Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns From: [an 59696] at [anon.penet.fi] (devildog) Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 12:33:16 UTC Subject: Kleck on evil guns. The following copyright violation is brought to you by the evil devil dog from hell of doom with fleas from "point blank" 70 Searching for "Bad" Guns Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons According to official Department of Defense definitions, as well as usage in standard firearms reference works, an assault rifle (AR) is a " selective fire" military rifle, i.e., one capable of firing both fully automatically and semiautomatically (and sometimes in short bursts of 3-5 rounds) (U.S. Department of Defense 1980, p. 105; Ezell 1983, p. 515). However, the term "assault rifle" took on a very different meaning in common journalistic usage in the late 1980s, usually referring to weapons capable of firing only in a semiautomatic mode, and having a "military" appearance. There is no official definition of the term in its journalistic usage, and this usage is clearly inconsistent with official military definitions. The term "assault rifle" in quotes will be used to refer to the journalistically defined weapon type and the term without quotes to refer to true assault rifles. An even vaguer term "assault weapons" (AW), also began to appear in the news media in the late 1980s. The term seemed to encompass semiautomatic pistols and a few shotguns as well as "assault rifles," although it too appears to be restricted to weapons conceptualized as "militaty style" guns. Most firearms, no matter what their current uses, derive directly or indirectly from firearms originally designed for the military; " military style" appears to signify a modern or contemporary military appearance. For example, plastic stocks are supposedly more "military" in appearance than wood stocks, a loop for a lanyard is militarystyle, having a nonreflective surface is more military than a shiny one, and so Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons 71 on. Mechanically, there are no significant differences between the semiautomatic rifles labeled "assault rifles" and other semiautomatic centerfire rifles sold to the civilian market for hunting and target shooting, such as the Ruger Mini-14/5R Ranch Rifle and the Valmet Hunter (Warner 1988, pp. 298, 302). Legislators and other policy makers have also had difficulties defining assault weapons." They have had to tackle the difficult task of developing a definition that simultaneously satisfied two conflicting requirements: (1) it identified the attributes that supposedly make AWs more dangerous than other guns, and (2) was sufficiently limited so as to not restrict gun models popular among large numbers of voters. The chief attributes that are supposed to make AWs more dangerous than other guns are their semiautomatic capability, which provides a higher rate of fire than other guns (and allegedly make it easy to convert the guns to a fully automatic capability), and their ability to accept large- capacity magazines. However, if a law restricted all guns with such attributes, millions of voters would be affected. About 300,000-400,000 semiautomatic centerfire rifles and about 400,000-800,000 semiautomatic pistols are sold each year in the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1989; Howe 1987), and a December 1989 national survey indicated that 27% of U.S. gun owners reported ownership of at least one semiautomatic gun (Quinley 1990, p. 3), which would imply that about 13% of all U.S. households own such guns. Most of these semiautomatic firearms can accept large magazines. As a way out of this conflict, many policymakers have thrown up their hands and declined to identify the dangerous attributes of AWs. Instead, the proposed bills include long lists of specific makes and models of guns that have little in common beyond (almost always) a semiautomatic loading mechanism and (usually) an arguably "military" appearance. Typical of such efforts is that of the Florida Commission on Assault Weapons (Florida 1990), which listed no less than 66 different guns in a survey designed to gather data on AWs from police agencies. The list lumped together handguns, rifles, and shotguns, both those usually sold with large magazines and those sold with small ones, large caliber and small caliber, foreign- made and domestic. Although the guns on the list were almost all semiautomatic, so were a large number of guns left off the list, such as the very popular Colt Model 19llAl .45caliber pistol and the Beretta Model 92 9-mm pistol. Legislation passed in California and New Jersey, as well as a federal ban on importation, defined the restricted weapon category using similarly heterogeneous lists of specific gun models (Cox Newspapers 1989). 