Assault Weapons Ban
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The quote of the day is presented by Guns.com

Why do anti-gun Democrats and media members (BIRM) disregard data regarding gun control efficacy, yet attack those who challenge of climate change study results? It’s almost as if there’s a double standard here.

This sizable arsenal (of civilian-owned AR-15 rifles) usually brings up another problematic proposal: mandatory buybacks. Such a program — à la Australia’s National Firearms Agreement (NFA), circa 1996 — could potentially remove these weapons and reduce the risk of them being used to commit future acts of violence.

Yet again, the research suggests otherwise. Scholars increasingly refute any correlation between NFA and declines in violence. Overall violence was already in steady decline before the legislation took effect. One study found that while firearms deaths declined in the 20-year period following NFA’s enactment, there was an even larger drop in “non-firearm” deaths during the same period. The study concludes, “Because of this, it is not possible to determine whether the change in firearm deaths can be attributed to the gun law reforms.”

Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago and co-author of Freakonomics, is even more dismissive. “Gun buybacks are one of the most ineffectual public policies that have ever been invented in the history of mankind,” he states. Buybacks might be great for optics — politicians making a public spectacle of destroying a big pile of guns — but not so great in reducing gun violence, because 1) most of the people participating didn’t want the guns in the first place and 2) most of the guns were inoperable.

Ironically, those demanding some of the aforementioned policies tend to be the very same cohort who label any moderate skepticism of climate change science as “denialism.” So then why the denial of the data surrounding guns?

Unfortunately, good-faith efforts to quantify the efficacy of gun-control proposals are often dismissed as “tone deaf” or “heartless.” However, if we continue appealing to our emotions on this issue, we will likely end up with the same results that we see in Congress.

– Jay Stooksberry in Research refutes ‘assault weapon’ ban, buybacks

guns.com thousands of new and used guns at great prices

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57 COMMENTS

  1. Any Prohibition Act only stirs up interest and has the opposite effect of that desired.

    In the 1920’s into the 1930’s Alcohol Prohibition created an enormous criminal trade while having zero impact on booze abuse.

    Narcotics Prohibition has been a massive success, hasn’t it? (yeah, sarcasm there). Not that I am in any way in favor of drug use, just that the way we fight it is a big fat losing strategy.

    “Assault Weapon” Prohibition in 1994 stirred up so much interest in a disinterested gun owning population that an entire new manufacturing industry was created. Today the very thing that Prohibition sought to eradicate has become the most popular selling gun design in the USA.

    The 1996 “National Firearms Agreement” in Australia failed. After massive spending to force people to sell their guns to the State, Australians today own many more guns than ever before. Australia continues to struggle with organized crime making their own machine guns, and smuggling banned weapons into the country.

    The latest Prohibition in New Zealand is already reported as a big joke. Tiny percentages of guns surrendered and criminal gangs issuing press releases stating they will not comply but promising to only kill other criminals.

    Prohibitions always have the unintended consequence of encouraging the very thing they seek to end and creating a thriving underground market for that thing.

    • Almost like they are only meant to make criminals of people who are not liked by those passing the laws.

      • “After a shooting spree they always try to take the guns away from those who didn’t do it…”
        William S. Burroughs

        Yeah, THAT William S. Burroughs.

    • “stirred up so much interest in a disinterested gun owning population that an entire new manufacturing industry was created” So much competition that Colt couldn’t figure out how to turn a profit. Sad

      • True. The failure of Colt at a time of intense growth of the AR-15 industry is a monumental failure in corporate leadership.

        • “The failure of Colt at a time of intense growth of the AR-15 industry is a monumental failure in corporate leadership.”

          That’s arguable.

          It’s actually more like the PC ‘industry’. Colt may have been first with the Stoner AR-design, but much like the PC biz, IBM for all practical purposes ‘open sourced’ the design of the IBM PC, and the market *exploded*. And now, IBM hasn’t made a home PC in *years*.

          Colt is no more responsible for not being in the AR biz anymore than IBM is for not being in the home PC biz. The market moved on from both of them.

          Colt’s crime was allowing shit management to get rid of their manufacturing talent, the craftsmen that built the good stuff years back.

