'Assault Weapon' Is Just A PR Stunt Meant To Fool The Gullible

[kmrtnsn]

Another good article from Forbes.

'Assault Weapon' Is Just A PR Stunt Meant To Fool The Gullible.

enator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has announced that she will be introducing legislation to reenact the ban on so-called assault weapons that she authored in 1994. The evidence is in on the effect of her previous assault weapons ban: zero, zilch, nada, as the saying goes. The ban made no perceptible difference in the gun violence statistics when it went into effect, and no perceptible difference when it was allowed to expire 10 years later, in 2003.

That is because the term “assault weapon” is just a PR stunt that fools the gullible and easily deluded. It is defined in legislation by cosmetic features that frighten white bread suburbanites, but do not involve any functionality of any gun. We tried it, conservatives said it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t work. Yet, it is the liberal answer to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.........

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/12/28/assault-weapon-is-just-a-pr-stunt-meant-to-fool-the-gullible/

[brushy bill]

Another good article from Forbes.

'Assault Weapon' Is Just A PR Stunt Meant To Fool The Gullible.

enator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) has announced that she will be introducing legislation to reenact the ban on so-called assault weapons that she authored in 1994. The evidence is in on the effect of her previous assault weapons ban: zero, zilch, nada, as the saying goes. The ban made no perceptible difference in the gun violence statistics when it went into effect, and no perceptible difference when it was allowed to expire 10 years later, in 2003.

That is because the term “assault weapon” is just a PR stunt that fools the gullible and easily deluded. It is defined in legislation by cosmetic features that frighten white bread suburbanites, but do not involve any functionality of any gun. We tried it, conservatives said it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t work. Yet, it is the liberal answer to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.........

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2012/12/28/assault-weapon-is-just-a-pr-stunt-meant-to-fool-the-gullible/

So "whitebread suburbanites" will support this but other groups, despite their political allegiances (refer to last election), will not when the party leaders tell them it is good....really?

[Palmguy]

Of course other groups will support a ban. But the aforementioned demographic is a huge portion of the constituency and if you win them you've got a majority (not that they always care about that before doing something...just saying).

[brushy bill]

Of course other groups will support a ban. But the aforementioned demographic is a huge portion of the constituency and if you win them you've got a majority (not that they always care about that before doing something...just saying).

And the group most predisposed to vote for gun bans vice other demographics?? Seriously?

[SeriousStudent]

Thanks for the article. I like how he brought up John Lott's book. I have used the stats from it several times, it's very helpful.

[maximus83]

Saw a CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/21/opinion/goss-nra-guns/index.html) recently by Kristin Goss, "associate professor of public policy" at Duke University. Surprisingly, she believes that we need more gun controls. Didn't see that one coming. :rolleyes: Anyway, she claims that Lott's key arguments have been refuted:


More guns, less crime. That is the title of the NRA's bible, a 1998 book by Yale professor John Lott (whose core findings have been refuted by other scholars), and it is the logic behind the NRA's proposal to put an armed officer in all 140,000 American schools. The proposal is founded on the NRA's position that guns are merely tools that can be used by "monsters" or by "good guys." The NRA and its allies are good guys.

I'm sure she believes that, but I'd sure like to see references to the work of the "other scholars" she mentions, and some specific citations from Lott's work that she believes have been refuted.

[theblackknight]

Saw a CNN article (http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/21/opinion/goss-nra-guns/index.html) recently by Kristin Goss, "associate professor of public policy" at Duke University. Surprisingly, she believes that we need more gun controls. Didn't see that one coming. :rolleyes: Anyway, she claims that Lott's key arguments have been refuted:



I'm sure she believes that, but I'd sure like to see references to the work of the "other scholars" she mentions, and some specific citations from Lott's work that she believes have been refuted.

Im sure someone has refuted the refutes by now.

sent from mah gun,using my sights

[Koshinn]

They're being misleading. Lott was refuted; his conclusion that more guns meant less crime could not be proven, or at least he didn't prove it. There were too many other factors involved that he couldn't isolate to prove causality between guns and crime. But that's not saying that more guns caused more crime either. Carry laws were enacted as crime went down, but it went down regardless of "shall issue."

Being honest, it's pretty much settled that concealed carry has almost no statistical effect on crime because of how few people actually carry.

[montrala]

We did some research on numbers from various countries to support cause for slightly easier access to firearms in Poland. What we found out, is that there is not relation between crime and gun ownership, meaning that changes in number of legally owned guns do not measurably increase or decrease crime rates. That is until those changes are huge and sudden, like in UK.

Actually it looks like that if trend for legal ownership is increasing, crime can either increase or decrease at same time. Same if trend is constant on slightly declining (by reason of people loosing interest in firearms more than anything else), crime also can go either way, independently. But for place where gun ownership drops fast from high level (relative to Polish 1.7 gun per 100 inhabitants) crime rate always increase in same time. It is important to remember that in most countries in the world, legal gun ownership totally exclude carrying firearms or even storing them in a way that allow to easily deploy then in self defence.

Here in Poland for last 20 years we have steady decline of crime rate, that is changing despite we have periods of growth and decline in gun ownership. Actually most have rules written in way to actively prevent such use (most of EU, most of Asia, etc.). In Poland we have CCW, but only 0.0875 CCW weapons per 100 inhabitants.

Message that we succeeded to pass to some of our politicians back in 2010 was that "more guns is not more crime, but less guns can be more crime". New law from 2011 slightly opened access to sporting weapons and to get collector permits.