72 Searching for "Bad" Guns The difficulties with this political compromise are obvious. If semiautomatic fire and the ability to accept large magazines are not important in crime, there is little reason to regulate AWs. On the other hand, if these are important crime-aggravating attributes, then it makes little crime control sense (though ample political sense) to systematically ex- clude from restriction the most widely owned models that have these attributes, since this severely limits the impact of regulation. There is nothing new about either semiautomatic firearms in general or "assault rifles" in particular. Semiautomatic firearms were produced in large numbers beginning in the late nineteenth century, and true assault rifles were introduced into military use during World War 11, (Ezell 1983, pp. 17, 514-5). Semiautomatic "assault rifles" did become more popular among civilians during the 1980s--gun catalogs indicate a substantial increase in the number of models of "paramilitary" rifles shown between 1973 and 1988 (compare Koumjian 1973 with Warner 1988). However, this is less significant than it appears, because it reflects little more than a demand for guns with militarystyle cosmetic details, rather than a criminologically significant shift in mechanically different gun types. Mechanically, "assault rifles" are semiautomatic centerfire rifles. Trends in sales of semiautomatic centerfire rifles were basically flat in the period from 1982 to 1987, and were substantially lower in the 1980s than in the 1970s (see Table 3.1). The major trend in recent years has not been a shift to mechanically different types of rifles, but rather a shift in consumer preferences regarding guns' appearance, and a substantial shift away from domestic sources to foreign sources of semi- automatic rifles. In light of this latter trend, President George Bush's move in 1989 to ban imports of foreign "assault rifles" makes more sense as trade protectionism than as gun control. Similarly, proposed state controls were heavily aimed at foreign- origin AWs (e.g., Florida 1990). Among handguns, there was a trend towards semi- automatic pistols and away from revolvers in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, 28% of handguns produced by U.S. manufacturers were semiautomatic pistols, compared to 58% in 1987 (Howe 1987; U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 1989b). This trend was characteristic of the general flow of guns into the general population's stock of guns, implying increases in the average magazine capacity and rate of fire of U.S. handguns. It seems likely that a similar trend occurred among criminals, though it is unknown whether the trend was any stronger among criminals. It also is unclear whether such a trend would have caused any increases in violent crime or influenced the outcomes of many criminal assaults. Although there was no upward trend in sales of semiautomatic center- Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons 73 fire rifles in the general public from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, it might be argued that the prevalence of ownership and use of these and other weapons in the broad AW category increased among criminals during this period. There are no reliable quantitative trend data for this period, partly because the matter did not become an issue until late in the period. The best available information appears to be that pertaining to trends in Dade County (Miami), Florida. An informal 1990 survey of all seven firearms examiners in that county yielded the unanimous opinion that AW use in shootings had been slowly and steadily declining since 1981 (Florida 1990, pp. 156-7). It was commonplace for news sources in the late 1980s to refer to assault rifles" as the "favored" weapon of criminals, or, more specifically, of drug dealers and youth gangs (e.g., New York Times 2-21-89; Newsweek 10-14-85, p. 48). There is no hard evidence to support such a claim, either for criminals in general or for these specific types of criminals. Analyses of samples of guns seized by police from criminals indicate that only a small fraction can be described as "assault weapons." This fraction was less than 3% ("assault rifles" only) in Los Angeles in 1988 (Trahin 1989), 0.5% ("assault-type long guns") in New York City in 1988 [White Plains Reporter Dispatch 3- 27-89, pp. A8, A9 (Associated Press wire service story)], 8% ("assault weapons") in Oakland, California, less than 3% (semiautomatic rifles, including sporting ones) in Chicago, and 0% ("assault weapons" covered under the 1989 federal import ban) in Washington, D.C. (New York Times 4-3-89, p. A14). Of 217 homicides committed in 1989 in Dade County (Miami) Florida, 3 or 1.4% involved an " assault weapon" (Florida 1990, pp. 140-3). In Massachusetts (excluding Boston) during 1984-1988, there were 559 criminal homicides, about 295 of them involving guns (U.S. FBI 1985-1989). Of these, 5 involved "assault rifles" (Boston Globe 3-16-89, p. 12), i.e., 0.9% of the homicides and about 1.7% of the gun homicides. With the exception of the Oakland data, available evidence indicates that AWs constituted no more than 3% of crime guns in the nation's big cities. In the face of such evidence, even a spokesman for Handgun Control, Inc., which advocated tighter restrictions on AWs, conceded that assault weapons "play a small role in overall violent crime" (emphasizing, however, that they could become a problem in the future) (New York Times 4-7-89, p. A15). This spokesman's use of the term "overall violent crime" may have been intended to hint that "ARs" or AWs might be commonly used by special criminal subgroups such as drug dealers and youth gang members. For example, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration asserted that "you can count on coming across them on every 