Like a broken record, Democrats have been pushing the claim that the 1994 ban on “assault weapons,” which ended in 2004, reduced gun violence in America. This commonly used talking point is routinely cited by Democrats to justify the latest and greatest gun control proposals, and despite years of this being patently false, they continue to push it anyway.
Joe Biden, of course, has pushed this lie recently, and his White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, pushed it again on his behalf on Monday.
“So you’ve heard the President say this, and I’ll just repeat what he said: When — when he was able to get this done in the ‘90s, to ban assault weapons, you saw — you saw it have an effect on lowering the cost of vi- — the lives, lowering violence in that — in those first — in that first 10 years,” she said on Monday. “And then after that, once that — once that law sunset, you saw that — you saw — you saw the increase of gun violence I think triple if — and that’s what he has said, specifically.”
The “assault weapons” ban was a ten-year moratorium on the “manufacture, transfer, and possession” of specific semi-automatic firearms categorized as “assault weapons,” specifically targeting 18 models and variations by name, along with revolving-cylinder shotguns. Additionally, the ban disallowed flash hiders, folding rifle stocks, and threaded barrels used for attaching silencers. Ammunition magazines with a capacity exceeding 10 rounds were also restricted as part of the ban.
It’s been known since 2004 when the ban was allowed to sunset that it had no impact after a study from the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) found that the ban failed to reduce gun-related crime, largely because so-called “assault weapons” are not the weapons common criminals typically use. Several of the weapons banned were foreign semiautomatic rifles that were already banned from being imported.
“We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence,” explained University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, the author of the NIJ report. “It is thus premature to make definitive assessments of the ban’s impact on gun violence. Should it be renewed, the ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”
The NIJ serves as the research, development, and evaluation body of the Justice Department and is tasked with providing the department with impartial and evidence-based data. Despite this, Democrats have refused to admit the so-called assault weapons ban failed to reduce gun crime.
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