Assault weapon ban sunsets

BOISE, Idaho - The expiration Monday of a 10-year federal ban on assault weapons means firearms like AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s can now be legally bought a development that has critics upset and gun owners pleased.

The 1994 ban, signed by President Clinton, outlawed 19 types of military-style assault weapons. A clause directed that the ban expire unless Congress specifically reauthorized it, which it did not.

Studies done by pro- and antigun groups as well as the Justice Department (news - web sites) show conflicting results on whether the ban helped reduce crime. Loopholes allowed manufacturers to keep many weapons on the market simply by changing their names or altering some of their features or accessories.

Gun shop owners said the expiration of the ban will have little effect on the types of guns and accessories that are typically sold and traded across their counters every day.

At the Boise Gun Co., gunsmith Justin Davis last week grabbed up a black plastic rifle resembling the U.S. military's standard issue M-16 from a row of more than a dozen similar weapons stacked against a wall.

The civilian version of the gun, a Colt AR-15 manufactured before 1994, could be sold last week just as easily as it can be sold this week. "It shoots exactly the same ammo at exactly the same rate of fire," said Davis.

Many states including California, Massachusetts, New York and Hawaii have passed their own laws curbing the use of assault weapons. Some of those are more stringent than the federal ban.

U.S. Rep. Butch Otter, R-Idaho, trumpeted the end of the federal law.

"President Clinton's so-called 'assault weapons' ban was nothing more than a sop to antigun liberals," Otter said Friday in a written statement. "It provided only the illusion of reducing gun violence, but it did real damage to our liberties."

But advocates for the ban, including the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, point to some particularly vicious shootings in which military-style weapons were used including the 10 killings in the sniper shooting spree that terrorized residents in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., in 2002.

National police organizations such as the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Brotherhood of Police Officers and the Fraternal Order of Police all support the renewal of the ban. President Bush (news - web sites) has said he would sign such a bill if Congress passed it.

Idaho State Police spokesman Rick Ohnsman said troopers have had no significant problems with assault style weapons and his agency has not taken a position for or against the federal legislation.

"Of course, the legitimate owners of guns register them. Unfortunately, whether there is a ban or not, some individuals will find ways to get weapons that are illegal."

The expiration of the assault weapons ban does not mean the end of federal background checks. The 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act is separate legislation from the assault weapons ban, said Daniel Wells, chief of the FBI unit charged with overseeing the background checks system.

"The change in law relating to assault weapons has no impact on the Brady Law," Wells said.

Davis predicted the biggest change in his business will be the ability of manufacturers and importers to market higher capacity ammunition magazines the removable "clip" that holds and feeds bullets through guns.

Under the 1994 ban, the maximum capacity of a magazine was set at 10 rounds. That sent the price of high-capacity magazines through the roof, Davis said, even though magazines manufactured before the ban were protected by a "grandfather" provision and could still be sold.

Now, some gun manufacturers are planning to give away high-capacity magazines as bonuses for buying their weapons. Sales of formerly banned gun accessories, such as flash suppressors and folding stocks, are also expected to take off.

In the end this did nothing but drive the cost of legal weapons up. They will never understand that a criminal will always be able to get just about any weapon they desire.

WASHINGTON They go by names that suggest power and danger the "Streetsweeper," the TEC-9, the MAK90, the AK-47.

And that's exactly what these military-style assault weapons bring. The power to kill indiscriminately.

Now there is fear here that the bullet-spraying semi-automatic weapons are heading back to American streets.

The gun debate in the United States has moved back to the forefront as a 1994 ban on assault weapons lurches toward an expiry date and it promises to become a pivotal issue in the next presidential election.

U.S. President George W. Bush surprised many when he distanced himself from the powerful National Rifle Association during the 2000 campaign, advocating an extension of the assault-weapon ban that ends in September, 2004.

But there are signs here that Bush now appears to want to have it both ways, tacitly supporting the extension to court suburban support in key states, while doing nothing overtly to stop a move that could see Congress simply avoid a vote on the extension and let it die.

That would be a powerful nod-and-wink to the firearms lobby, which, by some accounts, poured $1.6 million into the 2000 Bush campaign.

"Does George W. Bush want to be known as the pro-assault weapon president?" said Joe Sudbay, the public policy director of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center.

