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Kennedy

A Few Facts from the National Institute of Justice

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Wow, would you just look at what happens when people look at the facts, instead of screeching the "It's For The Children" battle cry.

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Ban on assault weapons didn't reduce violence
By Jerry Seper

The federal assault-weapons ban, scheduled to expire in September, is not responsible for the nation's steady decline in gun-related violence and its renewal likely will achieve little, according to an independent study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

"We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence," said the unreleased NIJ report, written by Christopher Koper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

"It is thus premature to make definitive assessments of the ban's impact on gun violence. Should it be renewed, the ban's effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement," said the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times.

The report also noted that assault weapons were "rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban."

NIJ is the Justice Department's research, development and evaluation agency — assigned the job of providing objective, independent, evidence-based information to the department through independent studies and other data collection activities.

The assault-weapons ban is set to expire Sept. 13, and at least six bills reauthorizing it are pending in the Senate and House.

The issue has sparked nationwide debate: The National Rifle Association has called the ban ineffective in curbing crime and a violation of the Second Amendment, while gun-control advocates have said the nation's streets will be filled with automatic weapons if the ban is not reauthorized.

The assault-weapons ban imposed a 10-year moratorium on the "manufacture, transfer and possession" of certain semiautomatic firearms designated as assault weapons. It banned 18 models and variations by name, as well as revolving-cylinder shotguns, and prohibited flash hiders, folding rifle stocks and threaded barrels for attaching silencers.

A number of the banned weapons were foreign semiautomatic rifles that have been barred from importation into the United States since 1989. The ban also prohibited most ammunition magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

According to recent surveys by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), firearms-related crime has declined to record levels. The violent crime rate has fallen 54 percent since 1993, and there were more than 980,000 fewer violent crimes in 2002 than in 2000.

But in the past three years, according to the BJS, federal gun prosecutions have increased by 68 percent, with the number of persons charged with federal firearms offenses rising by more than 22 percent in fiscal 2003, the largest single-year increase ever recorded.

The 102-page NIJ report said the assault-weapons ban was intended to "reduce gunshot victimizations by limiting the national stock of semiautomatic firearms with large ammunition capacities," although it said the automatic-weapons provision of the bill targeted a "relatively small number of weapons" based on features that had little to do with the weapons' operation.

The report said the removal of those features, such as detachable high-capacity magazines, was "sufficient to make the weapons legal."

In 1994, when the ban was approved by Congress, 1.5 million privately owned assault weapons were thought to be in the United States. The report said assault weapons were used in 2 percent of gun crimes reported nationwide before enactment of the 1994 ban. It also said assault weapons and other guns equipped with large-capacity magazines accounted for a higher share of the guns used to kill police officers and in mass public shootings, although such incidents were "very rare."

The report said the relatively rare use of assault weapons in crimes was attributable to a number of factors: Most assault weapons are rifles, which are used much less often than handguns, a number of the weapons were barred from importation before the ban was enacted, and the weapons are expensive and difficult to conceal.

"The ban's success in reducing criminal use of the banned guns and magazines has been mixed," the report said, noting that because the ban had not yet reduced the use of large-capacity magazines in crime, researchers could not "clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence."

The report said although the ban's reauthorization or expiration could affect gunshot victimizations, predictions were "tenuous." It said restricting the flow of large-capacity magazines into the United States from abroad might be necessary to achieve the ban's desired effects.

But it said it was not known whether mandating further design changes in the outward features of semiautomatic weapons — such as removing all military-style features — would produce measurable benefits beyond restricting ammunition capacity.

Past experience also suggests that congressional discussion of broadening the assault-weapons ban to new models or features would raise prices and production of the weapons being considered, the report said, adding that if the ban were lifted, gun and magazine manufacturers could reintroduce weapons and magazines in substantial numbers. But, the report said, any resulting increase in crimes with assault weapons and large-capacity magazines might increase gunshot victimizations, "though this effect could be difficult to measure."


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Kind of a tortured road there . . . lemme lay it out for the folks that didn't catch the parts left out.

Let's see, Jerry Seper of the Washington Times (ultra-conservative paper owned by the Moonies) is spinning an UNRELEASED study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice written by a research fellow at the U. Penn department of criminal justice.

So, anyway, the report starts out innocently enough, but how the heck do we know what parts of the UNPUBLISHED report are being spun by Jerry Seper? It's UNPUBLISHED! How can we check?

(Oh yeah, what am I thinking? The "liberal left" controls "the media".)
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Doesn't really matter what we know about the article's writer, or the study.

