone upon his head and back until the man became so warm that he took off his coat and headed for the nearest shade tree.

The gun controller actually promotes the thing which he purports to oppose. At least, so the reports of lines at gun stores indicate.

Gun ownership is a burden, and as such it is an indication of lack of trust. The government should exert itself to prevent the motive for, and not the access to, weapons. But that would mean doing the government’s job of controlling the power of the sword, and protecting the rights of the people. What fun would that be? </sarcasm>

[TXnMA]

(A significant number of background checks cover multiple gun sales.)