The tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, has led to a lot of unfortunate misinformation about firearms. Let’s try to add some facts to the justified emotion.
Are Some Guns More Dangerous than Others? The shooter in Aurora had three firearms when he entered the theater: a pump action shotgun, a semiautomatic rifle and a semiautomatic handgun.
In a closed, crowded setting like a movie theater, the shotgun was probably the most lethal of the three. Every shotgun shell can spray a half-dozen or more pellets, each capable of killing or maiming a person. Twelve-gauge shotguns often fire five shells, and sometimes more, before needing to be reloaded. And unlike semiautomatics, they don’t typically jam.
Yet in most American cities, just about anybody can buy a shotgun at the drop of a hat. Antigun activists and politicians almost never propose banning them.
Instead, the focus these days is on so-called “assault weapons.”
Should We Be Especially Worried About Assault Weapons? Assault weapons are not usually the weapon of choice. Neither of the two worst shooting sprees in U.S. history involved assault weapons. James Huberty, who killed 20 people at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, California, in 1984, used a shotgun, a pistol and a hunting rifle. George Hennard, who killed 22 people at a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, used two ordinary pistols.
Still, gun opponents seem obsessed about them. So what exactly is an “assault weapon”?
What Are Assault Weapons? You would think that the definition would hinge on a weapon’s fire power or its capacity to maim or kill. Not so. Assault weapons are mainly defined by their appearance. As Steve Chapman explained the other day:
Assault weapons are functionally indistinguishable from ordinary semiautomatic hunting rifles. They don’t fire more rapidly, they don’t deliver more lethal rounds, and they don’t spray bullets. They only look like military arms.
The features that disqualified a gun under the federal ban were ones that didn’t affect destructiveness, such as pistol grips and bayonet mounts. If accused [Aurora] killer James Holmes had been prevented from buying this gun, he could have found plenty of others that would have served his purpose just as well.
Basically, what disqualified a weapon when the short-lived assault weapons ban was in effect was looking like a military weapon. The offensive features included plastic stocks, extended ammunition clips, collapsible butt-stocks, and other decorative devices that made them look like, but not operate as, a fully functional assault rifle.
Contrary to the claims that military-looking weapons are only designed to kill human beings, they are, in fact, the fastest growing segment of the hunting rifle market!
What About Machine Guns?