74 Searching for "Bad" Guns single narcotics raid" (Los Angeles Herald Examiner 1- 23-89, p. A-1). The limited available hard evidence contradicts the claim that "assault weapons" are favored by these groups. Records of the previously mentioned Chicago-area narcotics unit indicated that only 6 of 375 guns seized in drug raids, or 1.6% could be described as AWs (Mericle 1989). In Los Angeles, beginning in 1983, police and newspapers reported an epidemic of so-called "drive- by" shootings allegedly involving gang members using "assault weapons" to fight over control of drug trafficking. However, when queried about the guns seized from gang members, the head of the city's largest police gang detail admitted that (as of 1985) the unit had not confiscated any AWs: "We've seized only shotguns and handguns, but I have heard about the purchase of Uzis and military assault rifles" (Crime Control Digest 5-13-85, p. 2; emphasis added). Pre- sumably "AR" use was even less common among gang members in cities lacking the vocal concern over gang use of "ARs" that characterized Los Angeles. Probably the most extensive data on the involvement of AWs in crime were gathered by the Florida Assault Weapons Commission (1990), which distributed a survey on the topic to virtually every police agency in the state. The Commission defined AWs very broadly, providing agencies with a list of 66 models of handguns, rifles, and shotguns. The survey covered the period 1986-1989 and inquired about guns involved in crimes as well as all guns confiscated or recovered after being abandoned. Of 136 agencies eventually returning the survey, 18 were "unable to provide information" and another three provided unusable data. Of the remaining 115 agencies, 86 reported "no experience with assault weapons" or "no assault weapons listed." Of the 29 agencies with some experience with AWs, only two reported experience with more than two such guns. Of 2522 guns "seized or abandoned" and recovered by the police, only 90 (3.6%) were AWs under the broad definition used. If nonreporting agencies were predominantly those without any contact with AWs, the true figures for AW involvement in crime would all be lower. In sum, in Florida, a state in which drug-linked AW use was purportedly very common, most police agencies, even over a 4-year period, had apparently never come across even a single AW. Lest it be thought that such negative evidence dissuaded those who believed that "assault weapons" were popular crime weapons, consider a widely published newspaper series produced by the Cox newspaperchain. Rather than study general samples of guns seized by police from criminals committing gun crimes, the reporters studied a more eccentric Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons 75 subset of seized guns-those for which a "trace request" had been processed by BATF. Atrace request is submitted when police have seized a gun and decide they want to track down its previous history, from manufacture or importation to wholesale purchase to first retail purchase. About 35,100 trace requests were sent to BATF in 1987 (Cox Newspapers 1989, p. 3). Cox claimed that about 1 in 10 "gun crimes" results in a trace request. In fact, only about 1 of 6 of these trace requests involved a gun used to further a violent crime such as homicide, assault, or robbery. The rest were linked only with technical gun violations (illegal possession, sales, etc.), "narcotics" violations, or other "miscellaneous" offenses (BATF 1990). Thus, there are only about 5600 traces per year of guns used to further violent crimes. Compared to about 360,000 such crimes known to the police in 1987 (U.S. FBI 1988), this means that fewer than 2% of violent gun crimes result in a trace. Thus, requesting a trace is strictly optional and clearly not very common. It also is apparently not random. For example, there seems to be a disproportionate tendency to request a trace when a gun is linked with drug trafficking or other "organized" crime (Cox Newspapers 1989, p. 4). For whatever reason, "assault weapons" are substantially overrepresented among guns traced, relative to their share of all guns used in violent crimes. Cox claimed that 10% of U.S. "crime guns" (i.e., among those few that were traced) were "assault weapons." However, they also provided a "city-bycity" breakdown that allows comparisons with the previously cited police data taken from the entire stock of guns seized from criminals. The latter data indicated that 3% of seized guns in Chicago were semi-automatic rifles, whereas Cox found that 10% of traces concerned "assault weapons." The corresponding figures were 3% ("assault rifles") of all confiscated gun vs. 19% for Los Angeles trace requests, under 1% ("assault rifles") of all guns vs. 11% of New York City's trace requests, and 0% ("assault weapons" covered under federal import ban) vs. 13% of trace requests from Washington, D.C. Part of these huge discrepancies is due to the fact that the Cox reporters defined "assault weapons" more broadly than did police departments in these cities-the Cox definition encompassed 64 different weapons (p. 1). However, Cox reported that 90% of the traced "assault weapons" were of just 10 different models, 6 of which were "assault rifles" clearly counted in the police estimates based on confiscation stocks. Most