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The Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) was a provision of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a federal law of the United States that included a prohibition on the sale of semiautomatic "assault weapons" manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment. The ten-year ban was passed by Congress on September 13, 1994 and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same day. The ban expired on September 13, 2004, as part of the law's sunset provision.
Provisions The Federal Assault Weapons Ban was only a small part (title XI, subtitle A) of the very large and extensive Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. In total, there were 33 "titles" (sections) of the act. All firearms addressed in the ban were semi-automatic firearms, that is, firearms that fire one shot each time the trigger is pulled. Neither the AWB nor its expiration affects the legal status of fully automatic firearms, which can fire more than one round with a single trigger-pull; these have long been regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and only fully automatic firearms manufactured and registered to civilians prior to the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 may be transferred to civilians. During the period in which the AWB was in effect, it was illegal to manufacture any firearm that met the law's definition of an "assault weapon" or "large capacity ammunition feeding device", except for export or for sale to a government or law enforcement agency. Possession of illegally imported or manufactured equipment was outlawed as well, but the law did not ban the possession or sale of pre-existing "assault weapons" or "large capacity ammunition feeding devices". This provision for "pre-ban" weapons created a higher price point in the market for such items, a market distortion that lasted until the ban's sunset. Two events involving military-style semi-automatic rifles in the late 1980s and the early 1990s were used as examples by proponents for the ban's enactment. These incidents included: Definition of assault weapon The term "assault weapon" has been attributed to gun-control activist Josh Sugarmann and was never a technically correct definition of any extant firearm. The military use of the term applies not to firearms but to rocket launchers such as the SMAW. The term assault rifle did already exist in firearms jargon, but refers only to a category of rifles that are capable of full-automatic fire, and are therefore machine-guns. Machine-guns were already heavily regulated by the National Firearms Act of 1934. The new law defined and applied the term assault weapon to certain semi-automatic firearms (i.e., firearms that are not machine-guns). It included certain specific models by name (e.g., Colt AR-15, TEC-9, all Kalashnikovs including the AK-47, and Uzi) and other firearms because they possessed certain cosmetic features: Semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines and two or more of the following: Semi-automatic pistols with detachable magazines and two or more of the following: Semi-automatic shotguns with two or more of the following: Expiration of the ban On March 2, 2004, with 'sunset' of the ban on the horizon, assault weapon ban supporter Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) attached a ten-year extension to the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban to the Senate's Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The National Rifle Association withdrew its support of the bill. With the Feinstein amendment, the bill was voted down 8-90. This rider was widely hailed by Democrats as the only viable chance for a renewal of the AWB before its expiration. President George W. Bush had promised to sign a renewal of the ban provided that Congress passed such legislation and Bush was criticized for not doing enough to encourage the House and Senate to pass renewal legislation. The expiration came in spite of the increased national attention to gun violence, partially stemming from sensational events such as the attack on Columbine High School in 1999. This trend towards more liberal firearms law continues with more and more states passing laws which allow citizens to carry concealed firearms. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was voted on again in 2005 and passed, this time with only a handful of riders. Deficiencies in the ban Once certain combinations of features were banned, manufactures responded by altering their designs to produce legal versions. For example, the AB-10 was a legal post-ban version of the TEC-9, distinguished by the lack of barrel threading; the XM-15 was a legal AR-15 without barrel threading or a bayonet mounting lug; post-ban semi-automatic AK-47s were also sold without folding stocks or bayonets lugs, and with "thumbhole" stocks instead of pistol-grips. The BATF technology branch determined in 1994 that muzzle brakes were not impacted by the AWB, and that muzzle brakes on threaded barrels were not an assault weapon feature, so long as they were welded or soldered in place. The law prohibited manufacturing and sale to civilians of detachable magazines with a capacity to hold more than ten rounds. This prompted the importation of large quantities of pre-1994 manufactured magazines from other countries. Former Warsaw Pact countries had a huge surplus of AK-47 magazines of various capacities, that could fit a variety