          The cost of that experienced craftsman is so high that I doubt Could survive the size they once were. If they had kept that talent, they would be a much smaller nosebleed expensive custom and bespoke gun maker, and their prices would reflect that…

    • enuf,

      … the way we [enforce illegal narcotics distribution and use] is a big fat losing strategy.

      That depends on the true objective.

      If the true objective is total (or at least very close to total) elimination of distribution and use of illegal narcotics, then our nation’s strategy over the last several decades is a colossal failure.

      If the true objective is to increase the government police state, to justify ever intrusive surveillance measures and heinous warrant services (e.g. no-knock S.W.A.T. raids), and to devastate minority and impoverished demographics, then our nation’s strategy over the last several decades is a smashing success.

      If I were a betting man, I would put my money on the second explanation.

    • Damn, you are a repository of arcane trivia, aren’t you?

      (Off CZ shopping today…)

        • A CZ 2075 RAMI. For appendix carry, I want a double-action first trigger pull, so it needed to be de-cocker…

        • Being de-cocked via a negligent discharge would really suck. The RAMI BD is a compact 9 with a de-cocking lever instead of a safety.

          I’m not interested in a striker-fired gun pointed at my femoral artery. I like the idea of a long and heavy pull for a first shot, and SA for any follow-up shots if needed…

        • I’m generally a fan of DA/SA guns but strikers don’t bother me.

          Then again I don’t do appendix so… there’s that.

  3. I’ve said repeatedly a buy-back won’t work in the US. Back in the late 1990s, Australia’s population wasn’t 20 million with a much lower rate of gun ownership and also a much lower rate of ownership of self-loading rifles and handguns. Military styled self-loading rifles were concentrated among some hunters and IPSC and service rifle target shooters. The “buy-back” was funded by an increase on the Medicare levy of each person’s tax return over several years. The “buy-back” had the carrot of generous payouts on firearms handed in, and the stick of long jail sentences and expensive fines.

    This won’t work in the USA because of a much higher population (about 15x Australia’s current population), a much higher rate of firearm ownership and a much higher rate of ownership of self-loading rifles and handguns. There will be a reluctance to pay extra taxes to fund the compulsory purchases and the use of shock-and-awe to achieve compliance, as Beto and others have made clear. $600 billion could be better spent in many other areas.

    • You miss the REAL reason it won’t work here.

      We have the Second Amendment. And most of us understand that the intent and reality of the Second is NOT hunting and personal self defense. When I say “most of us” that includes a likely majority of military and police, as well as patriotic citizens, many of whom are former military and police.

      The Second Amendment had one purpose, to protect citizens from tyrannical governments, including our own.

      If Beto Francis O’Rourke were to come for our firearms, he would be facing a second civil war.

      That, sir, is fact, not bravado.

      • I’d have to say that “MANY OF US” is a better term. It’s clearly not “most of us”.
        However, only 3% of colonials actually fought in the revolutionary war. I belive today’s percentage to be somewhat higher than that.

    • Southern
      600 million not billion spent to get about 650 000 rifles but otherwise in full agreement with you.

      Government and gun control idiots always “forget” to mention he stole the firearms used for the massacre.

  4. What we really need is automatic impeachment of elected officials that promote unconstitutional laws. This is a violation of oath and should be automatic dismissal. Would be nice if a real supreme court which actually decided matters on our constitution would see the camel in the tent and declare all the gun control laws an infringement on the constitution and get rid of them. This same thing has happened to our legal system.

  6. After many conversations with anti gun people. Not all of them end like this but a lot do. Some change their mind but a lot will just tell me they want it illegal to own guns and don’t care if it works or not.

    At the end of the day these people don’t want you to own a gun.

    Youtube shadow bans me now so I don’t talk to these people as much anymore. Nothing like getting shadow banned mid conversation.

    • Our only major daily newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, shadow bans me on their site, too. I post comments and responses which appear on my screen, but viewing on another device reveals they’re missing from public view.

    • I’m a .308 guy myself and I’m looking for a second AR in .308

      It’s a lot like talking about food makes one hungry

    • If you are already well supplied in 5.56, Grendel is just an upper (with correct bolt) and a couple of push pins away. I need to pick up some more ammo and some plates and pouches….

