Assault Weapons and Other Military-Style Weapons

ASSAULT WEAPONS THREATEN OUR SAFETY AND SECURITY

The Federal Assault Weapons Act

The Federal Assault Weapons Act, banning the sale of semiautomatic military-style assault weapons, was passed as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. President Clinton signed it into law on September 13, 1994.

The Act led to a dramatic decline in the incidence of assault weapons traced to crime.  In the five-year period (1990-1994) before enactment of the Assault Weapons Act, assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) crime gun traces nationwide.  After the law’s enactment, however, these assault weapons made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF had traced to crime - a drop of 66% from the pre-ban rate.¹

The Assault Weapons Act contained a “sunset” provision, requiring it to be renewed by 2004.  Although President George W. Bush had promised to renew the ban, he allowed the ban to expire in September of 2004.

Provisions of the Assault Weapons Act

The Act banned, by name, 19 different weapons:

• Norinco, Mitchell, and Poly Technologies Avtomat Kalashnikovs (all models);
• Action Arms Israeli Military Industries UZI and Galil;
• Beretta Ar70 (SC-70);
• Colt AR-15;
• Fabrique National FN/FAL, FN/LAR, and FNC;
• SWD M-10, M-11, M-11/9, and M-12;
• Steyr AUG;
• INTRATEC TEC-9, TEC-DC9, AND TEC-22;
•  revolving cylinder shotguns such as (or similar to) the Street Sweeper and Striker 12.

In addition, the Act made it unlawful to “manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic” firearm that can accept a detachable magazine and has more than one of several specific military features, such as folding/telescoping stocks, protruding pistol grips, bayonet mounts, threaded muzzles or flash suppressors, barrel shrouds, or grenade launchers.² The Act also banned “copies or duplicates of the firearms [listed above], in any caliber.”³  Further, the Act banned large capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds, however, assault weapons and large capacity magazines legally possessed on the effective date of the Act remained legal under the Act’s “grandfather clause.”⁴ The Act also specifically exempted by name 661 sporting rifles and shotguns traditionally used for hunting.⁵

Assault Weapons: "Mass Produced Mayhem"

The guns covered by the Assault Weapons Act were semiautomatic versions of fully automatic guns designed for military use. Whereas an automatic weapon (machine gun) will continue to fire as long as the trigger is depressed (or until the ammunition magazine is emptied), a semiautomatic weapon will fire one round and instantly load the next round with each pull of the trigger.  Semiautomatic assault weapons fire with extraordinary speed.  When San Jose, California, police test-fired an UZI, a 30-round magazine was emptied in slightly less than two seconds on full automatic, while the same magazine was emptied in just five seconds on semiautomatic.The military features of semiautomatic assault weapons are designed to enhance their capacity to shoot multiple targets rapidly.  For example, assault weapons are equipped with large-capacity ammunition magazines that allow the shooter to fire 20, 50, or even 100 rounds or more without having to reload.  Pistol grips on assault rifles and shotguns help stabilize the weapon during rapid fire and allow the shooter to spray-fire from the hip position.  Barrel shrouds on assault pistols protect the shooter’s hands from the heat generated by firing many rounds in rapid succession.  Far from being simply “cosmetic,” these features all contribute to the unique function of any assault weapon to deliver extraordinary firepower.  They are uniquely military features, with no sporting purpose.⁶ As ATF has explained:Assault weapons were designed for rapid fire, close quarter shooting at human beings. That is why they were put together the way they were. You will not find these guns in a duck blind or at the Olympics. They are mass produced mayhem^6.

These weapons “are not generally recognized as particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes” and instead “are attractive to certain criminals.”⁷ The firepower of assault weapons makes them especially desired by violent criminals and especially lethal in their hands. Prior to the Act, although assault weapons constituted less than 1% of the guns in circulation, they were a far higher percentage of the guns used in crime. ATF’s analysis of guns traced to crime showed that assault weapons “are preferred by criminals over law abiding citizens eight to one....Access to them shifts the balance of power to the lawless.”⁸

Mass Slayings of Civilians

Assault weapons have been used to perpetrate some of the worst mass murders ever committed in the United States.

