I have previously discussed how the bans on so called “assault weapons” only ban cosmetic and safety features of guns that are not true military style guns anyway, while not reducing crime or even being rationally related to crime. Now I’ll address the fact that criminals simply don’t tend to use these so called “assault weapons”, which makes banning them even more pointless.
The term “assault weapon” is one that has been applied by anti-gun politicians to describe a semi-automatic firearm that look scary to them. These so called “assault weapons” should not be confused with true assault weapons, which are military weapons that can fire in fully automatic mode. Such fully automatic weapons have been banned by the United States Federal Government since before World War II.
Rather, the guns that are referred to as “assault weapons” are relatively large, relatively heavy guns that criminals don’t prefer to use. Why? Because criminals need guns that they can conceal. A bank robber walking down the street with a nearly 3 foot long rifle won’t even make it in to the bank before he or she is stopped. Criminals also don’t like to spend upwards of $1,500 for a finely made AR-15 when they can spend ten time less for a black market handgun.
The statistics also make clear the fact that criminals don’t like these so called “assault rifles”: Fewer than 1% of all the guns used in crimes are “assault weapons.” But rather than looking at the statistics and seeing that criminals just don’t use “assault weapons”, the anti gun politicians use the assault weapon ban as yet another way of whittling away at the right of the law abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. These are the same politicians who deny the right to have a gun for self defense to their citizens while having their own taxpayer sponsored armed bodyguards. The same politicians who craft gun amnesty for themselves. The same politicians who call for more ineffective gun control laws, while ignoring the fact that criminals will just ignore gun laws the same way they ignore laws against murder, robbery, etc.