Did the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban Work?

[krispos42]

4. I doubt it.

Analogy:

If I banned cars with trunk-mounted spoilers, then accidents involving cars with trunk-mounted spoilers would logically decrease. This says nothing about total car accidents, only cars with a particular accessory.

Likewise, in 1994 through 2004 no new "assault weapons" were sold nationwide, and none even after 2004 in several states such as California, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Therefore, the percentage of guns that would be defined as "assault weapons" could only decrease during the years of the ban.


This does not mean that semiautomatic rifles fed from a detachable magazine, semiautomatic shotguns fed from a detachable magazine, or semiautomatic handguns fed from a detachable magazine were banned. It just means that those guns, that ALSO had secondary features, were no longer sold.

For example, the Newtown slaughter was not committed with an "assault weapon", it was committed with a semiautomatic rifle fed from a detachable magazine that did not have any secondary features. So a tally of murders done with "assault weapons" would not include the Newtown slaughter.


The ban did not reduce the total number of guns sold. It did not reduce the number of detachable-magazine-fed semiautomatic guns sold. Ergo, it could not have done anything noticeable.

In fact, it has been argued that the publicity from the ban increased the number of detachable-magazine-fed semiautomatic rifles sold since.