{"id":1594510,"date":"2022-08-08T12:32:16","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T16:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1594510"},"modified":"2022-08-08T12:32:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T16:32:27","slug":"biden-and-pelosi-give-wrong-facts-about-assault-weapon-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-and-pelosi-give-wrong-facts-about-assault-weapon-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden and Pelosi Give Wrong &#8220;Facts&#8221; About Assault Weapon Ban"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-and-pelosi-give-wrong-facts-about-assault-weapon-ban%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1594510&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-joe-biden\">Joe Biden<\/a> and congressional Democrats are trying to reinstate the federal assault weapon ban that was in effect for 10 years because\u2014they claim\u2014it reduced gun crime. The bill, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/house-passes-assault-weapons-ban-along-party-lines-likely-doomed-in-the-senate_4631065.html\">which just passed the House<\/a>, will soon get a vote in the Senate.<\/p>\n<p>In the effort to get it passed, Biden and House Speaker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-nancy-pelosi\">Nancy Pelosi<\/a> (D-Calif.) made some grand claims, which they called \u201cfacts,\u201d about the previous ban on rifles leading to decreasing crime. But those facts don\u2019t appear to be backed up by evidence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSupporters of the bans are calling their assertions \u2018facts,\u2019 in an effort to mislead the public,\u201d Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) told The Epoch Times. \u201cMany of the Democratic Members of Congress were purposefully misleading in their assertions that the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban reduced crime. This level of willful ignorance would be comical if the effects of what they are trying to do wasn\u2019t so blatantly unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The ban was in effect from 1994 to 2004.<\/p>\n<h2>Pelosi<\/h2>\n<p>During that time,\u00a0\u201cwe witnessed gun crime with assault weapons drop by up to 40 percent,\u201d\u00a0Pelosi said on the House floor during the recent debate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe number of murders with rifles actually increased slightly when the ban went into effect,\u201d John R Lott Jr., the president of Crime Research, told The Epoch Times, referring to data from the FBI\u2019s annual release of reports from law enforcement agencies on homicides by weapon type. Lott also pointed out that no one collects data on all crimes committed with so-called assault weapons.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201cassault weapon\u201d is a political phrase referring to semi-automatic rifles with various cosmetic features. The House bill calls an \u201cassault weapon\u201d a rifle that has one feature such as a pistol grip, folding stock, or grenade launcher.<\/p>\n<p>While Pelosi makes it sound like there\u2019s a grave risk of being killed by a rifle, it\u2019s actually a rare crime.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/2019\/11\/with-all-the-concern-about-assault-weapons-how-has-the-share-of-murders-with-rifles-changed-over-time\/\">Lott has reported<\/a> that the percentage of firearm murders with any type of rifles was 4.8\u00a0percent prior to the ban starting in September 1994. During the 10-year ban, homicide by rifle was 4.9 percent of all murders. Then rifle homicides dropped to 3.6 percent after the ban expired in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>The speaker did not cite the source of her statistics. She could be referring to how all violent crime went down since the spike in the 1980s, which would include the small number of murders by rifles.<\/p>\n<p>You can see this in this graphic of the FBI data. The decrease was dramatic.<\/p>\n<p>There were 15,463 homicides by gun in 1994 when the ban went into effect and 724 were by rifles. When the ban expired in 2004, there were\u00a09,385 homicides and 403 of them were by rifle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe falling crime rates are more likely due to many other factors than firearm ownership, including a concerted effort and focus on prosecuting criminals,\u201d explained Keane.<\/p>\n<p>Pelosi\u2019s press office did not respond to a request for information on the source of her data.<\/p>\n<h2>Studies<\/h2>\n<p>Furthermore, there is no study that has proven that the gun control law had a direct effect on crime reduction. Quite the opposite, Rand\u2019s \u201cStudy of Gun Policy\u201d in 2018 (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rand.org\/content\/dam\/rand\/pubs\/research_reports\/RR2000\/RR2088\/RAND_RR2088.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) looked at various studies on the impact of the law on violent crime and concluded that \u201cavailable evidence is inconclusive for the effect of assault weapon bans on total homicides and firearm homicides.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/mmwr\/preview\/mmwrhtml\/rr5214a2.htm\">published a report<\/a>\u00a0in 2003 on evaluating the effectiveness of firearms laws and studied the assault weapon ban. It said that studies were \u201cinconsistent\u201d and thus concluded that, \u201cevidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness\u201d of the law.<\/p>\n<p>Ownership of these so-called assault weapons increased during the ban. Keane, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/gun-industry-group-tries-to-shape-senate-talks-11655578066\">the powerful gun lobbyist<\/a>, pointed out that during the ban, what his organization calls Modern Sporting Rifles continued to be legally manufactured and sold if they did not have two of the cosmetic features necessary for the rifle to be banned.<\/p>\n<p>Biden has been pushing incessantly for it to be reinstated since he took office on the basis that it decreased mass shootings. