So, those who want to ban guns from the citizenry are liars.
\nYes, we know that.<\/p>\n
Fact-Check: Mass Shootings Actually Increased During Federal \u2018Assault Weapons\u2019 Ban<\/a><\/p>\n A widely cited study used to push for more state \u2018assault weapons\u2019 bans is flawed and does not show that the 1994 federal ban saved lives.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAssault weapons\u201d ban proponents say that such bans will save lives. A recent\u00a0opinion column<\/a>\u00a0published in the Chicago Sun-Times claims that the risk of dying in a mass shooting was 70 percent lower during the 1994-2004 federal assault weapons ban. The column was published while the Illinois state legislature was debating a state-wide assault weapons ban, which passed a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n The study on which that claim was based is flawed and its conclusions unreliable. Yet gun-control advocates such as the\u00a0Giffords Law Center<\/a>,\u00a0Everytown for Gun Safety<\/a>, and\u00a0Sandy Hook Promise<\/a>\u00a0continue to use the study as they push for more assault weapons bans like the one in Illinois.\u00a0Legislators<\/a>,\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0reports<\/a>, and\u00a0opinion<\/a>\u00a0writers<\/a>\u00a0have cited the study, and the column published in the Chicago Sun-Times has appeared in\u00a0several<\/a>\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0outlets<\/a>.<\/p>\n The\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0was produced by Charles DiMaggio, lead author; Michael Klein, the opinion column\u2019s author; and seven other medical professionals. It examined data from three open-source mass shooting databases. The study identified 44 mass shootings from 1981 through 2017 in which four or more fatalities were reported (not including the shooter), resulting in 501 fatalities. It determined that 34 of these shootings were committed with so-called assault weapons, which accounted for 430 (86 percent) of the fatalities.<\/p>\n The study found that mass shooting deaths decreased during the years the federal ban was in effect. It claimed that had the federal ban been in effect for the entire period from 1981 through 2017, it might have prevented 314 of the 448 mass shooting deaths that occurred during the non-ban years.<\/p>\n Measuring the effect of the federal assault weapons ban requires distinguishing mass shootings with assault weapons from mass shootings with non-banned weapons, such as handguns. After all, the point of an assault weapons ban is to reduce mass shootings with the banned firearms.<\/p>\n There is no consistent legal definition of \u201cassault weapon,\u201d so one must look to how each law banning such firearms defines them. An \u201cassault weapon\u201d under the\u00a01994 federal ban<\/a>\u00a0included both specific firearms by name and any semiautomatic firearm capable of accepting a detachable magazine and having two or more features such as a folding or telescoping stock, pistol grip, barrel shroud, flash hider, or threaded barrel. Subsequently enacted state and local bans typically require only one such additional feature.<\/p>\n To identify whether a mass shooting occurred with an assault weapon, the DiMaggio study\u2019s authors made no attempt to determine whether the weapons used actually met the 1994 ban\u2019s definition of \u201cassault weapon.\u201d Instead, they simply searched the databases\u2019 text for \u201cAK,\u201d \u201cAR,\u201d \u201cMCX,\u201d \u201cassault,\u201d and \u201csemiautomatic.\u201d (Klein claimed in his column that the authors \u201cchose to use the strict federal definition of an assault weapon,\u201d but this methodology belies that statement.)<\/p>\n Although all assault weapons are semiautomatic, not all semiautomatics are assault weapons. A semiautomatic firearm fires only one round with each pull of the trigger and automatically loads the next round after firing. The federal ban did not apply to all semiautomatic firearms, as the study\u2019s authors assumed, but only to those with detachable magazines and two or more of the specified features. The vast majority of semiautomatic handguns do not have the additional features required by the federal ban.<\/p>\n Using \u201csemiautomatic\u201d as a search identifier vastly overstated the number of mass shootings committed with so-called assault weapons. The study\u2019s\u00a0weapon data set<\/a>\u00a0for the 34 incidents shows that in at least 20 (almost 60 percent) of the shootings, non-banned semiautomatic handguns \u2014 in 9mm, .45, and other popular calibers \u2014 were wrongly identified as assault weapons. This obviously skewed the study\u2019s results.<\/p>\n Common semiautomatic handguns should never be confused with \u201cassault weapons.\u201d No federal or state assault weapons ban has ever included such handguns.<\/p>\n Perhaps the study\u2019s authors were confused about what constituted an \u201cassault weapon.