The democrats are claiming that the "assault weapon ban" reduced firearm-related crimes, even though we KNOW for a FACT that it had nothing to do with how a firearm operated, or what ammunition it fired; it had only to do with cosmetic features altogether unrelated to the firing of bullets. Tell me, Quade, what do we need to know about Seper or the study in order to draw our own conclusion that claims that the ban affected gun violence are just so much bullshit?

Or do you still believe that lack of a flash suppressor or bayonet lug make a gun safer? Do you also believe that the guns sold legally minus those features were not available (at even lower prices!) to criminals who wanted to continue to use "assault-style weapons" in their crimes?

So I don't care if I can't un-spin the article (if indeed it is spun to begin with -- which we don't yet know). I know all I need to know to logically dispel the myth that the AWB is responsible for any drop in crime, or any increase in safety for American society. It just is not logically credible.

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-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

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So I don't care if I can't un-spin the article (if indeed it is spun to begin with -- which we don't yet know).



Well, that's my point! We don't know, we only have the word of a journalist we know to be under the influence of an ultra conservative management. The study -wasn't- released, so we can't actually know what it says and we're left with the interpretation of it by Seper.

As for the rest of your arguments. You're asking for facts, not opinions. I respect that, but we're only seeing one side of the study as filtered through the eyes of Seper.

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The democrats are claiming that the "assault weapon ban" reduced firearm-related crimes, even though we KNOW for a FACT that it had nothing to do with how a firearm operated, or what ammunition it fired; it had only to do with cosmetic features altogether unrelated to the firing of bullets.



I -do- believe there was something about how many bullets the magazines could hold, so that's -something- to do with firing bullets.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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I -do- believe there was something about how many bullets the magazines could hold, so that's -something- to do with firing bullets.



Any yet there has been no reduction in the number of victims in multiple murders, or the number of multiple murders overall.

So tell me what good limiting the capacity of MY self defense magzines would do, please.


ps - to people who spend money and take care of their firearms, full capcity magazines were never unavailable, they just jumped 400% in cost.
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Hey, we're not going to get anywhere talking about this issue we've talked about ad naseum.

The "new" issue in this thread is the article you posted.

Now, have you been able to find the full study by U. Penn anywhere or are we to simply take Seper's word for what should be interpreted from it?
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Now, have you been able to find the full study by U. Penn anywhere or are we to simply take Seper's word for what should be interpreted from it?



Quote

"We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence," said the unreleased NIJ report, written by Christopher Koper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.



What, you think he's making it up or something?

(A) This matches up with all past independant studies.
(B) Not many reporters just MAKE IT UP. Selection bias and such is more thier style.
(C) Finding a study is harder than one might expect, considering the net. I haven't found it, but I figure it will come out in a peer reviewed journal and or an official NIJ release soon enough.
witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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What, you think he's making it up or something?



No. I -think- he may be seeing a 12 oz glass with 6 oz of H2O and I think he's seeing it as being half full, but I don't -know- if the glass has 6 oz or 9 or 3 because -I- can't see it.

What I -do- know is he has an incentive to see it -at least- half full because that's what his boss wants.
quade -
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The democrats are claiming that the "assault weapon ban" reduced firearm-related crimes, even though we KNOW for a FACT that it had nothing to do with how a firearm operated, or what ammunition it fired; it had only to do with cosmetic features altogether unrelated to the firing of bullets.


I -do- believe there was something about how many bullets the magazines could hold, so that's -something- to do with firing bullets.



Yes, and it had nothing to do with how many magazines of the ten-round-limit you could purchase or possess. Hardly capable of the tremendous benefit the gun-banners are claiming this shitbag legislation had on gun violence.

You are just gonna doggedly pretend that it's not evident on its face that the "assault weapons ban" could not, let alone did not, have the beneficial effects that the anti-gunners claim, are you?

MY point is that it does not matter one iota whether the study was even conducted, because we don't need a study to tell us what is obvious. The AWB could not have had a significant effect on "assault weapons" used in crimes because in the first place, they were used in a tiny fraction of crimes in the first place. And the AWB could not have had a significant effect on lethality of guns because the same guns could be obtained, minus a few insignificant (but fun-to-have) accoutrements, after the ban, and the PRE-ban guns that already existed before the ban remain legal to own and purchase.

So who gives a crap if this guy is biased, or his funding was conservative, or his study was unreleased? Do you need all that to tell you whether the ban was a piece of garbage or not? The rest of us don't.

-
-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

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MY point is that it does not matter one iota whether the study was even conducted, because we don't need a study to tell us what is obvious.



It's only "obvious" to those that only want to see the glass completely full.

The rest of us actually kind of like facts. I mean, take a gander at the title of this thread. I wanted to see some facts, but most of what is said in the article is Seper's opinion, not the facts of the study.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Let me give you some exerpts from a 1999 published NIJ study, just so you can see if it jives.

