The truth about 'assault wewapons' and mass shootings in the US

According to Mother Jones (link below), 'assault weapons' accounted for 258 mass shooting deaths 1982-2017, for 7.37 deaths per year.

This 7.37 deaths per year represents 0.05% of total murders in the US and 0.07% of all firearm related murders in the US.

Further, this 258 total deaths by 'assault weapons' in mass shootings 1982-2017 represents 37.6% of total deaths in mass shootings. The most common weapon? Handguns.

In compiling this information from the MJ spreadsheet was as inclusive as I could be - for instance, some events involved the use of a Mini-14/30 and M1 carbine which are not necessarily 'assault weapons' while others included the TEC-9 and MAC-11, which are oversized handguns rather than rifles. I included them in the total.

Tens of millions of 'assault weapons' in the US, ~7.4 murders per year over the last 35 years?
More proof that there's no sound argument to ban 'assault weapons'.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data

 

So you want to ban handguns?

 

Maybe we should ban liberals or Democrats from owning guns. They do most of the domestic mass shootings. (besides the muslims, who favor Democrats)

 

Translation: You have no meaningful response to the OP.
Thank you.

 

You can't do that, it would infringe their 2A rights.

 

Well, you said that there was no reason to ban assault weapons because they rarely cause deaths in mass shootings, and then pointed out that handguns cause the most deaths, so the logic is to ban handguns.

In any case it's a dead (excuse the pun) argument. There will never be any significant new gun controls.

 

Assault weapon is a political invention to describe a rifle that looks scary to liberals.

 

Of course.
Just helping to illustrate their nonsense.

 

Yet they'll be the same people to say only 300+ people have died to terrorism to downplay it, while tearing at their eyeballs over AR15's.

 

The term "Assault Weapon" is a literary device, coined to fool people that know nothing about Firearms that these Ordinary Rifles are capable of massive destruction, something the full automatic counterparts are hardly capable of.

If you Ban A-Salt Weapons,
Then perhaps you Must-ard consider Banning Pepper Weapons too !

 

Not when 90%+ percent of the firearms used in murders were obtained illegally in the first place.

According to Pew Research, only 15% of the black demographic owns guns, yet the same demographic represents over 50% of gun homicide.

http://www.people-press.org/2013/03/12/section-3-gun-ownership-trends-and-demographics/

 

Perhaps, (I know it can't be) Democrats should pass gun laws only applicable to Democrats, then you would have something.

 

Yes, but you can't ban people from owning all guns because there are illegal guns out there.

Similarly, banning people of colour from ownng guns would also infringe their 2A rights.

 

I'd never suggest banning any law abiding person from owning firearms or anything else.

We already know that those who seek out the responsibility of obtaining a CCW are the most law abiding people in our society.

We need more of them, if anything.

 

I agree, and the numbers are on the rise, before Florida had Concealed Carry, we had hopes, I was a young man then, but now I am old, and yet I have lived to see the tide turn in favor of Law Abiding Citizens.

 

It was meant tongue in cheek.

 

Oh, OK. You know, given some of the commants about liberals on this site, I wasn't sure.

 

Yes
This "strategy" has been posited before

And always reinforces to me the theory that a lot of fear and paranoia surrounding the want/need to own a gun is related to interracial issues

 

See post #16.

 

Clearly, it isn't related to the "threat" related to mass shooting with 'assault weapons'.

 

Interesting - I thought MJ was too maligned to be used as a source - I have certainly been vilified enough times for quoting it

 

I used this information because MJ is known to be left-leaning and anti-gun, so if they are to "err" it will be on the side of more, not fewer, relevant crimes.
Clearly, reality does not fit the anti-gun narrative. Again.

 

We use the MJ data because its umimpeachable by the anti's.

Your chart presumes that 10 round magazines wouldn't have been just as effective as larger magazines or that "banning" them would somehow keep criminals from getting them, as there are hundreds of millions of them out there. It also presumes that lacking an "assault weapon" that the shooter would not have found a substitute. Since in 123 of the 143 shootings in your chart were committed with a firearm other than an "assault weapon", that assumption doesn't hold.

In the data listed in the MJ database, there were four shootings where the shooter used a single firearm to kill more than ten victims. We know that a single shooter armed with two handgun with 10 round magazines managed to kill 32 adults at Virginia Tech, reloading at least 15 times without being stopped.

In other words, your data doesn't show that any ban would have changed any shooting.

 

My roots and ancestry are multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, and I have relatives in many countries, the facts speak for themselves.

The first Gun Laws in America, were to prevent newly freed slaves from owning firearms.

The truth is Democrats have been trying to legislate Gun Control for a very long time.

Gun control is not based on facts, it is based on the actions of a few.

To illustrate, when I was in the third grade, a family friend worked ( Diners Club ) in an office, their custom was to use pencils to a certain length, then discard them.

He would bring me those pencils wrapped in a rubber band, and I would take them to school in my zippered pouch for pens and supplies.

The Teacher one day noticed my pencils and confiscated them saying I had too many pencils, gave them out to the class, I complained and she then accused me of stealing the pencils.

I had the man that gifted me the stubs write a letter explaining the pencils and how they were a gift to me.

The same Teacher took an expensive pen & pencil set I was given too, until I provided proof they were mine, the Assistant Principal finally asked her to not interfere with me unless it was warranted.

This is how Democrats deal with issues.
Gun Control too.

 

Exactly. It presumes confiscation of existing weapons and magazines, which as we all know, the 1994 ban did not do.
In fact, as we all know, the 1994 ban did not in any way prevent the manufacture of new 'assault weapons'.
Thus, the claim made in the graph (that supports the OP, thank you) is dishonest, at best.

So those less familiar with firearms will understand the statement, above: