The Gun debate sandbox

The homocide rat4es HAVE BEEN coming down for quite some time now. MANY seem to forget this.

Firearms Licensing
Strengthens Federal licensing standards for firearms dealers.

Gang Crimes
Provides new and stiffer penalties for violent and drug trafficking crimes
committed by gang members.

Other
Creates new crimes or enhances penalties for: drive-by-shootings, use of
semi-automatic weapons, sex offenses, crimes against the
elderly, interstate firearms trafficking, firearms theft and smuggling,
arson, hate crimes and interstate domestic violence.

]The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB), or Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act, was a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law in the United States that included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms, so called "assault weapons".[1] The 10-year ban was passed by Congress on September 13, 1994, and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban only applied to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired on September 13, 2004, as part of the law's sunset provision

The Act also defined and banned 'large capacity ammunition feeding devices', which generally applied to magazines or other ammunition feeding devices with capacities of greater than a certain number of rounds, and that up to the time of the Act were considered normal or factory magazines. Media and popular culture referred to these as 'high capacity magazines or feeding devices'. Depending on the locality and type of firearm, the cutoff between a 'normal' capacity and 'high' capacity magazine was 3, 7, 10, 12, 15, or 20 rounds. The now defunct federal ban set the limit at 10 rounds.

During the period when the AWB was in effect, it was illegal to manufacture any firearm that met the law's flowchart of an assault weapon or large capacity ammunition feeding device, except for export or for sale to a government or law enforcement agency. The law also banned possession of illegally imported or manufactured firearms, but did not ban possession or sale of pre-existing 'assault weapons' or previously factory standard magazines that were legally redefined as large capacity ammunition feeding devices. This provision for pre-ban firearms created higher prices in the market for such items, which still exist due to several states adopting their own assault weapons bans.

No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data, even in the initial sample; it is only once numerous covariates are included that the negative results in the early data emerge. While the trend models show a reduction in the crime growth rate following the adoption of right-to-carry laws, these trend reductions occur long after law adoption, casting serious doubt on the proposition that the trend models estimated in the literature reflect effects of the law change. Finally, some of the point estimates are imprecise. Thus, the committee concludes that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates.

Criminals don't go to the local gun shop to buy their weapons. Criminals buy their guns from underground markets where there is no background check.

Criminals buy any kind of gun they want, including grenades, explosives.

Anyone here think that the Chinese citizens would have wanted some firearms to protect themselves from the government back when they went communist? between 40 and 60 million slaughtered and starved by their gov.

Criminals find the weaker, the unprotected.

How about self defense uses with guns... a minimum or 600,000 times a year, a criminal act is thwarted by a lawful gun toting citizen.

Since Sandy hook, the number of gun applications at Newtown, CT is 1.5 times the normal rate. Gun permit apps are up everywhere. Go in gun shops and I think one will find a representation from every legal age group, and many demographics.

Anyone care to follow Joe Biden's advise on self defense?

Punishing lawful citizens and using them as the butt of jokes will accomplish little more than anti gunners patting each other on the back, IMO.

They realize guns will eventually be outlawed in the US. 12,000 gun murders a year is a social/civil rights issue - and liberals always win those. Always.

First off, your map is misleading, as it includes all murders.

Where do those guns come from in the first place? Come on people! See the need for tracking gun purchases yet?

You can't go down to the local gun store and buy grenades or explosives... they are not available through legal channels like guns are... which is why they are not used as often in crimes as guns are. Get it?

Anyone here think armed citizens would even slow down the US military if the US "went communist?"

Irrational fear based purchases don't prove anything other than sheeple are idiots. Remember the duct tape and plastic run?

Joe Biden is an idiot.

12,000 gun murders a year