On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 10:32:40PM -0400, doc Zox wrote: > > In a message dated 10/9/03 10:09:10 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > I wonder how they are defining "assault weapon". > > http://www.vpc.org/studies/officetwo.htm >
Thanks for finding the study. I scanned section 2 and read section
1. While they don't say so explicitly, they appear to be using the
definition in the federal AW ban.
The study appears to me to have a major defect. The AW ban banned
manufacture of banned firearms, but not possession. There is no data
(unless it is in section 3, in which case it would be anecdotal) to
indicate whether any of the firearms were illegally made after the
ban. This means that the study says absolutely nothing on the
effectiveness of the ban.
The authors suggest the use of post-ban weapons with this paragraph
from section 1:
"The gun industry's evasion of the 1994 ban on assault weapons and
high-capacity ammunition magazines continues to put law
enforcement officers at extreme risk. Using data obtained from the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Violence Policy Center has
determined that at least 41 of the 211 law enforcement officers
slain in the line of duty between January 1, 1998, and December
31, 2001, were killed with assault weapons.8 Using these figures,
one in five law enforcement officers slain in the line of duty was
killed with an assault weapon."
But they don't actually say it and present no data to indicate it.
A gun smith told me that the half-life of firearms manufactured late
in the XIXth Century was more than 100 years. Given better metallurgy,
etc, today, I would expect that modern firearms will have an even
longer half-life. Thus, studies that do not indiate the date of
manufacture of the firearm will be utterly meaningless for a long time
to come.
--
Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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