{"id":58654,"date":"2020-08-24T07:01:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T12:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?page_id=58654"},"modified":"2020-08-24T07:01:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T12:01:21","slug":"greg-wallace-scholarship-highlight-assault-weapon-lethality","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?page_id=58654","title":{"rendered":"Greg Wallace | Scholarship Highlight, &#8220;Assault Weapon&#8221; Lethality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rVAsWUZ3aLo\" width=\"600\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/Delivery.cfm\/SSRN_ID3625076_code1688000.pdf?abstractid=3625076&amp;mirid=1&amp;type=2\">&#8216;Assault Weapon&#8217; Lethality<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Assault weapons&#8221; long have been portrayed as exceptionally powerful firearms designed for killing large numbers of people. While handguns are the overwhelming weapon of choice for mass shooters and rifles of every kind are used in only 3-4% of murders nationwide, gun-control advocates nevertheless single out \u201cassault weapons\u201d as uniquely deserving of prohibition. The reason, they say, is that \u201cassault weapons\u201d are far more dangerous than other modern firearms and thus ill-suited for lawful activities like self-defense.<\/p>\n<p>Five federal circuit courts have relied on the lethality rationale in upholding \u201cassault weapon\u201d bans against Second Amendment challenges. They have declared that \u201cassault weapons\u201d have \u201ca capability for lethality\u2014more wounds, more serious, in more victims\u2014far beyond that of other firearms in general, including other semiautomatic guns.\u201d For these courts, &#8220;assault weapon&#8221; lethality is the driving factor in their constitutional interest balancing.<\/p>\n<p>Are &#8220;assault weapons&#8221; more lethal or dangerous than handguns, shotguns, and non-banned rifles? Ban advocates and federal courts say they are and have offered two arguments to support their claims. The first draws an analogy to military weapons by labeling &#8220;assault weapons&#8221; as extremely dangerous weapons of war. The second uses metrics based on weapons&#8217; rate of fire and wounding capability.<\/p>\n<p>Given the magnitude of disinformation about \u201cassault weapons,\u201d judges must carefully assess whether there is reliable evidence to support these arguments. If \u201cassault weapons\u201d are not more lethal than non-banned firearms and are equally useful for self-defense, then courts must find other justifications for upholding laws that keep such firearms out of the hands of ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n<p>This Article provides an evidence-based analysis of AR-15\u2019s lethality as justifying bans on these rifles. Part I considers whether the AR-15 is like a combat weapon, and thus too lethal for civilian use. Part II examines claims that the AR-15 is exceptionally lethal because it fires much faster and causes far more serious wounds than non-banned firearms. Part III answers two related questions: first, why have mass shootings with \u201cassault weapons\u201d resulted in much higher casualties? And second, do the same features that make \u201cassault weapons\u201d useful for self-defense also make them the most deadly choice for mass shooters?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ufeff &#8216;Assault Weapon&#8217; Lethality &#8220;Assault weapons&#8221; long have been portrayed as exceptionally powerful firearms designed for killing large numbers of people. While handguns are the overwhelming weapon of choice for mass shooters and rifles of every kind are used in only 3-4% of murders nationwide, gun-control advocates nevertheless single out \u201cassault weapons\u201d as uniquely deserving &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?page_id=58654\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Greg Wallace | Scholarship Highlight, &#8220;Assault Weapon&#8221; Lethality&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-58654","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58655,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/58654\/revisions\/58655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}