https://www.nraila.org/get-the-facts/assault-weapons-large-magazines/
• The congressionally-mandated study of the federal “assault weapon ban” of 1994-2004 found that the ban had no impact on crime, in part because “the banned guns were never used in more than a modest fraction of gun murders.” (Urban Institute[1]) Rifles of any type are used in only two percent of murders. (FBI[2]) Subsequent research conducted by the RAND Corporation found no conclusive evidence that banning “assault weapons” or “large” capacity magazines has an effect on mass shootings or violent crime.[3]
• “Murder rates were 19.3% higher when the Federal [assault weapon] ban was in effect.”[4]
• Americans own over eleven million AR-15s and buy hundreds of thousands of new ones every year. (NSSF[5])
• AR-15s are the most commonly used rifles in marksmanship competitions, training, and home defense.
• Total violent crime and murder has fallen to near historic lows, while ownership of the firearms and magazines that gun control supporters want banned has risen to all-time highs. (FBI,[6] NSSF[7])
• AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles are not the fully-automatic, military-grade firearms they are often claimed to be by gun control supporters and the media.
• Ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are standard equipment for many handguns and rifles that Americans keep for self-defense.
• The terrorist attacks in France and Belgium show that gun bans—including those on semi-automatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines—don’t prevent crime. In both countries, the ownership of firearms, including semi-automatics, is severely restricted.
• Gun control supporters are wrong to claim that “assault weapons” are used in most mass shootings. While the media focus on this false narrative, mass killings have been committed with firearms of all types, and without firearms of any type.
Second Amendment – Firearms that gun control supporters call “assault weapons” and ammunition magazines that they call “large” are among the arms protected by the Second Amendment. Because they’re among the arms that are most useful for the entire range of defensive purposes, they’re “in common use” for defensive purposes, a standard articulated by the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008).[8] This is true, regardless of which of gun control supporters’ ever-expanding definitions of “assault weapons” one uses.[9] In 2015, Heller decision author Justice Antonin Scalia reiterated that the Second Amendment and Heller preclude “assault weapons” bans when he signed onto a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park.[10]
More “assault weapons” and “large” magazines, less crime – From 1991, when violent crime hit an all-time high, to 2017, the nation’s total violent crime rate decreased 48 percent, including a 46 percent decrease in the murder rate.[11] Meanwhile, Americans bought about 200 million new firearms,[12] including more than eleven million AR-15s,[13] and so many tens of millions of “large” handgun and rifle magazines that it seems pointless to attempt a count.[14]
Different guns, same old tune – In the 1970s, gun control supporters predicted that crime would rise unless Congress banned all handguns.[15] In the 1980s, they said the same thing about compact, small-caliber handguns.[16] For a quarter-century, they’ve said the same thing about “assault weapons” and “large” magazines[17] and Right-to-Carry laws under which people carry semi-automatic handguns and “large” magazines for self-defense.[18]Every one of these predictions has been proven false.[19] Nevertheless, they have expanded their definition of “assault weapon” to include virtually all semi-automatic shotguns and detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifles, comparable handguns, and various fixed-magazine rifles, and continue to press for a ban on magazines.[20]
Study for Congress and follow-up studies – The congressionally-mandated study of the federal “assault weapon” and “large” magazine “ban” concluded that “the banned guns were never used in more than a modest fraction of all gun murders” before the ban, and the ban’s 10-round limit on new magazines wasn’t a factor in multiple-victim or multiple-wound crimes.[21] A follow-up study concluded that “AWs [assault weapons] and LCMs [large capacity magazines] were used in only a minority of gun crimes prior to the 1994 federal ban,” “relatively few attacks involve more than 10 shots fired,” and “the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”[22] Another follow-up study found “gunshot injury incidents involving pistols [many of which use magazines that hold more than 10 rounds] were less likely to produce a death than those involving revolvers [which typically hold five or six rounds]” and “the average number of wounds for pistol victims was actually lower than that for revolver victims.”[23] In 2018, the RAND Corporation released a study that surveyed the available research on the effects of bans on “assault weapons” and “large” capacity magazines. The study found no conclusive evidence that such bans have an effect on mass shootings or violent crime.[24]
History of semi-automatic firearms – Semi-automatic firearms were introduced in the 19th century. The first semi-automatic rifle was introduced in 1885, the first semi-automatic pistol in 1892, and the first semi-automatic shotgun in 1902.[25] Semi-automatics account for 20-25 percent of the approximately 400 million privately-owned firearms in the United States today and the percentage is rising, because semi-automatics account for over half of the 10-15 million new firearms bought annually.[26] Semi-automatics fire only one shot when the trigger is pulled—like revolvers, bolt-actions, lever-actions, pump-actions, double-barrels and all other types of firearms except fully-automatics (machine guns).[27] Thus, semi-automatics cannot “spray fire” and they’re not designed to be fired “from the hip.”[28] They aren’t “high-powered,”[29] there are no devices that convert them into machine guns legally,[30] they aren’t equipped with “grenade launchers” and “rocket launchers,”[31] and they certainly aren’t “weapons of mass destruction.”[32]