of the difference, therefore, was probably due to the simple fact that guns on which trace requests are filed are not representative, by gun type, of the firearms used in crime. Consequently, the Cox trace request data could not provide a reliable basis for judging the share of crime guns that are "assault weapons." It is worth noting that the Cox Chain began publishing their "as- sault weapons" series on May 21, 1989, over a month and a half after publication of the New York Times and Associated Press articles in which the more representative police confiscation figures were reported. About the time that news stories started to report on how rarely assault rifles" were used in crime (ca. April 1989), the Cox chain and other newspapers shifted their emphasis to the broader, more vaguely defined category dubbed "assault weapons" (AWs), an amorphous category that included many semiautomatic pistols and a few shotgun models, apparently with militarystyle cosmetic details, as well as "assault rifles." Thus, the emphasis was shifted to semiautomatic handguns. The Cox chain claimed that criminals "preferred" AWs in some sense, documenting their claim by showing that the fraction of traced guns that were AWs exceeded a rough guess from BATF on the fraction of all U.S. guns that were AWs (Cox 1989, p. 4). Could it be that criminals "prefer" semiautomatic pistols in this same sense? Trace requests are misleading for judging the types of guns generally used by criminals, but no other national source covers all guns seized by police or a representative sample of seized guns. However, one can examine a local police sample of seized guns and compare it with guns recently added to the general U.S. gun stock. Zimring (1976) showed that the majority of guns used by criminals are relatively re- cently manufactured guns, so these would be the appropriate set of guns to use in the comparison. In a sample of guns seized in the first 3 months of 1989 by the Los Angeles Police Department, 49.8% of the handguns were semiautomatic pistols (Los Angeles Police Department 1989). Among the 7.08 million handguns added to the U.S. stock (the number domestically manufactured, plus imports, minus exports) from 1984 to 1987 (1988 data were not yet available), about 3.89 million were semiautomatic pistols.' Thus, about 55 % of the handguns bought by the general, largely noncriminal public were semiautomatic pistols, while only about 50% of those seized from criminals fell into this category. Los Angeles criminals in 1989 did not "prefer" semiautomatic weapons in the sense of going out of their way to obtain them in numbers disproportionate to their share of the recently sold handgun stock. Rather, criminals were just using the same kinds of handguns as recent noncriminal gun buyers were obtaining. If the higher rate of fire and larger magazines of these weapons were important to criminals, they were no more important to them than to noncriminal gun buyers. Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons 77 "Assault rifles" are clearly much larger than the handguns criminals really do favor, and even "assault weapon" handguns such as Uzis are generally larger than other handguns. Since criminals say they favor more concealable handguns, this may largely explain why so few criminals use assault weapons. AW pistols are no more lethal than either non-AW semiautomatic pistols (since they differ only cosmetically) or revolvers. Moreover, "ARs" are less lethal than ordinary civilian hunting rifles and the standard military rifles of the World War 11 era. Based on scattered experience in treating wounds purportedly inflicted with "assault rifles," some emergency room physicians have asserted that these guns create especially devastating and lethal wounds that are unusually hard to treat (New York Times 2-21- 89). However, specialists in the wounding effects of military rifle ammunition, experienced in treating battlefield wounds, contradict this claim (Fackler 1989; Mohler 1989). Dr. Martin L. Fackler (1989), Director of the Wound Ballistics Laboratory at the Letterman Army Institute of Research, has noted that typical "assault rifles" fire smaller-than-average ammunition, and has shown through ballistics ex- periments that this ammunition has milder wounding effects than civilian hunting ammunition or regular infantry rifle cartridges. This is partly because the military cartridges commonly used in "assault rifles" have smaller, pointed bullets, which tend to produce smaller wounds, which are correspondingly less lethal. The more lethal hollow point or "dumdum" bullet often used in hunting ammunition was forbidden for military use by the 1899 Hague Peace Conference. In addition to serving lifesaving humanitarian purposes, the smaller, pointed full-metal-jacketed bullet has military advantages. By wounding rather than killing enemy soldiers, it not only removes the soldier from combat, but also requires the enemy to devote resources to evacuating and treating him. Further, the light weight of the bullets allows soldiers to carry more rounds. In short, rather than being designed to kill human beings, the military ammunition commonly used in assault rifles was designed in such a way as to reduce the likelihood it would kill. Nevertheless, compared to the ammunition used in the middle-caliber