Debate Desk
Would an Assault Weapons Ban Cut Gun Deaths in America?
Rifles of every type account for a small share of murders, and the Justice Department's own review of the 1994 ban found no clear effect.
The claim
Supporters of a ban on so-called assault weapons say these rifles are designed for combat, that they have been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings, and that removing them from the market would reduce the death toll when a shooter does strike. A ban worked once, they say, from 1994 to 2004, and could work again.
The answer in three points
- The category is defined by cosmetic features, such as a pistol grip or a flash suppressor, not by how the gun fires. A semi-automatic rifle with those features shoots the same way as one without them. A ban on features changes the look of a gun, not its power.
- Rifles of every kind are used in a small share of killings. Handguns account for far more. A policy aimed at a rarely used category cannot do much to lower the total.
- The country already ran this experiment. The Justice Department's National Institute of Justice funded a review of the 1994 federal ban and concluded that its effect on gun violence was too small to measure reliably. The reason is the same: the covered guns were used in a small fraction of crimes to begin with.
The honest conclusion is modest. A ban would take a popular rifle from millions of lawful owners and would leave the weapons most used in crime untouched. If the goal is to save lives, spend the effort where the deaths are: gang violence, repeat offenders, illegal handgun trafficking, and the warning signs that come before an attack.
The numbers
- The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports for 2019 counted 364 murders committed with rifles of all types and 6,368 with handguns.
- The federal assault weapons ban was in effect from September 1994 until it expired in September 2004, according to the text of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
- A 2004 report prepared for the National Institute of Justice by Christopher Koper found that the ban's effects on gun violence were likely to be small and hard to detect.
What they will say next
"Mass shootings are deadlier with these rifles." Some of the worst attacks involved them and some involved handguns. A determined attacker can substitute another weapon, and the large majority of gun deaths are not mass shootings. Armed security and quick response save lives in the moment.
"Nobody needs one." The Constitution protects the right of ordinary citizens, and the rifle at issue is among the most popular in the country, owned by millions of people who have never harmed anyone. In Heller, the Court said that arms in common use for lawful purposes are protected.
"Other countries have banned them." Countries differ in the number of guns, in the size of their cities and in their crime rates. Comparisons that ignore those differences prove little, and an international model should be tested against American conditions.
"The 1994 ban expired and shootings rose." Mass shootings are rare and vary from year to year, so a before-and-after comparison on a handful of events cannot separate the ban from anything else. The review the Justice Department commissioned did not find that expiration changed the pattern.