• McDonald’s shooting - On July 18, 1984, James Huberty killed 21 people and wounded 19 others in a San Ysidro, California, McDonald's using an UZI assault pistol and a shotgun.⁹
• Stockton schoolyard massacre - On January 17, 1989, Patrick Purdy killed 5 small children and wounded 29 others and a teacher at the Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California, using a semiautomatic version of an AK-47 assault rifle imported from China. That weapon had been purchased from a gun dealer in Oregon and was equipped with a 75-round “drum” magazine. Purdy shot 106 rounds in less than 2 minutes.¹⁰
• Louisville, Kentucky, workplace massacre - On September 14, 1989, Joseph Wesbecker killed 7 people and wounded 13 others at his former place of work in Louisville, Kentucky, before taking his own life. Mr. Wesbecker was armed with an AK-47 rifle, two MAC-11 assault pistols, and a duffle-bag full of ammunition.¹¹
• CIA headquarters shootings - On January 25, 1993, Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kasi killed 2 CIA employees and wounded 3 others outside the entrance to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Kasi used a Chinese-made semiautomatic AK-47 assault rifle equipped with a 30-round magazine purchased from a Northern Virginia gun store.¹²
• Branch-Davidian standoff in Waco, Texas - On February 28, 1993, while attempting to serve federal search and arrest warrants at the Branch-Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, four ATF special agents were killed and 16 others were wounded with an arsenal of assault weapons. According to a federal affidavit, the cult had accumulated at least the following assault weapons: 123 AR-15s, 44 AK-47s, 2 Barrett .50 calibers, 2 Street Sweepers, an unknown number of MAC-10 and MAC-11s, 20 100-round drum magazines, and 260 large-capacity banana clips. The weapons were bought legally from gun dealers and at gun shows.¹³
• San Francisco Pettit & Martin shootings - On July 1, 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri killed 8 people and wounded 6 others at the San Francisco law offices of Pettit & Martin and other offices at 101 California Street. Ferri used two TEC-DC9 assault pistols with 50-round magazines. These weapons had been purchased from a pawnshop and a gun show in Nevada.¹⁴ 

• Click here to see examples of assault weapons shootings since the assault weapons ban expired in 2004.

Threats to Law Enforcement

In the 1980s, law enforcement reported that assault weapons were the “weapons of choice” for drug traffickers, gangs, terrorists, and paramilitary extremist groups.  Limiting civilian access to such weapons lessens the need for law enforcement to carry assault weapons themselves in order to match the firepower capability that criminals with assault weapons would have.  Law enforcement officers do not want to have to carry M-16s (the military’s standard battlefield firearm) as their standard service weapon.  In 1997, after a North Hollywood, California, shootout in which police were outgunned by two men with assault weapons, Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police stated:

An AK-47 fires a military round. In a conventional home with dry-wall walls, I wouldn’t be surprised if it went through six of them....Police are armed with weapons that are effective with criminals in line of sight. They don’t want and don’t need weapons that would harm innocent bystanders.¹⁵

For these reasons, law enforcement has been united in support of banning these weapons. Every major national law enforcement organization in the country supported the Federal Assault Weapons Act and worked for its passage and renewal. Among the many law enforcement organization that supported the ban are the Law Enforcement Steering Committee, Fraternal Order of Police, National Sheriffs' Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Major City Chiefs Association, International Brotherhood of Police Officers, National Association of Police Organizations, Hispanic American Police Command Officers Association, National Black Police Association, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Police Executive Research Forum, and Police Foundation.

