The Anti-Gun forces and their congressional allies are spending millions of dollars (some of it taxpayers) to promote their continuing shopping list of freedom restrictions for the American gun owner, chief among them are the “assault weapons ban”, Closing the fictitious “gun show loophole” and the perennial”registration” schemes. It should be noted that registration will require the “gun show loophole” legislation to pass first to ensure that no one can sell a privatelyowned firearm without checking in with big brother, but I digress.
Apparently, if all of these restrictions pass, the U.S. and Mexico will be peaceful Utopias free of all crime and violence-or so we are told. However, the math seems a bit fuzzy.
According to the Bureau of Justice, about 1.7% of crime guns originated at gunshows (Federal Firearms Offenders 1992-1998)
According to the ATF, “assault weapons” are used in about 1% of crimes (no specific citation available, copied from a BOJ report)
According to the U.S. Supreme Court (Haynes v. U.S. 1968) A criminal CANNOT be convicted of possessing an unregistered gun, because to register a weapon when you are a prohibited person is a violation of 5th amendment rights against self incrimination. Interestinglyenough both the Heller and Miranda decisions passed with a 5-4 margin, but Haynes passed 8-1! In short, registration will have a 0% effect. (That is assuming crime reduction is the actual goal, not just the stated one!)
So, if we ban “assualt weapons” close down gunshows and enact registration, the BEST CASE SENARIO is a 2.7% reduction in crime guns? Even for the Government that is a pitiful return of investment both of money and effort.
Of couse, I say best case senario becuse in reality the same criminals who would have bought guns from a private party, or used an “assualt weapon” would just go somewhere else to buy and/or use a different kind of gun so the reality is a 0% reduction. Gee, why wouldn’t I support a thing like that?
The better question is why would I vote for someone who does?
2alago 