handguns that criminals commonly use, "AR" ammunition is indeed more lethal, as is rifle ammunition in general. Fackler described the "AR" ammunition as being intermediate in power between handgun ammunition and regular infantry rifle cartridges (and, by implication, civilian hunting ammunition). Thus, if many criminals in the future did start using "ARs" in place of handguns it would result in higher fatality rates in assaults and other crimes. Because of the limited concealability 78 Searching for "Bad" Guns of "ARs," it is unlikely that criminals would adopt them. But even if at least some types of criminals did seek out rifles as an alternative to handguns, they would have an ample supply of more lethal substitute rifles available to them even in the absence of "ARs." While "ARs" are not unusually lethal relative to other rifles, they do have other technical attributes potentially relevant to criminal violence: (1) they are capable of firing single shots as fast as the shooter can pull the trigger, and (2) they can accept magazines that hold a large number of cartridges. It is unclear whether either of these attributes is of substantial criminological significance. "ARs" are capable of firing at a rate somewhat faster than other gun types, but it is unknown how often violent incidents occur in which this higher rate of fire would have any impact on the outcome of the incident. For example, even in a rare mass shooting such as the 1989 Stockton schoolyard killing of five children, the killer fired 110 rounds in 3 to 4 (or more) minutes, or about 28-37 rounds per minute (Los Angeles Times 1- 18-89, p. 3; 1-19-89, p. 9). The same rate of fire can be achieved with an ordinary double-action re- volver using speed-loaders to reload. Further, there was nothing to stop Purdy from continuing his attack for another 3 or 4 minutes. The higher rate of fire was unnecessary for Purdy to carry out his murderous intentions-he did all the shooting he wanted to do in 4 minutes and then killed himself. The effective rate of fire of any gun is limited by its recoil. When a shot is fired, the force of the bullet leaving the barrel causes the gun to move back toward the shooter and off of its original aiming alignment. it cannot be fired at the same target again until the shooter puts it back in line with the target. Thus the somewhat higher rate of fire of semiautomatic weapons cannot be fully exploited, reducing the effective difference between these weapons and revolvers. Ordinary revolvers can easily fire six rounds in 3 seconds without any special skill on the part of the shooter or modification to the weapon. Even assuming a semiautomatic gun could fire at twice this rate, it would only mean that a shooter could fire six rounds in 1.5 instead of 3 seconds. The issue comes down to this: How many violent incidents occur each year in which a shooter has 1.5 seconds to shoot the victim(s), but not 3 seconds? Such incidents are probably fairly rare, although there are no hard data on the matter. Critics of "ARs" have also pointed to the high total volume of fire of which the weapons are capable, due to their large magazines. It should be noted that magazines for these weapons are almost always detach- able, and the weapons are usually capable of accepting many different Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons 79 common magazine sizes, whether one containing only 3 rounds, or one containing 30 or more (Warner 1989). Thus, the high volume of rounds is not, strictly speaking, an attribute of the gun itself, but rather of the magazine. Likewise, most of the millions of ordinary semiautomatic pistols sold in the United States for decades are also capable of accepting box- type magazines that can have very large capacities. Consequently, one legal difficulty in distinguishing "ARs" from other semiautomatic rifles, or AWs from other semiautomatic handguns, is that most varieties of all of these weapon categories accept box-type magazines. Since such magazines can be either big or small, it means that the unrestricted civilian-style guns are just as capable of using a large-capacity magazine as are the restricted modern militarystyle AWs. Consequently, rational controls based on concern over large ammunition capacity would have to either ban large magazines or ban all guns capable of receiving types of magazines that sometimes have large capacities. The former alternative would be very difficult to enforce, whereas the latter alternative would mean banning large numbers of hunting rifles and most semiautomatic pistols, and thus would negate the chief political benefit of restricting only rare weapons. It is doubtful whether a high volume magazine is currently relevant to the outcome of a large number of violent incidents. The rare mass killing notwithstanding, gun assaults usually involve only a few shots being fired. Even in a sample of gun attacks on armed police officers, where the incidents are more likely to be mutual combat gunfights with many shots fired, the suspects fired an average of only 2.55 times (New York City Police Department 1989, p. 6). On the other hand, if high-volume guns did become popular among criminals in the future, this could change for the worse. Further, although "ARs" are not unique in any one of their attributes, they are unusual, although not