Q: Is the federal ban on assault weapons working?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 26, 1996 | by Dianne Feinstein, | Dan Gifford

Yes: The weapons are harder to get, and police fatalities are down.

Common sense tells one that no hunter or recreational sportsman should need a military-style assault weapon to shoot a deer, duck or clay pigeon. If they do, they might consider taking up bowling instead.

But after a hard-won ban on the manufacture and sale of these weapons was passed by Congress in 1994, the National Rifle Association, or NRA, and their stalwart supporters in the House and Senate want to repeal this legislation. The ban prohibits 19 types of semiautomatic weapons with high-capacity magazines. The NRA calls it "cosmetic" and repeatedly has said that it is not working.

Why, then, is the NRA working so feverishly to repeal it? The reason is that even though the ban has been in effect for only 14 months, there are signs it is, in fact, having an impact.

Nationally, there has been a decrease in the use of assault weapons in crimes. The best information about the types of guns used in crimes can be found in police requests to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, or ATF, to trace the sources of guns and where and when such weapons have been purchased. In 1993, the year before the ban went into effect, the 19 assault weapons banned by name under current law accounted for 8.2 percent of all ATF gun traces. The ban became effective on Sept. 13, 1994; from that date through November 1995, assault weapons composed only 4.3 percent of all gun traces - nearly a 50 percent decrease.

The use of such weapons to kill police officers also has declined. In 1994, when the ban was not in effect for most of the year, a study by Handgun Control Inc. found that assault weapons and guns with high-capacity magazines accounted for 41 percent of police gun deaths where the make and model of the weapon were known. In 1995, the figure fell to 28.6 - a

Perhaps most important is the impact of the ban on the availability of such weapons. Because the supply is decreasing, prices are going up. A recent survey conducted by my office yielded the following information for three of the most widely used assault weapons:

* A December 1993 issue of Shotgun News listed an SKS Paratrooper assault rifle for $99.95. The advertisement added, "This may be your last chance to buy at these prices!" The same weapon was offered in the November 1995 issue of the magazine for $129 - a 30 percent increase - with the word banned in bold letters.

* Shotgun News offered the Norinco AK-47 for $695 in December 1993. By December 1995, the price had gone up to $850 and, according to the friendly clerk on the phone, only one remained for sale.

* In 1993, Shotgun News listed new Uzis for $795. By December 1995, the price was $995 - a 25 percent increase.

Supplies are down. Prices are up. And they will continue to go up as these weapons become more and more difficult to find. The ban is working.

Yet despite these very real gains in making assault weapons more difficult to obtain; despite the decline in the use of assault weapons against police officers and in all crimes; and despite sound reasoning and the will of 72 percent of the American people according to recent polls, opponents of the ban are determined to reverse course and repeal it.

Their relentless zeal is dumbfounding. Who besides drug dealers, gang members and revenge killers needs these weapons of war? Who do the politicians who are so willing to follow the NRA off a cliff like lemmings think they represent? Certainly not the public, who want these guns off the streets. Certainly not law-enforcement officers, who risk their lives against these weapons every day and strongly support the ban.

A report released in January by the Center for Public Integrity provides a clue. Take Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas - a vocal opponent of the assault-weapons ban and a candidate for the republican presidential nomination. The center's report, which tracked campaign contributions to various candidates, showed that the NRA is Gramm's biggest "lifetime patron," giving more than $440,000 to his political campaigns. The report also indicates that Gramm has not disappointed his benefactors, supporting the organization's interests on 18 major gun bills.

Last year I received a letter from a constituent, Carole Ann Taylor of Los Angeles, whose 17-year-old son, Willie, was, killed by a shot in the back from an assault weapon. "After 17 years of loving, nurturing and guiding my only child, Willie, through birthday parties, Boy Scouts, basketball games, job interviews, Christmases and many other joy-filled events," she wrote, "someone with an accomplice - an AK-47 - ended my son's life on a residential street as my son stood talking with a girlfriend on the sidewalk."

"I ask the 104th Congress," she continued, "was I in error to raise my son to live in a civilized society, or would military training for war have been more appropriate in sustaining his life? If, in fact, this is a civilized society, the assault weapon must remain on the ban list."

I couldn't agree more.