States And The Federal Government Respond To The Problem

Prior to passage of the Federal Assault Weapons Act, the importation of certain types of assault weapons from overseas had been banned during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations.  Such bans were ordered by ATF under the 1968 Gun Control Act, which grants ATF the power to prevent the importation of guns that are not “particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes.”¹⁶

Under the Reagan Administration, ATF blocked the importation of certain models of shotguns that were not suitable for sporting purposes.  In 1989, during the George H.W. Bush Administration, ATF expanded this list to permanently ban the importation of 43 types of semiautomatic assault rifles that were also determined not to have a sporting purpose.  Later, in 1998, President Clinton banned the importation of 58 additional foreign-made “copycat” assault weapons in order to close a loophole in the prior import ban.¹⁷

In May 1989, California became the first state to pass an assault weapons ban. Numerous other states have passed assault weapons bans since California, including New Jersey (1990), Hawaii (1991), Connecticut (1993), Maryland (1994), Massachusetts (1998), and New York (2000).  The California statute banned the sale, production and possession of certain listed assault weapons and those that have specific military features such as pistol grips and folding stocks. People who owned such assault weapons prior to the law were required to register the weapons and were not allowed to sell or give them to anyone in the state.  California expanded its ban in 2000 to include all semiautomatic rifles or pistols that have the ability to accept a detachable magazine and contain any one of a series of military-style features similar to the list found in the federal ban.¹⁸  California also restricts the sale of ammunition magazines in excess of 10 rounds.¹⁹

In response to mass shootings and mounting public pressure, Congress took up consideration of a nationwide ban on assault weapons in 1989.  Over a span of five years, several bills were introduced aimed at curbing assault weapon use before final passage of the Federal Assault Weapons Act in 1994.

In hearings on the bills, the Senate Judiciary Committee explained the need to:

address the carnage wrought by deadly military-style assault weapons on innocent citizens and the law enforcement officers who seek to protect us all. Recent events illustrate again, and with chilling vividness, the tragedy that results from the wide and easy availability of guns with fire power that overwhelm our police, of weapons that have no place in hunting or sport and whose only real function is to kill human beings at a ferocious pace.²⁰

The Federal Assault Weapons Act Was Effective

Firearms deaths increased throughout the 1980s and peaked in 1993 at 39,595.²¹ In 1994, the Brady Law and the Assault Weapons Act went into effect. Since then, annual firearm deaths have decreased to about 30,000 per year, a drop of 25% from the 1994 level.²²  Stronger gun laws, including the Assault Weapons Act, played an important role in reducing the number of firearms deaths.

On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act

The Brady Center published On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act, which showed that the Federal Assault Weapons Act reduced the incidence of assault weapons use in crime.  In the five-year period (1990-1994) before enactment of the Federal Assault Weapons Act, assault weapons named in the Act constituted 4.82% of the crime gun traces ATF conducted nationwide.  After the law’s enactment, however, these assault weapons made up only 1.61% of the guns ATF has traced to crime - a drop of 66% from the pre-ban rate.  Moreover, ATF trace data showed a steady year-by-year decline in the percentage of assault weapons traced, suggesting that the longer the statute had been in effect, the less available these guns had become for criminal misuse.  Indeed, the absolute number of assault weapons traced also declined.

This analysis is based on crime gun trace data compiled by ATF of more than 1.4 million crime guns recovered across the United States between 1990 and 2001. It is important to understand that the firearms listed in this data are considered by ATF to be “crime guns,” which means they have been illegally possessed, used in a crime, or suspected of having been used in a crime.²³  If the Act had not been passed and the banned assault weapons continued to make up the same percentage of crime gun traces as before the Act’s passage, approximately 60,000 additional assault weapons would have been traced to crime in the last 10 years - an average of 6,000 additional assault weapons traced to crime each year. Former ATF officials at Crime Gun Solutions, LLC, including the former Special Agent in Charge of ATF’s National Tracing Center, analyzed the data for the Brady Center.