of both pre-ban and post-ban AK-47 variants. There was also a large number of pre-1994 American-made magazines as well. The lack of distinguishing functional characteristics between "assault weapons" and other semi-automatic firearms was implied by Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center (VPC), years before the federal ban was passed. In his March 1989 paper titled "Assault Weapons: Analysis, New Research and Legislation," Sugarmann wrote that, "Assault weapons are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons – anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun – can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons." Kristen Rand, legislative director of the VPC, said a few months before the expiration of the ban, "The 1994 law in theory banned AK-47s, MAC-10s, UZIs, AR-15s and other assault weapons. Yet the gun industry easily found ways around the law and most of these weapons are now sold in post-ban models virtually identical to the guns Congress sought to ban in 1994."* Others claim that the gun manufacturers were following both the letter and the spirit of the law by removing exactly what the law banned. One effect of the ban was to raise the price on previously-manufactured rifles, and previously-existing magazines with capacities in excess of 10 rounds. Its expiration has led to lower prices on the limited capacity rifles and magazines manufactured in accordance with the law during the ban. A large number of police surplus "high" capacity handgun magazines manufactured during the ban were released onto the market after the ban expired. Assault weapons ban in local politics The states of New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California have enacted their own versions of the ban. New York's version of the law is very similar to the Federal version, but New York's version does not have a sunset provision. According to the laws of the State of New York, a magazine with a capacity of more than 10 rounds manufactured after September 14, 1994 cannot be legally possessed by anyone other than a law enforcement officer. A provision of the Federal law required the date of manufacture to be stamped on every newly manufactured "high capacity" magazine. Because that requirement is no longer in effect, the New York magazine ban becomes virtually unenforceable except with respect to those magazines manufactured during the ban and marked according to federal regulations then in effect. Possession of unmarked "high-capacity" magazines made after the sunset of the federal ban would subject New Yorkers to felony charges. Police and prosecutors may be able to determine actual manufacture dates of seized magazines from information not generally available to consumers, such as the dates of magazine design changes and parts assembly numbers. The New York ban thus leaves possessors of unmarked magazines at risk of felony charges since they may not know the magazines were manufactured post-sunset and not pre-ban. During the period of the federal ban, ATF would issue rulings as to whether attachment of a given muzzle device on a post-ban rifle was permissible because it acted only as a brake, or impermissible because it acted as a flash suppressor. As with magazines, the New York regulatory scheme implicitly relied upon such federal regulatory determinations for enforcement of the state's ban. With the sunset of the federal ban, ATF is no longer concerned with classifying muzzle devices. New York residents now may acquire or modify rifles attaching what they believe to be muzzle brakes, but which at some point New York police or prosecutors may classify as flash suppressors, resulting in unwitting possession of a banned rifle. Impact on crime The official US Department of Justice study done on the Assault Weapons Ban concluded that the ban’s "short-term impact on gun violence has been uncertain, due perhaps to the continuing availability of grandfathered assault weapons, close substitute guns and large capacity magazines, and the relative rarity with which the banned weapons were used in gun violence even before the ban" * John Lott performed another study, which appears in his book The Bias Against Guns. He writes, "(The study) examines the first four years of the federal law as well as the different state assault weapon bans. Even after accounting for law enforcement, demographics, poverty and other factors that affect crime, the laws did not reduce any type of violent crime. In fact, overall violent crime actually rose slightly, by 1.5%, but the impact was not statistically significant. The somewhat larger increase in murder rates—over 5%—was significant, but not all states experienced an increase." Others further argue that the ban did little to decrease crime because many criminals could still easily obtain weapons illegally. * The Violence Policy Center blames technicalities. "Soon after its passage in 1994, the gun industry made a mockery of the federal assault weapons ban, manufacturing 'post-ban' assault weapons with only slight, cosmetic differences from their banned counterparts. The VPC estimates that more than one million assault weapons have been manufactured since the ban's passage in 1994."* A notable argument against this is that the VPC changed their definition of "assault weapon" after the ban was passed, so that weapons which looked like the banned weapons were also "assault weapons". See also | ||||||||
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