Statistics Prove Assault Rifle Ban Bogus

The Washington Post has a story today about how emotions play out in the Senate committee hearing on gun control legislation.  It’s clear from the article the Diane Feinstein is very emotional about the issue and resents any rational argument to the contrary.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/03/14/assault-weapons-ban-passed-after-heated-senate-hearing/

However, calm down and ask yourself some questions:  Are there any statistics collected federally or by states on the change in the use of semi automatic rifles in crimes before and after "assault weapon" bans? Are semi automatic rifles used in most murders? Are they even used in more murders than knives or blunt instruments? Given that Connecticut had and has an "assault weapon" ban, was this effective in stopping the mass shooting at the grade school? Are liberals aware how easy it is to make a spring loaded magazine with more than the legislated 10 round capacity for any mildly handy person with a few tools? Is emotion the only thing that counts for liberals?  Some of the answers can be found in the FBI statistics in the link below:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

    In the chart, it shows 356 murders committed with rifles of all kinds, not just “assault rifles” or even just semi automatic rifles, in 2011.  Does that seem like a lot to you?  I have heard on the news that in Chicago we are over 500 murders per year just in the city alone. Here in Chicago, some of the strictest gun laws in the country do not seem to be stopping the violence. To put the number of rifle murders in perspective, there were 12,664 murders in the US in 2011 according to the FBI. So the number of rifle murders in 2011 is 2.5 percent of the total. There were 1,694 murders committed with edged weapons, like knives. There were 496 committed with blunt weapons like clubs, hammers and baseball bats. Should we require a background check to buy Swiss army knives as long as we are going to be letting them on airplanes?

    Here is a link to the number of murders by weapon for 2000-2004.

http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/offenses_reported/violent_crime/murder.html#table2_9

This is relevant because the federal assault weapon ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004.  Taking 2003, the last full year of the ban, the number of murders using rifles was 392.  The total number of murders was 14,465, giving 2.7% of murders that year committed by rifles.  Basically the same rate as 2011.  In other words, this whole stunt is a feel good emotional exercise which will infringe on Constitutional rights without any beneficial effects.

    By the way, since liberals like to bring up Hitler when discussing conservatives, I will mention him.  Hitler was a big gun control supporter.  Once in power, he passed the 1938 German Weapons Act.  Jews were not allowed to own guns under the act.  The act was designed to preclude Jewish armed resistance. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Germany

    But there is some benefit to be had from this fiasco.  Remember that the Democrats in the Senate are going to force multiple votes on gun control.  This should cost about 7 Democratic Senators their jobs whether they vote for it or not.  If they vote for it, they lose to their Republican challenger.  If they don't, they get a primary from their left, eating up all their campaign cash.  In the words from Animal House, "This is gonna be great!"