unique, in combining the lethality of rifles, a potentially large ammunition capacity, and a high rate of fire. It is possible that the combination of all three attributes could have a crime-enhancing effect greater than that generated by any one of the attributes. Whereas semiautomatic firearms offer a rate of fire only somewhat higher than other common gun types, fully automatic weapons have much higher rates of fire. "ARs" sold on the civilian market are not capable of fully automatic fire, but it has been argued that this distinction is a minor one because "ARs" are so easily converted to fully automatic fire (Newsweek 10-14-85, pp. 48-9). The New York Times, in an editorial, even told its readers that "many semiautomatics can be made fully automatic with a screwdriver, even a paperclip" (8-2-88). Eight 80 Searching for "Bad" Guns months later, a New York Times feature article about a federal ban on importation of "ARs" gave its readers a rather different view of the "issue of whether or not such guns are easy to convert from semiautomatics to illegal fully automatics": The staff of technical experts at the [Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms] disassemble, test and examine samples of all semiautomatic weapons marketed in the United States to make formal determinations on this question. Any model found to be readily convertible to automatic fire would be declared illegal. None of the five types included in the import ban had been declared readily convertible, nor have any domestic semiautomatics now on sale. (4-3-89; emphasis added) Thus, none of the semiautomatic guns available for sale in the U.S., whether "ARs" or not, was readily convertible to fully automatic fire as of 1989. Two semiautomatics, the MAC-10 and MAC-11, were sold in the United States, but in 1982 were declared by the BATF to be "readily convertible" to automatic fire and their further sale was banned (Hancock 1985). Of course, it is trivially true that almost any gun can be converted to fully automatic fire, given sufficient expertise, time, tools, and added parts. Given unlimited resources, one could also fabricate an entire machine gun from scratch. However, data on weapons seized by police indicate that criminals almost never have both the resources and the inclination to perform a conversion. Of over 4000 guns confiscated by the Los Angeles Police Department in a 1-year period, only about a half dozen (1/6 of 1%) were formerly semiautomatic guns successfully converted to fully automatic fire; only about a dozen showed evidence of even an attempt to perform a conversion (Trahin 1989). All rifles fire bullets at high velocity, which increases the likelihood they can penetrate body armor of the sort police officers wear. This has given rise to concern about "ARs" by some police. One big city police official was quoted in the Los Angeles Times (5-25-90) as saying "We're tired of passing out flags to the widows of officers killed by drug dealers with Uzis." Are large numbers of police officers killed by drug dealers using Uzis? It is easy enough to test this narrow claim about Uzis. According to the Chief of the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, from 1980 when the Uzi was first imported into the U.S., through 1989, not one police officer in the U.S. was killed by a drug dealer with an Uzi. Only one case in their files involved an officer killed with an Uzi under any circumstances, but this was in Puerto Rico and did not involve a drug dealer (Wilson 1990a). Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons 81 The police official's claim might generously be interpreted to broadly refer to all AWs rather than just Uzis, and all criminals, not just drug dealers. For the 10-year period 1980-1989, of 810 officers feloniously killed in the United States and its territories, 33 (4%) were killed by " assault weapon" models covered by federal restrictions either passed or pending as of January, 1991. For 1986-1989, of 284 killings, 14 involved rifles and three involved handguns covered under such restrictions (U.S. Congressional Research Service 1991, p. 6). Thus, 4% involved "ARs" and 5% involved AWs, averaging about four AW killings of police officers in the United States per year. For the entire nation in 1988, there were 78 police officer killings, of which 5-8 involved AWs (U.S. Congressional Research Service 1991, p. 6). Based on case descriptions published by the FBI, there were at most four, and possibly no police officers, killed by drug dealers using any kind of "assault weapon" anywhere in the U.S. in 1988 (U.S. FBI 1989, pp. 31, 33, 37). "Assault rifles" are of particular concern to police because some of these weapons, like civilian hunting rifles, are capable of penetrating police body armor. ("Assault weapon" handguns are no more capable of penetrating body armor than ordinary revolvers.) In the United States in 1988, five officers wearing body armor were killed by gunshot wounds inflicted anywhere other than in the head, regardless of the gun type used (U.S. FBI 1989, p. 13). At least four of these, however, involved bullets that passed between body armor panels or in lower torso areas below the area covered by protective vests (U.S. FBI 1989, pp. 28, 31, 356, 38). In sum, killings of police officers with bullets penetrating body armor, fired