" A number of factors—including the fact that the banned weapons and magazines were rarely used to commit murders in this country...posed challenges in discerning the effects of the ban."

" ...other analyses using a variety of national and local data sources found no clear ban effects on certain types of murders that were thought to be more closely associated with the rapid-fire features of assault weapons and other semiautomatics equipped with large capacity magazines. The ban did not produce declines in the average number of victims per incident of gun murder or gun murder victims with multiple wounds."

"Given the limited use of the banned guns and magazines in gun crimes, even the maximum theoretically achievable preventive effect of the ban on outcomes such as the gun murder rate is almost certainly too small to detect statistically..."

"The public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated."



Oddly enough, I can't find that entire study online right now, either. :P
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It's only "obvious" to those that only want to see the glass completely full.



Quade, have you not read the legislation?

Take a look.

Is it really not obvious to you that they went after scary looking guns?

(by the way, changing a magazine adds about 3/4s of a second between last a first shots in each mag)


<by the way, what happened to the little link that used to let you link directly to a post?>
witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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"by the way, what happened to the little link that used to let you link directly to a post?"

This discussion is nothing to do with me, but isn't the 'copy shortcut' under the avatar over here..
<-----------http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1204035#1204035
As you were folks.:)
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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

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Definitely seeing it here, try logging out, deleting your dropzone.com cookie, then log back in, you'll need to sign in again.
Sometimes this works to fix phantom glitches like this.
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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

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Quade...

I'd still like you to find me ONE case of a guy fixing a bayonett and killing someone in the US other than in a war.

And I would like you to show me how a flash supressor makes any difference...

Or how a semi auto (Remember Full auto have been outlawed for civilians since 1938) M-16 look alike is any more dangerous than any of these I can buy today if I want from my local Walmart.

http://www.walmart.com/promos/2003_Walmart_Kiosk.pdf

In fact for most people a shotgun is a better weapon than a rifle.

And if I wanted to snipe someone a Win270 with a scope (COMPOSITE STALKER 270 6lbs 11oz 2361463371 $530.84) I could have one in three hours.

So the ban really has not done much of anything. Its just made the bad guys use uncool looking guns.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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"We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence," said the unreleased NIJ report, written by Christopher Koper, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.



Agreed. The ban has had little, if no impact on the drop in gun voilence. I wonder what has? Maybe it was this:

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But in the past three years, according to the BJS, federal gun prosecutions have increased by 68 percent, with the number of persons charged with federal firearms offenses rising by more than 22 percent in fiscal 2003, the largest single-year increase ever recorded.



Who knew that enforcing existing laws might have made a difference? Who knew?

We've got laws on the books to deal with pretty much everything, these days. We don't need more, we simply need to enfoce what we have.

-
Jim
"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

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I -do- believe there was something about how many bullets the magazines could hold, so that's -something- to do with firing bullets.



Interesting thing about magazines. You can carry more than one and they take less than a second to change. So no, reducing the capacity of a magazine DIDN'T have any affect on how many bullets a gun can fire.

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I -do- believe there was something about how many bullets the magazines could hold, so that's -something- to do with firing bullets.



Any yet there has been no reduction in the number of victims in multiple murders, or the number of multiple murders overall.

So tell me what good limiting the capacity of MY self defense magzines would do, please.


ps - to people who spend money and take care of their firearms, full capcity magazines were never unavailable, they just jumped 400% in cost.



Hmm, I like guns. I disagree with the assault weapons ban because it's just a poorly written law but...
Do you really need 25 rounds for self defense? Are you that shitty of a shot?
My desert eagle only holds 9 and I feel VERY secure that if I needed ot to prevent a home invasion that it would work just fine. Hell, I'd probably just grab the shotgun instead - as stated many times before, the sound of a 12 gauge pump action if quite intimidating and theres less risk of shooting something in the next room.
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What if there's three of them and they are shooting back so you have to run for cover while firing?

But, that's not even the main point. My Glock was designed and built stock to hold 18 rounds of 9mm. The modified, limited capacity 10 round magazines have been known to malfunction because they are jammed up with extra crap that's not supposed to be there so that they won't hold more rounds but still fit in the well.

When I'm target shooting I'd prefer not to have to stop and reload as often.

There's no reason to limit the capacity, so why should we? You're talking like a gun banner. "I don't need a gun in my neighborhood, so why should you need one?"

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I'd still like you to find me ONE case of a guy fixing a bayonett and killing someone in the US other than in a war..



This is something I've always wondered about - now I have guns and I like my guns and would like to keep them -

BUT - why in the hell would anyone need a bayonet stud on a rifle? And just how many people know how to use a bayonet without slicing themselves up?

Just curious...

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