From: [n--re--a] at [indirect.com] (P.T. Anderson) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: Assault on guns Date: 6 May 1994 15:55:24 GMT Phoenix Gazette - 5 MAY 94 *Without Permission* Assault on guns Control advocates obscure the issue By Stephen Chapman Politicians don't feel obligated to smoke crack on camera to demonstrate the dangers of drug abuse or get behind the wheel of a car after several drinks to inveigh against drunken driving. But Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Schumer somehow couldn't find a way to rouse public concern about "assault weapons" without firing off a few rounds at a target range. I imagine the effect was not what they had intended. A lot of Americans who saw Bentsen with his AR-15 rifle and Schumer with his Tec-9 pistol probably exclaimed, "Say, that looks like fun!" Others may have concluded that the demonstration simply dramatized the folly of allowing dangerous weapons in the hands of anyone connected to the federal government. But it also served to underline the character of the campaign to ban "assault weapons," which from the outset has been composed of 10 parts vapor to one part substance. The advocates have done more to confuse that to inform, which is a shrewd tactic given the scarcity of facts on their side. Last year, their effort was enough to persuade the Senate to approve a measure forbidding the sale, manufacture or possession of 19 different guns. This week, the House is supposed to consider the idea. Much is made of the menacing appearance of the guns that would be prohibited. That's because appearance is about all that separates them from supposedly legitimate sporting arms. But looks, it should be unnecessary to note, don't kill. The Tec-9 certainly lacks a cuddly exterior, but it won't kill you any more quickly or permanently that an ordinary 9mm handgun. About the only advantage enjoyed by the Tec-9 is a 32-shot clip, but the bill already bans clips of more than 10 rounds. It's hard to see what this restriction achieves, since any minimally clever thug can carry more than one clip and reload in an instant. This bill doesn't attempt to get rid of every "assault weapon" in America or, in fact, any of those that already exist -- only new ones will be illegal. But even if it did, the effect on crime would be something close to undetectable. Last year, Chicago police confiscated more than 20,000 firearms. Of those, only 422 (about 2 percent) fell into the category of "assault weapons." Virtually all of the rest were garden-variety rifles and pistols -- the kind the "assault weapon" bill explicitly protects. The most dangerous weapon around is the humdrum .38 revolver, which in 1993 accounted for more than one out of every four gun murders in Chicago, surpassing any other firearm. But, as Northwestern law professor Daniel Polsby points out, no one has recommended a ban on .38 revolvers. That's because any fool can see that criminals would simply substitute another equally lethal firearm. Why then, ask Polsby, do people assume that a crook deprived of his AR-15 will suddenly be rendered harmless? During one committee hearing, Schumer charged that "assault weapons" are 18 times more likely than others to be used in the murder of a police officer and 19 times more likely to be traced to a crime. Two calls to his office in search of evidence to support that claim, however, yielded absolutely nothing. Contrary to what you might think from all this hysteria, the rate at which police officers are killed on duty has been dropping over the last 20 years, impervious to the supposed epidemic of doomsday guns. President Clinton says, "It's amazing to me that we even have to have this debate," describing the ban as a "lay-down no-brainer." But it shouldn't be surprising to find skepticism about a measure that tries to outlaw one class of weapons for no obvious reason. Like most gun control measures on the books, this one is likely to fail. And like most of its predecessors, its failure will be used to justify new regulations, which will be a genuine burden to the law-abiding and a minor annoyance to criminals. America was not a safe place before the rise of "assault weapons," and it has not gotten more dangerous since. That should make us wonder if the problem might lie not in our guns, but in ourselves. -- PT Anderson [n--re--a] at [indirect.com]