  8. Optics, and the emotions they stir up in weak minded sheeple, are what counts in this kind of politics. Facts mean nothing – less than nothing. It’s about changing attitudes, not educating people.

  10. “Data Shows Another ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban, ‘Buback’ Won’t Work…Not That It Matters To Anti-Gunners”

    Of course it won’t work, but that’s the “news” of the day, last week(metaphorically speaking) it was immigration, next week it’ll be something else…the liberals “news cycle” is cyclic, they have a plethora of items on their list(s) and rotate them to keep themselves in the spotlight…

    • to elaborate: there are no true grassroots movements where the people actively give away their liberties. It’s always synthetic…

  12. They don’t care about squat, their primary goal is to invalidate the Second Amendment. They want to invalidate it with going through the long tedious process of amending the Constitution, which would fail. Be very careful of those who want a constitutional convention. Those who proclaim it only to be to propose amendments may be wrong because such a convention could end up changing the entire document and SCOTUS would have a problem trying to stop such an action since there has only been one, the original one and that was to improve the Articles of Confederation.

    • Not worried. Any changes would need to be approved by state ratification (just as the Const was over the AOC), and only 13 states would be needed to stand in the way of any attempt to repeal or weaken the 2nd A.

      There are already 15 states with Constitutional Carry, with possibly a couple more soon.

  14. They can “buyback” all the “assault weapons” they want but the criminals aren’t likely to participate. For that reason I won’t be turning in my anti-assault weapons.

  15. “Assault Weapons’ Ban, ‘Buyback’ Won’t Work…Not That It Matters To Anti-Gunners”

    That’s not what it’s all about,It’s about the complete illumination of weapons/arms from the civilian population PERIOD,that’s what it’s all about Charlie Brown.

    Beat Off Boy O’Doruke just made what was always known
    ,clear for all.

  16. It is funny that the same amalgam of progressives and segregationists that pushed Prohibition are now pushing “gun control”. Part of the reason Prohibition failed was that the Republican administrations of the 1920’s weren’t interested in funding it, consistently starving the federal agencies of money needed for enforcement. Maybe realizing that the FBI and ATF are their enemies will cause the GOP to do the same today? Hope springs…..

    • Prohibition failed because most people didn’t want it in the first place, and weren’t willing to give up something for a worthless government promise of safety. This became even more apparent when that claim safety became a promise of gang drive by shootings and violence. Most folks won’t give up their guns, and don’t believe government promises of much of anything. Still waiting for my $2500 rebate check from the government for each year Obama said we would save money.

      How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving. How do you tell a Democrat is plotting to destroy the Bill of Rights? He is still on this side of the grass. It is sad what they are being allowed to do to this country.

  17. Leftists don’t really care about banning ARs and AKs, but they do perceive scary black guns as the low-hanging fruit in their long-march effort to ultimately repeal the 2A and ban civilian gun ownership altogether. It’s the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent. This and feel-good but harebrained red-flag laws must be our line in the sand.

  18. Like most of their “feel good solutions,” the antis also conveniently ignore the sheer cost of their putative “buyback.”

    Let’s assume that they are actually serious about “buying back” MSR’s, and the government sets an average “buyback” price of $500 for each semiauto “assault rifle.” The NSSF estimated a few years ago that there were probably 15-20 million modern sporting rifles produced or imported since 1990. Add that to the number of purported “assault weapons” that were already in circulation before the AWB (probably at least 5 million). You are now talking about the government having to spend $10 billion just for the purchase price of this pipe dream (not including enforcement and administrative costs, which would also be in the billions). If the courts required (on 5th Amendment “just compensation” grounds) the government to pay the market value, that amount would likely go up substantially.

    Bottom line: no way the anti’s are gonna actually spend >$10-20 billion on a “buy back.” Their promise that it would be a “buy back” is about as true as their now-conclusively-debunked claim that “no one wants to take your guns.” The reality is that they will want to just declare possession illegal and try and confiscate them, and that would raise significant 5th Amendment issues (to say nothing of the 2A issues).

    Another issue . . . how would a mandatory “assault rifle” buyback deal with *actual* NFA items?