On Target also looked at the problem of “copycat” assault weapons developed by the gun industry to enable the continued sale of high-firepower weapons. These are guns, like the Bushmaster XM-15, Intratec's AB (“After Ban”)-10, and Olympic Arms PCR (“Politically Correct Rifle”), which gun makers produced to evade the federal ban by making minor changes in features to banned weapons.  The Act was designed to prevent this occurrence by defining assault weapons to include “copies or duplicates” of the firearms listed in the ban in any caliber,²⁴ but this provision was never adequately enforced.  Although these guns also pose a danger to society and have been banned in some states, On Target found that industry efforts to evade the federal ban through the sale of these “copycat” weapons did not eliminate the Act’s beneficial effects.  Even if copycats of the federally banned guns were considered, there was still a 45% decline between the pre-ban period (1990-1994) and the post-ban period (1995 and after) in the percentage of ATF crime gun traces involving assault weapons and copycat models. Moreover, even if all of the guns listed in Senate and House bills designed to expand the reach of the Federal ban are counted as assault weapons in the analysis, Crime Gun Solutions found that assault weapons traced to crime have declined more than 37% between the pre-ban and post-ban periods.

Additionally, several other studies show that the use of assault weapons in crime has declined since the 1994 Act.

Analysis Done for Senators Feinstein and Schumer

The conclusions in the On Target study are similar to a 2003 analysis of assault weapons traced to crime done for United States Senators Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer. This analysis showed that the proportion of banned assault weapons traced to crime dropped by more than 65% since 1995, according to ATF crime gun trace data.²⁵

National Institute of Justice Study

Following enactment of the Assault Weapons Act, the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice conducted a study, mandated by the Act, of the short-term impact on crime of the assault weapons ban.  The study, published in 1999, found that the ban had “clear short-term effects on the gun market,” leading to semiautomatic assault weapons “becom[ing] less accessible to criminals because there was at least a short-term decrease in criminal use of the banned weapons.”²⁶

According to the study, ATF data showed that crime gun traces of assault weapons dropped 20% in the year following enactment of the Assault Weapons Act, from 4,077 assault weapon traces in 1994 to 3,268 in 1995. This 20% drop in assault weapon traces was double the 10% overall decline in the gun murder rate that year, suggesting that, at least in the short-term, the ban reduced the use of assault weapons in crime. Moreover, murder rates dropped 6.7% below what the rates were projected to be without the ban, once researchers isolated the impact of the Assault Weapons Act by accounting for other factors such as murder trends, demographic and economic changes, a federal juvenile handgun possession ban, and state initiatives.²⁷ Murders of police officers with assault weapons also dropped from about 16% of gun murders of police in 1994 and early 1995 to no murders of police officers with assault weapons in the latter half of 1995 and 1996.²⁸

The National Institute of Justice study also found further evidence that the national decrease in assault weapons traced to crime was an effect of the ban. Assault weapon traces from states that already had their own assault weapons bans dropped only an estimated 6-8% in 1995, suggesting that the national downward trends in assault weapons traces reflected effects of the Federal ban.²⁹  Further, the study found that there were fewer assault weapon traces in 1995 than in 1993, suggesting that the decrease in assault weapons traced to crime was not attributable to a surge in assault weapon tracing after the effective date of the Assault Weapon Act. Moreover, analysis of assault weapons recovered in crime in two cities without preexisting state assault weapon bans, Boston and St. Louis, showed a respective 24% and 29% drop in assault weapons recovered in crime, supporting the conclusion that the drop in assault weapon use in crime was attributable to the ban and not to any potential biases in trace request data.³⁰

Maryland Assault Pistol Ban Study

A study of the effect of one state’s ban on assault pistols showed similar positive effects. In June 1994, a Maryland law took effect that banned the sale of assault pistols and high capacity magazines, including those manufactured prior to implementation of the law. A year later a study was performed, based on data provided by the Baltimore City Police Department, that concluded that 55% fewer assault pistols were used to commit crimes than would have been used had Maryland not passed a ban.³¹

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SUPPORTED THE ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN AND SUPPORT ITS RENEWAL

In poll after poll, the American people consistently supported the Federal ban on assault weapons.  In an ABC/Washington Post poll conducted in August-September 1999, 77% of adults supported a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons. That same percentage held firm through the end of 2003 when an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 78% of adults nationwide expressed support for renewing the federal ban. The University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey found in April 2004 that even 64% of the people in households with guns supported extending the law.³²

The Assault Weapons Act reduced the use of high-firepower assault weapons available for criminal use.  The expiration of the ban was a serious blow to public safety.

