Article - How the NRA and Gun Makers Got Around the Last Ban on Assault Rifles

[Apachedriver]

Just saw this article and thought it'd worth sharing. Seen lots of questions from the newer/younger crowd here.

Can any old hands concur/non-concur with the info given?

http://news.yahoo.com/nra-gun-makers-got-around-last-ban-assault-051539375.html

How the NRA and Gun Makers Got Around the Last Ban on Assault Rifles
By Adam Clark Estes | The Atlantic Wire – Thu, Dec 20, 2012

Those following the gun control legislation bubbling up on Capitol Hill must be getting a lot of déjà vu, since similar legislation made its way through Congress 20 years ago. We're specifically talking about the ban on assault rifles that was supported by Sen. Diane Feinstein in 1994 and a new one she says she'll introduce in 2013. Thanks largely to the National Rifle Association (NRA) and others in the gun lobby, Feinstein's original ban expired in 2004 but not before gun manufacturers came up with all kinds of ways to get around the law, leaving some to wonder if it was even effective in the first place. How'd they do that? Let us count the ways.

The very sobering reality of the story behind the assault rifle ban is that it came about after an event much like last week's devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. As New York Times reporters Michael Luo and Michael Cooper recount in a story due to appear on the front page of Thursday's paper, a "troubled drifter" with an assault rifle opened fire on a California elementary school playground in January 1989, killing five children between the ages of 6 and 9 and injuring 29 others. Feinstein and a phalanx of senators got to work right away on gun control legislation that would ban the weapons, characterized by combat-type features like pistol grips, flash suppressors and large-capacity magazines that are easy to reload. It took them five years to get the law passed, and by that point in time, the gun industry had already made most of the adjustments that would allow them to continue selling the same assault rifle-like weapons with the ban in place.

A lot happened in DC during those five years. Two Democrats, Ohio Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum and Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini, introduced bills that would ban assault rifles that floundered under pressure from the gun lobby, despite DeConcini having once been named the NRA's "legislator of the month." Speaking of the NRA, the powerful organization was busy elsewhere in Washington strong-arming organizations into halting research into gun violence. They eventually helped pass a bill that stripped the Centers for Disease Control of $2.6 million in funding, a sum that happened to be the exact budget for its firearms research. Somewhat short on research and struggling to win support, the anti-assault rifle senators eventually got the ban passed by tacking it onto a 1993 crime bill, under Feinstein's leadership.

The ban was hardly absolute, many say, thanks in part to the crushing pressure of the gun lobby. For instance, it didn't do anything about the 1.5 million assault rifles that were already on the streets and couldn't control the flow of high-capacity magazines which were legal to import if they were manufactured before the ban. The ban also allowed for plenty of wiggle room within the definition of "assault rifle." As The Times points out, the ban defined an assault rifle "as one able to accept a detachable magazine and that includes at least two other combat-type features." Gun manufacturers started tweaking specifications, like adding a somewhat hard-to-access button to release the clip which mean it was not detachable according to federal law.

We don't know what Feinstein's new law will look like yet, but it's probably safe to say it's be dragged through the trenches just like the 1994 ban was. The trenches will be messy for everybody, too, not just the lawmakers. Take it from Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the U.C. Davis, who's spent much of the past two decades researching gun violence. "There was a time when federal law enforcement agents recommended that I wear a ballistic vest," he told Slate. "There is a wanted poster on the Internet."

 

[JohnKSa]

The article makes it sound like the law was engineered with weaknesses in it on purpose by the "powerful, strong-arming NRA" or that the law was significantly weakened by concessions demanded/forced by the NRA. I don't recall that being the case.

It's true that after the law was enacted, people figured out ways to stay legal (e.g. bullet buttons & thumbhole stocks) while still keeping basic functionality and the ability to use high-capacity magazines, but it's not like those ways were planned out ahead of time. At least that's not the way I remember it.

The weaknesses in the law were primarily the result of the ignorance of the anti-gunners who crafted the law. I'm still amazed that flash-hiders made the list of "evil features".

 

[Reloadron]

A good portion of that very poorly written article is BS!

A lot happened in DC during those five years. Two Democrats, Ohio Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum and Arizona Sen. Dennis DeConcini, introduced bills that would ban assault rifles that floundered under pressure from the gun lobby, despite DeConcini having once been named the NRA's "legislator of the month." Speaking of the NRA, the powerful organization was busy elsewhere in Washington strong-arming organizations into halting research into gun violence. They eventually helped pass a bill that stripped the Centers for Disease Control of $2.6 million in funding, a sum that happened to be the exact budget for its firearms research. Somewhat short on research and struggling to win support, the anti-assault rifle senators eventually got the ban passed by tacking it onto a 1993 crime bill, under Feinstein's leadership.

How about looking at the CDC as it was supposed to be in the first place.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta. It works to protect public health and safety by providing information to enhance health decisions, and it promotes health through partnerships with state health departments and other organizations. The CDC focus national attention on developing and applying disease prevention and control (especially infectious diseases and foodborne pathogens and other microbial infections), environmental health, occupational safety and health, health promotion, injury prevention and education activities designed to improve the health of the people of the United States. The CDC is the United States' national public health institute and is a founding member of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes.

The CDC actually began in 1946 as The Communicable Diseases Center and evolved into the centers for disease control. During the Clinton administration when they were promoting an anti gun agenda the plan called for using the resources of the CDC to obtain biased results into an investigation of gun violence which was far from the work of the CDC. The game was rigged looking for skewed results. So yes, the NRA and others lobbied to strip those funds from the CDC. They rightfully did so.

This article like so many anti gun articles is loaded with half truths and skewed data.

Ron

 

[Blackstone]

Not to mention strong and emotive language

 

[Apachedriver]

I'm glad you guys are kicking in on this. I wasn't up on much of this back then due to being overseas and not having any ability to follow it for most of the 1990's.

I've seen several other articles on the same but not as, i guess, passive for lack of a better word at the moment.

 

[Reloadron]

Again, back to '94. The ban ran a decade between '94 and '04. The ban itself was a total waste of time and money. When all was said and done it accomplished nothing. Now I may be a little off on these numbers but as I recall when the ban was so highly touted and promoted the guns targeted (and magazines) represented guns that were responsible for less than 1% of the violent gun crime in America. Today that number I believe is maybe 1.5%. Get real here, the rifles targeted are not at all practical for crime with but a few exceptions. A semi-automatic high magazine capacity rifle is not the way to go to rob a bank. Never was and never will be. They learned nothing but now want to try the same thing again. Insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results.

While I will never understand why someone would drag a rifle into a movie theater and murder innocent people or a school and murder innocent children I do not see more gun legislation as a solution to the mental problems in the US and a coarsening of the US culture.

I have no issues with truth but the anti-gun lobby will twist and skew truth as well as lie to promote their agenda. That is what annoys me. They also like to throw children under the bus. Case in point back when this all happened in '94 they cited children's deaths as a result of gun violence. Problem was the actual numbers were not large enough to garner attention for their cause. So to inflate the numbers they defined children as persons up to and including their 22nd year. That included thugs shot and killed by law enforcement in the line of duty. This in turn got them a larger number to draw attention to as they failed to say how they decided to define children. The list of tricks goes on and on.

This is like me telling you my brother was shot and killed by a gun. I choose not to admit my brother was 20 years old and shot and killed by law enforcement after he robbed a bank and a gun battle followed.

Ron