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/speeches-remarks\/2022\/06\/02\/remarks-by-president-biden-on-gun-violence-in-america\">said in July<\/a>: \u201cAssault weapons need to be banned. They were banned. I led the fight in 1994. And then, under pressure from the NRA and the gun manufacturers and others, that ban was lifted in 2004.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NRA stands for National Rifle Association.<\/p>\n<p>Biden <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/speeches-remarks\/2022\/06\/02\/remarks-by-president-biden-on-gun-violence-in-america\/\">also said<\/a> on June 2, \u201cIn the 10 years it was law, mass shootings went down. But after Republicans let the law expire in 2004 and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled.\u00a0Those are the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But an Epoch Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/mass-shootings-in-us-are-rare-despite-increased-attention_4627874.html\">investigation into mass shootings<\/a> showed that they are extremely rare and went up and down during the time period in question. As you can see in this graphic, there was no pattern of mass shootings in that 10-year period.<\/p>\n<p>The White House press office did not respond to a request for the source of the president\u2019s data.<\/p>\n<p>Pelosi echoed Biden with her own statistic, saying in a speech that \u201csince the ban expired, the number of mass shooting deaths has grown by nearly 500 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMass public shootings with assault weapons in the ten years after the ban sunset increased to six compared to the four that occurred in the ten years during the ban,\u201d Lott <a href=\"https:\/\/crimeresearch.org\/2022\/05\/biden-on-assault-weapons\">reported in his analysis<\/a>. He also reports that total mass public shootings increased between those two ten-year periods, almost doubling, but the increase occurred with non-assault weapons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Pelosi\u2019s claim is correct, we should see a drop in the percent of attacks with assault weapons during the federal ban period and then an increase in the post-ban period, but the exact opposite is true,\u201d said Lott, the author of the new book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gun-Control-Myths-politicians-botched\/dp\/B08C95PD1K\"> Gun Control Myths<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service <a href=\"https:\/\/sgp.fas.org\/crs\/misc\/R43004.pdf\">studied the impact<\/a> of the 1994 assault weapon ban and concluded: \u201cSignificantly while tragic and shocking, public mass shootings account for few of the murders or non-negligent homicides related to firearms that occur annually in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Motivation?<\/h2>\n<p>Why are top Democrats focusing public attention on legislation from so long ago that had no impact on violence?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are living in a 1994 mindset because we have an anti-gun political class that is still using the same old talking points when it comes to assault weapons,\u201d said an insider at a group that aims to protect Second Amendment rights. \u201cThey are highlighting the most emotionally compelling crimes [mass shootings] that are extremely rare\u2014less than 1 percent of all gun deaths\u2014to confuse and scare the public, but it\u2019s not working anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keane echoed this, saying, \u201cThese are the same politicians that manufacture terms to scare the American public with the term \u2018assault weapon\u2019 to purposefully mislead the American public and confuse Modern Sporting Rifles with the military\u2019s automatic rifles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While these kinds of scare tactics on \u201cassault weapons\u201d worked back in the days of the first ban, modern-style rifles have become much more popular and are in common use. The NSSF, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nssf.org\/msr\/\">reported this month<\/a> that there are now 24.4 million Modern Sporting Rifles in circulation in America. The trade association for gun manufacturers noted that means there are more of the AR-15 and AK-style rifles \u201cin circulation today than there are Ford F-Series trucks on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is a large part of the reason that the polls now work against the old talking points that Pelosi and Biden are using. Quinnipiac reported in June (<a href=\"https:\/\/poll.qu.edu\/images\/polling\/us\/us06082022_ughd88.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) that support for a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons\u201450 percent\u2014was the lowest level of support among registered voters since the poll question was first asked in February 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Now that so many Americans own or know friends and family who own AR-style rifles, they don\u2019t seem as scary. So when this bill gets voted on in the Senate, the public should be aware that banning these commonly owned rifles will not do anything about the serious crime problem in America.<\/p>\n<div class=\"author_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-emily-miller\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"bio\">Emily Miller is an award-winning investigative journalist and author in Washington, D.C. Her newsletter &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.emilypostnews.com\/\">Emily Posts News<\/a>&#8221; gives readers original, exclusive reporting and insider analysis.<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are trying to reinstate the federal assault weapon ban that was in effect for 10 years because\u2014they claim\u2014it reduced gun crime. The bill, which<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1581186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1594510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1594510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1594510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1581186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1594510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1594510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1594510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}