Updated April 2007

 
1. Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act (2004), available at http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/on_target.pdf .
2. 18 U.S.C. § 922(v)(1) and (w)(1).
3. 18 U.S.C. § 921(30)(A).
4. 18 U.S.C. § 922(v)(1),(2) and (w)(1),(2).
5. 18 U.S.C. § 922(v)(1) and Appendix A.
6. ATF, Assault Weapons Profile, at 19 (1994) (emphasis added).
7. Dep't of Treasury, Study on the Sporting Suitability of Modified Semiautomatic Assault Rifles, at 38 (1998).
8. ATF, Assault Weapons Profile at 19-20.
9. "Satellite College Campus Helps to Heal the Scars at San Ysidro Massacre," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1989; "A 77-Minute Moment in History That Will Never Be Forgotten," Los Angeles Times, July 16, 1989.
10. "School Killer's Last Days and The Kinds of Guns School Killer Used," San Francisco Chronicle, January 19, 1989.
11. "Rampage in Louisville," Atlanta Constitution, September 15, 1989.
12. "CIA Killings Prompt Scrutiny on 2 Fronts; Fairfax Loophole Expedited Gun Purchase," Washington Post, February 11, 1993.
13. "Cult's Massive Weapons Purchases Stir Up a Furor Over Federal Regulation," Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 2, 1993.
14. "Ferri Used Guns That California Ban Does Not Forbid," San Francisco Examiner, July 4, 1993.
15. "Police Fear a Future of Armored Enemies," USA Today, March 3, 1997.
16. On March 21, 1989, ATF announced a temporary suspension of the importation of five assault weapons. On March 29, 1989, ATF expanded the scope of the suspension to cover all assault weapons "indistinguishable in design, appearance and function to the original five" and established a working group to decide whether to make this import ban permanent. On March 30, 1989, a gun importer challenged ATF's authority to suspend the importation of these weapons. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld ATF's authority to issue the import suspensions. Gun South, Inc. v. Brady, 877 F.2d 858 (11th Cir. 1989). ATF then issued its working group report and, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 925(d)(3), made the import ban permanent. ATF, Report and Recommendation of the ATF Working Group on the Importability of Certain Semiautomatic Rifles (July 6, 1989).
17. In April 1998, ATF determined that the 1989 ban on the importation of assault rifles remained valid and expanded the import ban to include rifles with the "ability to accept a detachable large capacity military magazine" because those weapons "cannot fairly be characterized as sporting rifles." ATF, Department of the Treasury Study on the Sporting Suitability of Modified Semiautomatic Assault Rifles, (April 1998).
18. Cal. Penal Code § 12276.1.
19. Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989, Cal. Penal Code §§ 12275-88.
20. Hearings on S. 639 and S. 653 Before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, 103d Cong. 1 (Aug. 3, 1993) (statement of Hon. Joseph Biden).
21. Data available at http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate9.html and http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10.html.
22. Id.
23. ATF, The Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative, Crime Gun Trace Analysis Reports: The Illegal Youth Firearms Market in 27 Communities, at 5 (1999).
24. 18 U.S.C. § 921(30)(A).
25. See report released on November 5, 2003, accessible at http://feinstein.senate.gov/03Releases/r-assaultwepsrate1.htm.
26. Jeffrey A. Roth and Christopher S. Koper, Impacts of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban: 1994-96, at 1, 9 (U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice 1999) (available at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/173405.pdf).
27. Id. at 6, 9.
28. Id.
29. Id. at 6-7.
30. Id.
31. Douglas Weil and Rebecca Knox, Estimating the Impact in Baltimore of the Maryland Ban on the Sale of Assault Pistols and High Capacity Magazines at 2, 4 (Center to Prevent Handgun Violence 1995).
32. "Majority Backs Ban on Assault Weapons," Washington Times, April 26, 2004.