My letter to NPR
I know that NPR is a leftist fever swamp, but we can't afford to just write off missions in enemy-controlled territory. Here's my letter.
----------------------------------
Re: “Hill Battle Brews over Assault Weapons Ban,†by Larry Abramson, Morning Edition, 11 March 2004
This segment had some problems.
Introducing the piece, Bob Edwards states “people on both sides [of the gun control issue] agree that the ban has not worked as intended.†Narrowly framing the debate in terms of whether the “assault weaponâ€(1) ban “worked as intended†misses the point. There are numerous important arguments to oppose the “assault weapon†ban that have nothing to do with guns or whether the legislation “works.â€(2)
Larry Abramson describes the Violence Policy Center as “one of the more aggressive gun groups in Washington, D.C.,…†VPC is not a gun group, it’s an anti-gun group. On an up note, Abramson thankfully included Diaz’s statement that renewing the “assault weapon†ban will “not make one whit of difference one way or another†in reducing death and injury. Thank you!
Abramson claims that “the District of Columbia’s law against assault weapons is even stricter than the federal government’s…†Actually, D.C. does not directly regulate assault weapons.(3)
Abramson confuses “assault weapon†with assault rifle, and at one point even makes up his own term, “assault-style weapons.†Whereas “assault weapon†is a politico-legal term whose definition can change with the political whims of Congress, the term assault rifle by contrast has been part of the firearms lexicon for 60 years. It refers to compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges. Select-fire means that the user can shoot it in either semi-automatic or fully-automatic mode at the toss of a switch. Assault rifle is a translation from the German word “Sturmgewehr,†the term applied by the German gun designers themselves in 1944 to the new rifle which they invented.
If Larry Abramson is going to report about gun policy issues, it behooves him to get the terms straight. Cosmetic similarities notwithstanding, no "assault rifle" is an "assault weapon."
Abramson states that “automatic weapons may be against the law in the United States, but in the hands of an experienced shooter, this semiautomatic rifle comes pretty close.†First, automatic weapons are NOT illegal under federal law. While they are heavily taxed and regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1934, an adult citizen who is not a felon or otherwise disabled under law may legally own an automatic weapon. Second, it is simply incorrect to state that the rate of fire of a semiautomatic rifle is “pretty close†to the rate of fire of an automatic rifle. A fully automatic AK-47 has a cyclic rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute whereas a samiautomatic rifle fires only one round per squeeze of the trigger. The semiautomatic version's rate of fire is generally given as 45 rounds per minute, but that assumes that the shooter is carefully aiming the rifle and not just squeezing the trigger as quickly as possible (as Tom Diaz did during the segment with his AK). Assuming that one were to fire a semiauto AK-47 clone with normal-capacity 30-round magazines without regard to accuracy. In the segment, Diaz demonstrated that it's possible to go through a 30-round magazine in eight seconds. In the same period, a person with a fully auto AK could shoot 80 rounds. The rates of fire are not even close. Send Larry Abramson to a range to fire a fully automatic rifle and he will immediately observe the difference.
Larry Abramson interviewed Tom Diaz of VPC and Brian Siebel of the Brady Center. For balance, Abramson did not interview NRA’s Wayne LaPierre or Larry Pratt of the Gun Owners Association, or a pro-gun scholar such as David Kopel or Eugene Volokh, but Mike Zarlenga, who owns a boutique sporting goods store in Virginia. Abramson includes more than three minutes of interview time for the gun control people, but scarcely one minute with a gun owner who opposes the “assault weapon†ban.
In the final part of the segment, Abramson allows Siebel’s misleading statements about the efficacy of the ban to go unchallenged. Abramson concludes with Siebel’s hopes of persuading Congress that “half a ban is better than none.†The implicit message of Abramson’s segment is that the problem with the ban is that just it does not go far enough.
