Renew The Federal Assault Weapons Ban. It’s Time.
By: Sean Quinlan
Tags: Safety, Politics, Guns, Moms

Here we are, headed toward yet another familiar but depressing historical milestone — the thirty-first anniversary of the Cleveland Elementary School shooting in Stockton, California.

We’ve of course become accustomed, but no less sickened, to the regularity of school shootings and the subsequent abject failure of politicians, predominantly those of the GOP, to take any real action to stop such madness inevitably repeating itself. However, the Cleveland Elementary School shooting, as dreadful as it was, actually spurred meaningful action, leading to the eventual implementation of the ten-year time-limited 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban.

Patrick Purdy, the assailant in this particular tragedy, was a maladjusted drifter who had a long history of mental health, drug and alcohol issues. On the morning of January 17th 1989, Purdy took it upon himself to attack the Cleveland Elementary School. In doing so, Purdy killed five (immigrant) children and wounded another 30, before ending his life by turning one of his guns on himself.

Purdy was able to easily buy a Chinese made / imported AK-47 semi-automatic rifle for use in his massacre. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the administration of then Republican President George H.W. Bush implemented a ban on the importation of all semi-automatic weapons into the United States. Five years later, Democratic president Bill Clinton signed into law the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. While that legislation only had a finite ten-year life-span, it was highly significant as it essentially meant a wholesale ban on the manufacture and sale of semi-automatic rifles to civilians.

What times were those then? Bush effected the assault weapon importation ban within two months of Purdy’s murderous actions. Yep, a mere two months. And of course, Bush was one of those now quaint Republicans that you can read about in a history book — a pragmatist free of slavish devotion to both the NRA and the cult of Donald Trump.

It seems like another universe, let alone a few decades ago, when a school shooting would actually lead to substantive common-sense gun reform legislation being enacted in the United States. Sure, there was partisan divide then as there is now. But it was a divide and not the Grand Canyon sized chasm it is now. At some point between then and now, the GOP didn’t just lose its way when it comes to gun violence prevention. It threw out the compass, asked to be blindfolded and took the hand (and money) of the NRA and the likes of Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump to lead them forward past each increasingly tragic and blood-soaked incident.

The idea that everyone having access to highly destructive weapons of war will somehow make us safer is simply nonsense. Consider this. The United States has long been in the vanguard of nations trying to prevent the spread of highly destructive nuclear weapons to other countries because of the obvious yet chilling reality that not every country is safe to have such devastating power. Like-wise the same applies to individuals — not everyone is going to be a responsible gun owner, particularly so when it comes to the likes of highly deadly killing machines like assault weapons.

Since the end of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, there have been literally hundreds of mass shootings and just as many injuries and fatalities as a result of those. And semi-automatic weapons have more often than not been the preferred choice of the perpetrators of many of those shootings.

It is then way beyond time for the Federal Assault Weapons Ban to be revisited. Despite gun laws becoming ever more lax since 2004, the slaughter has continued unabated. Clearly, more guns are simply making us less safe. And in this case, “us” all too often means our schools, churches, theaters, nightclubs and concerts. Assault weapons are just that — weapons of assault. While they offer no meaningful protection against anything, they do, conversely, offer those with unwell minds and sinister purpose a very effective way of gunning down the innocent as quickly as possible before law enforcement can even fire up the sirens.

It is a question that simply needs an actual answer and not just more head-in-the-sand same from the vast majority of today’s GOP — just how many more preventable mass shooting and school massacre deaths will it take before something of substance is actually done?

School shootings are a tragic feature of American exceptionalism. No other advanced Western country comes anywhere close to this level of frequent, repeat tragedy. It really does not have to be this way. The will to do something was there in 1994. The same absolutely needs to be done again today without further delay.