Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Pointless 'gun ban' expires

Proscription on not-really-assault-rifles never did make any sense

The modern "assault rifle" was invented and named by the World War II German Army.

The problem with light rifles capable of firing full-sized rifle cartridges in automatic "machine gun" mode is that the weapons prove difficult to control from the shoulder.

On the other hand, old-style machine pistols that fire a smaller handgun round were (and remain) inaccurate and ineffective much beyond 50 yards.

The solution was the German MP-43, a rifle-like weapon that gave the user the option of switching back and forth from full-automatic to ammunition-conserving semi-automatic fire (one shot per trigger pull) and fed a shortened, less powerful rifle round, making the weapon easier to control.

The weapon so impressed the Russians that designer Mikhail Kalashnikov copied it shamelessly in his still-famous AK-47.

In 1994, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein managed to push through Congress a ban on 19 specifically named self-reloading rifles and handguns, selected mainly for such cosmetic features as wooden pistol grips and tiny metal bayonet lugs -- and on manufacture for civilian ownership of the kind of full-sized pistol magazines favored by police -- cleverly dubbing her bill an "assault weapons ban."

In fact, nothing was banned but new manufacture -- millions of such rifles and magazines that had already been produced remained legal for sale and possession.

And the weapons in question were not "assault rifles" at all, because they did not and do not offer the user the option of switching to "rat-a-tat" machine-gun-style, full-auto fire.

On Monday, Sen. Feinstein's 10-year "gun ban" expired, in part because some Democratic congressmen -- whose loss of Congress in 1994 was attributed by Bill Clinton and others to their support of this and other largely symbolic gun control measures -- wanted no part of it a second time around.

The weapons banned were never used in more than 2 percent of all crimes in the first place.

And the rare weapons of this sort which have been used in crimes in recent years -- the XM15 M4 A3 used by the Washington, D.C., snipers in 2002 and the TEC-9 pistols used at Columbine High School -- were perfectly legal under the Feinstein bill, because the bill was so poorly conceived and drafted that manufacturers simply complied with the law by removing the bayonet lugs and flash suppressors, thereafter producing identical-functioning semi-automatic firearms under new model numbers.

In recent weeks, at least one gun-control group has begun to change its tune. A spokesperson for the Violence Policy Center said, "If the existing assault weapons ban expires, I personally do not believe it will make one whit of difference one way or another in terms of our objective, which is reducing death and injury and getting a particularly lethal class of firearms off the streets." The center now acknowledges the law mandated only "minor changes in appearance."