Opinion ID: 2595475
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Seriousness of Harm to the Public

Text: As already discussed, the Legislature in 1989 regarded the use of assault weapons by criminals and the mentally ill as a grave public safety threat. The information reflected in the AWCA's legislative history, and that collected since in connection with federal regulatory efforts directed at the same problem (see generally H.R.Rep. No. 103-489, 2d Sess., pp. 13-15, 18-20 (1994), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1994, 1801 [discussing criminal use of semiautomatic assault weapons and features that increase their lethality]; U.S. Dept. of the Treasury, Study on the Sporting Suitability of Modified Semiautomatic Assault Rifles (Apr. 1998) pp. 30-35 [discussing criminal attractiveness and use of semiautomatic assault rifles accepting large capacity magazines]), give this court no cause to question or qualify the legislative assessment of the harm caused by the proliferation of such firearms in civilian society. The AWCA is a remedial law aimed at protecting the public against a highly serious danger to life and safety. The Legislature presumably intended that the law be effectively enforceable, i.e., that its enforcement would actually result in restricting the number of assault weapons in the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. In interpreting the law to further the legislative intent, therefore, we should strive to avoid any construction that would significantly undermine its enforceability. This is not to suggest this court would or should read any element out of a criminal statute simply to ease the People's burden of proof. But, when a crime's statutory definition does not expressly include any scienter element, the fact the Legislature intended the law to remedy a serious and widespread public safety threat militates against the conclusion it also intended impliedly to include in the definition a scienter element especially burdensome to prove.