Abramson’s lack of preparation in the subject was apparent to students of firearms policy. The U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI, the law enforcement statistics of every state bothering to count and the careful research of criminologists all tell the same story. Rifles of any type are used in only a tiny fraction of gun crimes (the preferred firearm for nearly all criminals being the easily concealed handgun). The criminal use of rifles dubbed “assault weapons†is rarer still. Indeed, “assault weapons†are the least likely firearms to be used in crime. FBI statistics show that rifles of any description are used in only about 3 percent of homicides each year. Data compiled by criminologist Gary Kleck put the frequency of assault weapons use in all violent crime at 0.5 percent.
In March 1997 the Department of Justice conducted a Congressionally-mandated study of the effect of the “assault weapon†ban on crime. The panel of eight criminologists concluded that “the evidence is not strong enough for us to conclude that there was any meaningful effect†of the ban on the murder rate.
“Using a variety of national and local data sources, we found no statistical evidence of post-ban decreases in either the number of victims per gun homicide incident, the number of gunshot wounds per victim, or the proportion of gunshot victims with multiple wounds. Nor did we find assault weapons to be overrepresented in a sample of mass murders involving guns. The absence of stronger ban effects may be attributable to the relative rarity with which the banned weapons are used in violent crimes.â€(5)
According to the FBI, murders with knives, clubs and hands outnumber those with “assault weapons†by more than 20-to-1.(6) As gun-rights activists have long argued, there was never any reason to accept the argument that a ban on semi-auto rifles with pistol grips and bayonet lugs would have any reduction in crime. Such an argument is prima facie absurd. Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in October 2003 stating that states there is no evidence to prove gun-control laws are effective in preventing violence.(7)
Abramson’s segment had the façade of balance, but not the substance. He gave three times as much airtime to the views of gun control advocates as he did to the single gun owner. He implicitly accepted the premises of gun control advocates and allowed their misleading statements to slide by. He confused different categories of guns which indicates an ignorance of the subject matter. He ignored the massive scholarship showing the futility of the ban. Not once did he ask, why did Congress pass a law against gun based on how they look? Instead of asking the hard questions of Tom Diaz, Abramson instead asks “so how does he feel about the effort to renew the assault weapons ban?†The obvious question to put to Tom Diaz or Brian Siebel went unasked. Since the gun ban was predicted to be a failure, and been shown to be a failure, why exactly have the VPC and the Brady Center been advocating it?
It's ultimate goal was described by Charles Krauthammer, a gun control advocate. “It might be 50 years before the United States gets to where Britain is today. Passing a law like the assault weapon ban is a symbolic--purely symbolic--move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.â€(8)
Abramson’s report was slanted.
Regards,
Idd
1. I use the term “assault weapon†in quotes because it is not a technical term from the firearms lexicon, but a politico-legal term contrived by groups espousing gun control. The definition of “assault weapon†in federal law (Title 18, Chapter 44, Section 921 of the United States Code) differs substantially from the definitions under various state laws. California, Massachusetts, New Jersey have all passed legislation against “assault weapons,†but they have no common definition of the term “assault weapon.†“Assault weapon†is a propaganda term just like “gateway drug.â€
2. See Jeff Snyder, _Nation of Cowards: Essay on the Ethics of Gun Control_ (Accurate Press, St. Louis: 2001).
3. Firearms Law Center,
http://www.firearmslawcenter.org/content/masterlist.asp#assaultweapons.
4. Under federal law, “assault weapon†is defined as semiautomatic weapons bearing certain cosmetic features. See Eric Morgan and David Kopel, "The Assault Weapon Panic: "Political Correctness" Takes Aim at the Constitution," 10 October 1991.
http://www.guncite.com/asw.html
5. Jeffrey A. Roth et al., “Impact Evaluation of the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act of1994,†13 March 1997.
6.
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/html/web/offreported/02-nmurder03.html#t210
7.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/rr/rr5214.pdf
8. Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, April 5, 1996.
