Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.
To end the crisis [of gun violence], we have to regulate -or, in the case of handguns and assault weapons, completely ban -the product. We are far past the [point] where registration, licensing, safety training, background checks, or waiting periods will have much effect on firearms violence.
You can't get around the image of people shooting at people toprotect their stores and it working. This is damaging to the [guncontrol] movement.
One tenet of the National Rifle Association's faith has always been that handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns. For once, the NRA is right and America's leading handgun control organization is wrong. Criminals don't buy guns in gun stores. That's why they're criminals. But it isn't criminals who are killing most of the 20,000 to 22,000 people who die from handguns each year. We are.
Americans are ready to hate somebody -- and it's going to be the gun industry.
... immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act ... [which] would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.
The NRA is right...handgun controls do little to stop criminals from obtaining handguns.
The word 'hate' is a very carefully chosen word. There's got to be a real sense of revulsion and disgust. People are looking for someone to blame, someone who's the cause of their problems, and it should be the gun industry. These guys are the living embodiment of the slogan, 'Guns don't kill people-people kill people'. They're complete mercenaries.
Today's N.R.A. is, in reality, nothing more than a gun industry trade association masquerading as a shooting sports foundation. The organization's agenda is increasingly focused on one goal: selling more guns.
Although the District of Columbiahas had a ban on handgun sale and possession since 1976, Washingtonresidents are held hostage by the lax gun laws of surroundingjurisdictions.
Handguns are a public-health problem.
Fear, physical pain, and death are just part of the price Americans pay for the easy access of handguns. It is estimated that the total costs to Americans of gun violence (the vast majority of which involves handguns) is measured in tens of billions of dollars.3 In comparison, the wholesale value of the 1.3 million handguns manufactured in America in 1998 totaled only $370 million.
