We Should Not Ban Assault Weapons or High Capacity Magazines

Thanks for your dedication to this debate. 1. What the 2013 Proposed Assault Weapons Bill Bans The bill that was proposed earlier this year in Congress has made the assault weapons ban more comprehensive compared to the prior assault weapons bans. One such provision is that any firearm manually operated by a bolt, pump, lever or slide action are the only assault weapons excluded from the bill (besides prior owned and antique weapons (i.e. ones that don"t work)). It also improves the range of weapons prohibited by the ban. For example, bump or slide fire stocks, which are modified stocks that enable semi-automatic weapons to fire at rates similar to fully automatic machine guns, so-called "bullet buttons" that allow the rapid replacement of ammunition magazines, frequently used as a workaround to prohibitions on detachable magazines, and thumbhole stocks, a type of stock that was also created as a workaround to avoid prohibitions on pistol grips are banned. Note also that many of the dangerous "assault pistols" my opponent mentions are also banned in the bill.1 A complete list of improvements on the previous ban, and weapons banned under the bill can be found in source 1. In other words, weapons that are modified so as to work around the ban have also been banned under this bill. It is more comprehensive than the last one, and bans many dangerous guns that cause many dangerous deaths. 2. The Proposed Assault Weapons Ban Can Make a Dent in Modern Violence My opponent is trying to downplay how bad assault weapons are. While they are not used that much, when they are, the results are devastating. The reality is that even a minor percentage decline in fatalities could mean hundreds of fewer people killed per year. Estimates about the percentage of crimes involving assault weapons range from two to eight percent. But if the Feinstein law could make a dent in that number, that"s still a big deal. Consider one estimate, based on federal gun trace data, that the original federal assault weapons ban reduced the national percentage of gun crimes involving assault weapons from about five percent to about two percent. Assuming that, because assault weapons are rarer and deadlier and hence more likely to be responsible for homicides, this translated to a one percent decline in the homicide rate. That"s 110 fewer murders per year given the roughly 11,000 Americans killed by gun homicide every year. We can debate whether would-be murderers would simply use other types of guns, and whether they"d be as deadly, but the point is that even a small percentage drop in gun homicides nationwide would be a huge victory.2 Even if the assault weapons ban prevents just one murder, we can call it victory for that one person. We can"t not ban assault weapons just because fewer people are killed by them. Not to mention the potential that assault weapons possess in the hands of crazed murderers where they are a lot more dangerous than a simple gun. 3. States with Fewer Assault Weapons Have Fewer Murders States with the most laws had a mortality rate 42% lower than those states with the fewest laws, they found. The strong law states' firearm-related homicide rate was also 40% lower and their firearm-related suicide rate was 37% lower. Specifically, Fleeger pointed to states with many gun laws like Massachusetts, which had 3.4 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people, and New Jersey, which had 4.9 gun-deaths per 100,000 people. Conversely, he focused on states with fewer laws like Louisiana, which had 18 deaths per 100,000 individuals and Alaska, which had 17.5 deaths per 100,000 individuals.3 Only opponent is simply cheery picking data by comparing one high-gun control state to one low-gun control state. We have to look at the bigger picture, which says that, in general, states with more gun control laws have less crime and fewer murders, and the assault weapons ban would help with this. 4. The Previous Assault Weapons Ban Worked Here were the total effects of the previous ban: Justice Department study of the assault weapons ban found that it was responsible for a 6.7% decrease in total gun murders, holding all other factors equal. The same study also found that "Assault weapons are disproportionately involved in murders with multiple victims, multiple wounds per victim, and police officers as victims." The use of assault weapons in crime declined by more than two-thirds by about nine years after 1994 Assault Weapons Ban took effect. The percentage of firearms seized by police in Virginia that had high-capacity magazines dropped significantly during the ban. That figure has doubled since the ban expired. When Maryland imposed a more stringent ban on assault pistols and high-capacity magazines in 1994, it led to a 55% drop in assault pistols recovered by the Baltimore Police Department. 37% of police departments reported seeing a noticeable increase in criminals" use of assault weapons since the 1994 federal ban expired. Since the ban expired, more than 350 people have been killed and more than 450 injured by these weapons.1, 4, 5, 6 The previous assault weapons ban worked better than my opponent cares to admit. He hasn"t really provided a lot of evidence saying the contrary on this point. 5. There"s Only One Thing to Do " Ban Assault Weapons Mass shootings in Newtown, Aurora, and Tucson have demonstrated all too clearly the need to regulate military-style assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines. These weapons allow a gunman to fire a large number of rounds quickly and without having to reload. An assault weapons ban gets these dangerous weapons off the streets and saves lives. The only people who should not support the assault weapons ban are criminals themselves. Ban assault weapons and save lives. Thank you. Works Cited: 1 http://www.feinstein.senate.gov... 2 http://thinkprogress.org... 3 http://www.usatoday.com... 4 http://www.washingtonpost.com... 5 Police Executive Research Forum, Guns and Crime: Breaking New Ground by Focusing on the Local Impact (May 2010). Q95; 6 Douglas S. Weil & Rebecca C. Knox, Letter to the Editor, The Maryland Ban on the Sale of Assault Pistols and High-Capacity Magazines: Estimating the Impact in Baltimore, 87 Am. J. of Public Health 2, Feb. 1997.