Gun Control & RKBA

First of all, the 1993 Assault Weapons Ban (in effect nationally from 1994-2004) banned sales of NEW "assault weapons" per the arbitrary definition in the Act. The guns that fit the definition of "assault weapon" that were already in circulation were not affected; they were still owned by Americans. Guns are durable goods, like cars and refrigerators.

Second, gun manufacturers modified existing guns and made new ones that were almost but not quite "assault weapons". AR-15s that didn't have flash reducers on the muzzle, AK-47s that didn't have folding stocks, etc. Then they sold those instead.

Third, handguns are used in 90% of firearm murders and 50% of all murders. All rifles, "assault weapon" or not, are used in about 5% of firearm murders. So, how could the murder rate drop nearly 50% when you ban guns that are some fraction of that 5%?


Here a graph to look at:



AR-15s and AK-47s are a type of rifle whether or not they are an "assault weapon". All murders done with an AK-47 or AR-15 are part of the dark red "rifle" line. That line also includes bolt-action, lever-action, and pump-action rifles.

So again, how can the large drop in murders be driven by that dark red line bouncing along the bottom there?


Answer: it can't.


You do know that only about 400 or so people are killed annually with rifles, right? Despite the very large amount of media attention paid to murders with rifles, handguns are used about 20 times as often.

I'll put it another way: If a bell rang every time somebody was murdered with a handgun, it would ring about once an hour. If a horn blew every time somebody was murdered with a rifle, it would blow about once a day.


Now that I've disproven that tired old talking point, I'll give you the reason crime dropped in the 90's so much, and it had virtually NOTHING to do with the gun-control legislation that Clinton signed in 1993.

It's because a generation prior to that crime drop, we got two pieces of progressive legislation passed. The reasons for these laws was not crime control; it was women's rights and cleaning up pollution. The unforeseen bonus 20 years later was a sudden and sustained drop in crime.

The first piece was recognizing women's sovereignty over their bodies. The birth control pill, the IUD, and abortion legalization means that women were less likely to give birth to children in socioeconomic conditions where career criminalism was a likely outcome. Women waited until they were older and better able to take care of their kids.

The second piece was removing lead from gasoline and other consumer products. Lead poisoning makes people stupid, anti-social, and violent by affecting brain development. When cars were burning leaded gasoline, lead vapors were being inhaled by everybody, including expectant mothers, baby, and children. The more traffic the higher concentration of lead in the air and thus in the people. When lead was removed from the air in the early 70's, all the kids born after that were not being brain damaged by lead. Thus they tended to be smarter, less violent, and more social.

Twenty years later, when those kids hit adulthood, far fewer of them entered the career of violent criminal, and the crime rate dropped.

That's why the light blue line on the graph (non-gun homicides) dropped in half as well. Far fewer people were motivated to murder overall!

Even non-violent crimes dropped!




Larceny drops, motor vehicle theft drops, burglaries drop.




Now, here's a stunning piece of news for you: we can't get progressive, society-improving legislation passed if we don't have the Senate and the House and the Presidency for a prolonged period of time. And we can't get the Congress and the Presidency for a long period of time if we keep LOSING to Republicans over this issue!

The "signature" gun-control legislation that Democrats trot out every time there's a mass shooting? Won't stop mass shootings, won't cut the murder rate, but it will motivate gun-owners to vote far more than non-gun-owners.

Hell, if I was a gun maker I'd give LOADS of money to gun-control organizations because they do more to boost sales than advertising in magazines!



Interestingly, it shows that even as rifle and handgun sales increase, the homicide rate does not.


Anyway, these are the facts.

Gun control has already cost us many thousands of people. We know that deaths due to lack of healthcare would drop SHARPLY if we had Medicare for All, but guess what? Not enough progressives in the Congress. Every year we don't do this we lose far more people than are murdered with guns.

We know that big industries are polluting our air and water, causing death, illness, and deformities. Can't fix it because not enough progressives in Congress... because of the albatross of gun control around the Democratic party's neck.

Global warming is here, but we can't address it because... you guessed it! Too many Republicans! Bush wins by 537 votes in Florida, Dolt45 wins by 80,000 votes in 3 critical states... and there goes renewable energy, carbon taxes, subsidies and loans, and fuel-economy standards. But tell me how it's worth it to get AR-15s that don't have pistol grips.


Crime is a symptom of societal ills, not a hardware problem. By focusing on hardware, you're doing what the Republicans want: the illnesses festering while Democrats are a distracted minority.