from AWs or any other kinds of guns, were almost nonexistent. Have the very rare killings of police officers by assailants using "assault rifles" increased in recent years? Table 3.2 presents relevant data covering 1970-1989. The figures indicate that killings of police officers generally declined over this period, the number and fraction involving guns declined slightly, and the number and fraction involving rifles declined slightly. The maximum number that could have involved "ARs" (i.e., involved rifles with calibers common among "ARs") has always been very small (nine or fewer in any single year) and has shown no consistent trend over this period. To summarize, "assault rifles" and "assault weapons" are rarely used by criminals in general or by drug dealers or juvenile gang members in particular, are almost never used to kill police officers, are generally less lethal than ordinary hunting rifles, and are not easily converted to fully 82 Searching for "Bad" Guns automatic fire. They offer a rate of fire somewhat higher than other gun types and can be used with magazines holding large numbers of cartridges, but there is at present little reason to believe either attribute is relevant to the outcome of any significant number of gun crimes. Plastic Guns An even rarer weapon type has been the focus of regulatory efforts. A federal law passed in 1988 required that all guns contain a certain minimum amount of metal, thereby banning guns made entirely of nonmetallic materials such as plastic. These weapons were of concern to legislators because they would not be detectable by metal detectors such as those used at airports, outside courtrooms, and in prisons and other secure facilities. They would thus be ideal, for example, for use by persons intent on hijacking airplanes. Such weapons are detectable by the X-ray machines used to examine luggage-even a plastic squirt gun is perfectly visible if the machinery is working properly (Astrophysics Research Corporation 1986). What was unusual about this law was that it banned a nonexistent weapon type. At the time it was proposed, no all-plastic gun had yet been manufactured. A few weapons such as the Glock 17 pistol were made partly of plastic, but had enough metal to set off properly functioning metal detectors (New York Times 5-5-86, p. A15). Consequently, it is safe to say that no crime had ever been committed with an all-plastic gun. Since production of such a gun may have been technically feasible, sponsors promoted the law as a preventive measure, rather than as a cure of an existing problem. "Cop-Killer" Bullets Some gun control efforts focus on ammunition rather than guns. An example is a 1986 federal law that banned the manufacture, importation, or sale of armor-piercing bullets made with any of seven hard metals such as bronze. Ordinary bullets are made of lead, a soft metal. Bullets made of hard metals can more easily penetrate the soft body armor worn by police officers, so advocates of such legislation referred to the bullets as "cop-killer bullets." This was something of a misnomer since, at the time the law was voted on, there were no documented cases of a po- liceman being killed by such a bullet. Congressional committees could find only 18 cases, over an 18-year period, in which criminals were even found in possession of armor- piercing ammunition (Los Angeles Times 12-18-85, p. 16). [None of this prevented the New York Times from asserting that hard-alloy ammunition was "favored by narcotics traffickers and other criminals" (7-20-85, p. 22).] The softness of ordinary lead bullets causes them to expand on hitting a target, increasing the bullet's cross-sectional area and thereby widening the wound cavity created by the bullet. Thus, although a bullet made of hard materials will tend to penetrate into a body further, thereby lengthening the wound cavity, it will also tend to create a narrower wound cavity than an ordinary lead bullet. Consequently, for civilians and police officers without body armor, the physical attributes that make bullets capable of penetrating body armor do not necessarily increase the average size of wound cavities and thereby make the bullets more lethal. Armor-piercing bullets may thus be significant in influencing the outcome of a gun attack only with shots fired at body armor, by increasing the probability of the round reaching the wearer's body. In this connection, bullets capable of penetrating body armor continue to be legally available. The federal law provided an exemption for "bullets primarily intended to be used for sporting purposes" (Los Angeles Times 12-18-89, p. 16), and much ordinary hunting rifle ammunition still on the market is capable of piercing body armor. This law might, in the future, be responsible for preventing killings of armor-wearing police officers who otherwise would have been killed had this ammunition been more widely available, but there is no evidence from past experience to support this speculation, since criminals have not used hardalloy ammunition. However, as with plastic gun legislation, one can always speculate that this ban discouraged development of a possible future problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to [h--p] at [anon.penet.fi.] Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to [a--m--n] at [anon.penet.fi.]