"He may be trying to have it both ways now, but it will be pretty clear by Sept. 13, 2004. He either supports the extension or he doesn't ... he either extends it or he doesn't."

The 1994 law made it illegal to import, manufacture, transfer or possess 19 types of semi-automatic weapons, although the law was "grandfathered," meaning anyone who legally owned such weapons before that date could retain them.

Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican and House of Representatives majority leader, said last week he didn't believe the extension would come to a vote in the Republican-dominated House. DeLay's statement drew a surprising rebuke from the Republican Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, showing that the gun ban does not easily cut across Republican-Democrat lines in this country.

While many Democrats are fearful of defeat if they are targeted by the gun lobby in the coming elections, there are many Republicans representing so-called "soccer mom" suburban constituencies who could become electoral toast if they are seen to be backing a measure which would bring the deadly weapons legally back to the streets of America.

White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said last week Bush has not had any change of heart from his 2000 campaign promise. But he offered no explanation as to why Bush has given no presidential muscle to the promise. He has not been shy about stumping the country pushing for his tax-cut proposals, but has said nothing publicly about assault weapons.

"The House does everything the president wants," New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said. "He wants a dividends tax cut, they do it. He wants one bill or another, they jump. In fact ... they say `how high?' He's got to walk the walk (on guns). If the president wants this bill to come to his desk, it will. If the president doesn't, he can have his minions whisper to the House, `kill the bill,' and he'll never reach it."

In 1994, the ban passed the House by a mere two votes, but it has been something less than a rousing success, even the anti-gun lobby concedes.

Many weapons manufacturers simply cosmetically changed the specs on the weapons to circumvent the ban, cynically adding "AB" to their model numbers, indicating they were changed "after the ban."

In 2000, 28,653 died of gunshot wounds in the U.S.; 94 children and teens in Louisiana alone. The gun death rate during that year was 10.4 per 100,000 population.

The Violence Policy Center released a study last week indicating that 41 of 211 law enforcement officers gunned down in the line of duty between Jan. 1, 1998, and Dec. 31, 2001 almost one in five were felled by assault weapons.

During a three-week reign of terror last October, the Washington snipers used a modified Bushmaster assault rifle, an XM15 M4 A3. The company's sales have soared since 1994.

The teens behind the 1999 Columbine massacre used modified TEC-9s.

"There's not a dime's worth of difference in the performance characteristics between the guns on the banned list and the guns not on the banned list," said NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre.

Anti-gun advocates want an even tougher ban to replace the 1994 law, but, right now, there is little hope in Washington the law will be improved. It is more a question of a dogged fight to keep the status quo.

Bryan Miller of Philadelphia knows something about fight and he doesn't buy the conventional Washington spin.

Miller joined the advocacy group CeaseFire PA after his brother, an FBI agent, was slain at District of Columbia police headquarters in 1994. It was a case of mistaken identity. The gunman, carrying a concealed TEC-9, was looking for the head of homicide. Mike Miller was in the "cold case" squad.

"He went the wrong way ... but somebody was going to die, anyway," Miller said. Since then, Miller has worked tirelessly to control guns in his country.

"These guns are ugly," he said in an interview. "We have tapes of those kids firing away in Columbine. We have families of victims and people like me who have lost loved ones to these guns.

"We have lots of support. And we are just getting started."

You have to love that. The power to kill indiscriminately! Hello! Any weapon has that power not just AK-47's, Tec-9's etc... In fact some of the weapons that did not make the banned list are far worse then those that were on the list.

In the end our government has done the right thing. Allow those of us who choose to own legal firearms to do so while making the penalty for illegal gun possession tougher.

While they like to point out how many people were killed by assault style weapons they fail to distinguish them as pre-ban or post-ban. That's right, they were still legally produced after the ban went into effect.

How is that you say?

The ban was purely cosmetic and nothing else. Gone were the folding stocks, bayonet lugs and high capacity magazines. Not a single thing made the weapons less deadly and nothing prevented the sale of pre-ban weapons. They could still be purchased albeit at a much higher premium because of the ban.

In the end firearms are what kill people, there is no difference in a .22 auto and an M-16 variant. They are both deadly when used improperly. If you truly want your streets to be safer let your reps know that you want tougher sentencing on crimes involving firearms. Right now it is only a mandatory 5 under federal guidlines, make it 20!