Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I guess the ban didn't work then?

With all of the past and latest hoopla about the evil assault thingies, you would think that law enforcement officers would be dropping like flies. You would be wrong. 55 cops were killed with firearms nationally during 2007 according to the latest data from the FBI..

Anti-gunners say that the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, aka the Assault Weapons Ban (or, apparently, the Biden Crime Law - think about that!), made an impact on the use of scary looking firearms in the commission of a crime, especially crimes where these scary looking weapons are used on cops. They were wrong.

Look at table 27 of the report. Rifles in general are not used very often, to say nothing about "assault weapons," and the frequency of rifle usage has actually dropped by almost half since the ban expired. Does that mean that the expiration of the ban caused the drop? Probably not, but it does mean that the expiration of the silly ban didn't cause the "blood in the streets" scenario like the antis thought.

Here is some useful information though:

Profile of alleged known assailants

In 2007, 62 alleged offenders were identified in connection with law enforcement officers feloniously killed. Of those offenders, the following characteristics are known:

  • The average age of the alleged offenders was 29 years old.
  • The average height was 5 feet 9 inches tall, and the average weight was 177 pounds.
  • All 62 of the alleged offenders were male.
  • 35 of the alleged offenders were white; 24 were black; and 3 were Asian/Pacific Islander.
  • Most of the alleged offenders, 58 of the 62, had prior criminal arrests.
  • 19 of the alleged offenders were under judicial supervision at the time of the incidents.
  • 11 of the alleged offenders were intoxicated or under the influence of
    alcohol at the time of the fatal incidents.
Emphasis mine. These killers were prior criminals who were walking about on our streets after they had been locked up. A third of them were under state supervision because they were know to be scumbags. Wanna bet they had rough childhoods too? Do we still feel sorry for them? I bet if we kept violent scumbags in prison instead of paroling them to make room for a hundred non-violent potheads then the small number of cops killed every year by criminals would be almost non existent.

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