    On one hand, if they include pre-Hughes MG’s in the “buyback,” what would the additional cost be (considering the market price for legal FA M16’s, MP5’s, etc., are over $20k each)? There are over 630,000 registered MG’s on the registry. Even if we assume that the average market value is only $10,000 each (probably low), that’s another $6 *billion.*

    OTOH, if they declare that items currently on the NFA registry are exempt, then you could just Form 1 your AR’s, AK’s, etc. before the effective date of the law, and rebarrel them as SBR’s. And because the SBR receiver is what’s on the NFA registry, I don’t believe that subsequently / temporarily swapping out the SBR uppers / barrel for a longer one takes the weapon off the registry. (Of course, once you’ve Form 1’d it, the government would have your number, and I suspect it would likely be only a matter of time before they decided that everything on the registry either cannot be further transferred, or else was verboten and must be confiscated as well.)

    Bottom line: as the OP says, the putative “buyback” is a half-baked idea that won’t even get to first base in Congress. Instead, my prediction: if the Dem’s win the White House and control of Congress, what they will ultimately do instead of a buyback is (1) make “assault weapons” a new category of NFA weapons, (2) allow current owners to add them to the registry, but not allow any subsequent transfers of *any* NFA weapons on the registry (thus ducking the need to spend billions “buying back” such weapons), and (3) reinstitute the AWB going forward.

    • “Bottom line: no way the anti’s are gonna actually spend >$10-20 billion on a “buy back.””

      There’s another option –

      Declare all mag-fed semi-auto rifles now on the NFA.

      That I can see happening. Have a clean nose and pay 200 USD and you can keep them.

      Of course, I want a concession for my generosity. If it’s on the NFA, it’s on the select-fire NFA.

      Re-open the MG registry… 😉

    • ::Snarf::

      The cheapest non colt AR-15 M/G is at least $20,000, and the colts are going for $30,000. MAC 9s and Stens are at least 8 to 9,000.

      Funny enough the Vickers and Maximums full size crew served weapons are actually cheaper than the the no name AR-15’s.

  19. How about we use all of this time, money, and energy to “ban” ILLEGAL immigrants (emphasis added for the resident brain dead zombie.) You know because it’s already illegal? Then we use that “buy-back” money to “send-back.” But they tell us that’s an impossible task because it’s easier to hide people than guns, right? Why can’t we have a national registry of illegal immigrants?

  20. There’s NO double-standard. It’s simple, and here it is in a nutshell:
    Whatever reduces Liberty, the Democrats are in favor of it. Whatever increases government power, the Democrats are in favor of it. Period. It’s not complicated, it’s not nuanced and it certainly isn’t sophisticated. It’s tyranny, plain and simple.

  22. RE: Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago and co-author of Freakonomics, is even more dismissive. “Gun buybacks are one of the most ineffectual [sic] public policies that have ever been invented in the history of mankind.”

    True. As long as anti-self defense rights people ignore the real research, they will continue to support taking other people’s rights away.

    • So, what are some suggestions on how to handle situations like this:

      “Alexis Wilson was working an afternoon shift at the local Pizza Inn in McAlester, Okla., on Sunday, when she pulled a co-worker aside to boast about her new gun.
      The slight 18-year-old with large brown eyes clutched her iPhone and pressed play on a video of her shooting a newly purchased AK-47, according to an incident report. Then Wilson told the other teenage waitress how much she resented the people at her old school — allegedly adding that she wanted to “shoot 400 people for fun.”

      • If she was serious, then she needs to be taken away (to receive some very much needed psychiatric care), not her gun.

        If you take her gun, the dangerous psycho is still out there, now even more aggravated, free to A) get another firearm illegally or
        B) carry out her planned attack by other means, like arson, bomb or vehicle.

  25. Push coming to shove, I find myself curious about the following.

    1. Given that Gun Control, as usually proposed impacts essentially on The Law Abiding, with no impact on criminals, assuming that those who push Gun Control were really interested in ameroleriating the problem of armed crime, actually they aren’t, why are those oh so concerned types so busy pushing a fairytale seems an all to appropriate question.

    2. Einstein offered the following. Continuing to follow a course of action proven to be unworkable is insanity. How come those oh so concerned types that continue to push the fantasy that is Gun Control ignore what is a basic and inescapable fact.

    I find myself curious.

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