Origin of the issue – The most popular semi-automatic firearm that gun control supporters call an “assault weapon,” the AR-15, was introduced in 1963, but gun control supporters didn’t decide to call it and other semi-automatic firearms “assault weapons” until 1984.[33] Gun control activists began campaigning against “assault weapons” only after they realized that their previous campaign to get handguns banned had failed.[34] In 1988, an anti-handgun activist group recommended to other such groups:
[A]ssault weapons . . . will . . . strengthen the handgun restriction lobby . . . . [H]andgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. . . . Assault weapons . . . are a new topic. The weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. . . . Efforts to restrict assault weapons are more likely to succeed than those to restrict handguns.[35]
ATF 1989 importation ban – The anti-handgun group also recommended that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) adopt guidelines to prohibit the importation of “assault weapons.”[36] The following year, ATF banned the importation of 43 models of semi-automatic rifles that it had previously approved for importation.[37]
Because federal law requires ATF to approve the importation of any firearm that is “particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes,”[38] the agency took the curious position that “target shooting” meant only “organized marksmanship competition.” Furthermore, ATF ignored the portion of the law requiring approval of the importation of firearms that are “readily adaptable to sporting purposes.”
In 1998, ATF expanded its ban to include any semi-automatic rifle capable of using a detachable magazine that could hold more than 10 rounds.[39] Gun control supporters periodically insist that the importation restrictions be tightened.[40]
California’s and New Jersey’s bans – California banned “assault weapons” in 1989, and New Jersey banned “assault firearms” in 1990. New Jersey’s ban included the Marlin Model 60 .22 caliber squirrel rifle, which an anti-gun New Jersey politician called a “people-killing machine.” Both states allowed owners to register and keep banned guns already owned, but only about 10 percent of owners complied with the registration requirements.[41] Several other states subsequently banned “assault weapons,” “assault pistols,” and/or “large” magazines.[42]
Clinton “assault weapon ban” – President Bill Clinton campaigned for a federal “assault weapon” and “large” magazine “ban” proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.,), saying people “can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.”[43] Crime reports and felon surveys showed that “assault weapons” were used in only 1-2 percent of violent crimes, and in the 10 preceding years murders committed without guns outnumbered those with “assault weapons” by about 37-to-1.[44] Nevertheless, the Clinton/Feinstein “ban” on new manufacture of “assault weapons” and magazines that hold more than 10 rounds was imposed from 1994 to 2004.
Pushing for an expanded ban – As the scheduled 2004 expiration of the ban approached, gun control supporters campaigned to have the ban not only extended, but also expanded, the Brady Campaign calling California’s ban the “model for the nation.”[45] But because “assault weapons” are used in only a tiny percentage of murders, California’s murder rate increased every year for five years after its 1989 ban, 26 percent overall, while in the rest of the country murder increased 10 percent. During the first five years after California expanded its ban in 2000, the state’s murder rate increased 10 percent, compared to a five percent decrease in the rest of country.[46]
Nevertheless, in 2013 Feinstein introduced a ban much more restrictive than the one in effect between 1994 and 2004.[47] Whereas her 1994 “ban” merely prohibited manufacturing or assembling one of the targeted firearms with its full complement of standard external attachments, her 2013 bill would have banned the manufacture of the same firearms altogether, as well as banned the manufacture of other firearms not addressed in the 1994 legislation. Her 2013 bill would have banned the manufacture of any semi-automatic shotgun or detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifle that had any “characteristic that can function as a grip,” as well as various fixed magazine rifles and self-defense handguns, and prohibit anyone from selling or otherwise transferring a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Million Mom March have proposed that pump-action firearms be banned as “assault weapons” too.[48]
Semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are the most popular rifles in the United States for home protection and defensive skills-based firearm training and marksmanship competitions,[49] and they’re increasingly popular among hunters.[50] Ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds are standard equipment for many handguns and rifles designed for defensive purposes, they’re commonly used in handguns kept for protection at home and carried for protection away from home, and they’re commonly used in defensive skills-based firearm training and sports.
