Gun Ban Expected to Sunset
"Police chiefs lobbied Congress on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to renew a law banning 19 types of assault weapons, as Republican leaders announced that it will not be brought up for a vote this year," USA TODAY reports.
"The law expires Monday at midnight unless Congress reinstates it. President Bush has said he would sign legislation renewing the 10-year-old ban if it passed Congress. But that is virtually guaranteed not to happen."
In the Cato Handbook for Congress, Cato scholars Gene Healy and Robert A. Levy write of the ban: "Those guns do not fire faster than other guns, nor are they more powerful. Indeed, they fire smaller bullets at lower velocities than do most well-known rifles used for hunting big game. The assault weapons statute is purely cosmetic -- banning guns because of politically incorrect features such as bayonet lugs (as if drive-by bayoneting were a problem) or a rifle grip that protrudes 'conspicuously' from the gun's stock. Police statistics from around the nation show that such guns are rarely used in crime."
"Police chiefs lobbied Congress on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to renew a law banning 19 types of assault weapons, as Republican leaders announced that it will not be brought up for a vote this year," USA TODAY reports.
"The law expires Monday at midnight unless Congress reinstates it. President Bush has said he would sign legislation renewing the 10-year-old ban if it passed Congress. But that is virtually guaranteed not to happen."
In the Cato Handbook for Congress, Cato scholars Gene Healy and Robert A. Levy write of the ban: "Those guns do not fire faster than other guns, nor are they more powerful. Indeed, they fire smaller bullets at lower velocities than do most well-known rifles used for hunting big game. The assault weapons statute is purely cosmetic -- banning guns because of politically incorrect features such as bayonet lugs (as if drive-by bayoneting were a problem) or a rifle grip that protrudes 'conspicuously' from the gun's stock. Police statistics from around the nation show that such guns are rarely used in crime."