Senatorial scumbags Chris Murphy and Dianne Feinstein are still riding their “assault weapon” ban hobbyhorse. In fact, they’re pushing several of the usual rights-violations, but I want to focus on this one just now.
Act to Break the Cycle of Gun Deaths
Outlawing these weapons, an action supported by 60 percent of Americans, will bring down the number of mass shootings and reduce the number of casualties, just as it did when the ban first passed in 1994.
Just how effective was the ’94 “assault weapon” ban? Let’s ask the experts paid by the Department of Justice to check that.
Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003
“AWs were used in only a small fraction of gun crimes prior to the ban: about 2% according to most studies and no more than 8%.”
[…]
“Following implementation of the ban, the share of gun crimes involving AWs declined by 17% to 72% across the localities examined for this study”
A 17% to 72% drop sounds good, right? Not so fast.
That’s a 17-72% drop of the 2%-8% of crimes that involved “assault weapons” as defined in the law.
If so-called “assault weapons were 2% pre-ban, then the drop during the ban was to 1.66% – 0.56%.
If AW usage was as high as 8% pre-ban, then the drop was to 6.64% – 2.24%
In other words, “assault weapons” were and are used so rarely that the change is actually lost in the statistical noise. An alleged “improvement” that is meaningless. A “gain” at great cost in rights. What do I mean?
Let’s say you own a house, and you want to make it more energy efficient by adding expensive insulation (=the infringement of 2A rights) to reduce heat loss in the winter (=firearms deaths). Currently, you’re losing 2% to 8% of your power bill to lost heat. You pay a contractor to insulate your attic (=AWB ’94), at a cost of $5130.00 – $6120.00 (just for example); call it $5,625.
Pre-insulation, you were paying $150/month for power, and wasting 2%-8% of that: $3 to $12.
Post-insulation, you save 17%-72% of that wasted energy: $0.51 to $8.64 per month.
If the numbers are at the low end of savings, you’ll pay for that five grand of insulation in energy savings in a mere 11,029 months. 919 years.
More optimistically, with the high end, you pay off the insulation in 651 months. 54 years.
That’s what gypsy insulators Murphy and Feinstein are trying to “sell” you: Just give up your rights, and we’ll promise you a an improvement you’ll never notice.
You’ll never notice the “improvement” because — statistically speaking — you’re unlikely to be the victim, or have a family member victimized, unless you or they are gangbangers… who aren’t going to give up their weapons anyway.
Go knock on some more gullible neighbor’s door; I’m not buying your scam.
[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]
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