\u201d This is unsurprising. The term \u201cassault weapon\u201d was popularized in the late 1980s not to address a particular problem, but to enliven a waning gun-control movement by confusing and scaring the public about firearms. A\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0from gun-control advocacy group The Violence Policy Center explains:<\/p>\n Assault weapons\u2014just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms\u2014are a\u00a0new<\/em>\u00a0topic. The weapons\u2019 menacing looks, coupled with the public\u2019s confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons\u2014anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun\u2014can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The study\u2019s misidentification error was pointed out in a\u00a0public letter<\/a>\u00a0to column writer Klein and his study co-authors by University of Massachusetts Professor Louis Klarevas, a well-known academic expert on mass shootings and author of \u201cRampage Nation: Securing America from Mass Shootings.\u201d After reviewing the study\u2019s data set, Klarevas challenged the study\u2019s conclusions based on this \u201clarge number of misclassifications.\u201d<\/p>\n The authors\u00a0responded<\/a>: \u201cWe make no claim to have retroactively determined whether these guns would have been illegal under the original statutory language.\u201d But both their study and Klein\u2019s column are about the effectiveness of the 1994 federal assault weapons ban.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ignoring the need for fidelity to what the statute actually banned in determining whether that statute was effective, they claimed that assault weapon definitions don\u2019t really matter, but only the \u201cmain message\u201d of the study, which is that \u201cfewer people died in mass shooting incidents during the ban period.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The\u00a0Violence Project<\/a>\u00a0publishes the most comprehensive mass-shooting database. The federal ban became effective on Sept. 24, 1994. In the preceding decade, the Violence Project database shows that 25 mass shootings resulted in 156 total fatalities. Assault weapons were used in six of those shootings with 36 fatalities. During the ban, 33 mass shootings resulted in 173 total fatalities. Assault weapons were used in seven shootings with 42 fatalities. In the post-ban decade, 46 mass shootings resulted in 328 fatalities. Assault weapons were used in eight shootings with 70 fatalities.<\/p>\n The Violence Project database also shows that there were more mass shooting fatalities in the decade during the federal ban (173) than in the decade before the ban (156), which contradicts the DiMaggio study\u2019s \u201cmain message.\u201d<\/p>\n Mass shootings with assault weapons also did not spike once the ban expired. Such shootings increased from six (pre-ban) to seven (during the ban) to eight (post-ban) during this 30-year period. The post-ban increase is the continuation of an existing trend.<\/p>\n Mass shootings and fatalities\u00a0did<\/em>\u00a0increase in the decade following the federal ban\u2019s expiration, but that increase is mostly from incidents involving\u00a0non<\/em>\u2013assault<\/em>\u00a0weapons. Pre-ban, 19 mass shootings with non-assault weapons resulted in 120 fatalities. During the ban, 26 such shootings resulted in 131 fatalities. Post-ban, 38 non-assault-weapon shootings resulted in 258 fatalities.<\/p>\n This all suggests that banning \u201cassault weapons\u201d does not affect mass shootings.<\/p>\n Mass shootings are unspeakable tragedies that take innocent lives, shatter families, and traumatize communities. Nobody wants guns in the hands of mass murderers. But the perception that the problem is with the firearm rather than the shooter obscures the complexities surrounding the actual causes of mass shootings and diverts policymakers from effective prevention measures.<\/p>\n One thing is clear: The search for meaningful solutions is not advanced by studying apples but making claims about oranges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, those who want to ban guns from the citizenry are liars. Yes, we know that. Fact-Check: Mass Shootings Actually Increased During Federal \u2018Assault Weapons\u2019 Ban A widely cited study used to push for more state \u2018assault weapons\u2019 bans is flawed and does not show that the 1994 federal ban saved lives. \u201cAssault weapons\u201d ban … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,95,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deceit","category-mendacity","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"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=89735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89736,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89735\/revisions\/89736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Defining \u2018Assault Weapons\u2019<\/h2>\n
Study Includes Non-Banned, Common Handguns in Statistics<\/h2>\n
Data Show More Mass Shootings During Ban<\/h2>\n
Bans Are Not the Answer<\/h2>\n