Mike Levin: “in the late 1980s and early 1990s, crime statistics indicated a growing threat posed by a military-style semiautomatic…”

“in the late 1980s and early 1990s, crime statistics indicated a growing threat posed by a military-style semiautomatic assault weapons in the hands of criminals. A 1994 report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, ATF, determined that while assault weapons made up only 1 percent of the guns in circulation in the United States at that time, they accounted for up to 8 percent of the guns used in crimes, ``thus making them preferred by criminals over law-abiding citizens 8 to 1.'' The ATF relied on data such as this to support the establishment of a federal ban on assault weapons. Such a ban was enacted by Congress as part of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and was signed into law by President Clinton. Following the enactment of the assault weapon ban, the National Institute of Justice, an agency within the Department of Justice, conducted a study that was mandated by Congress on the short-term impact of the statute. The study found that crimes involving assault weapons dropped 20 percent in the year following enactment of the law. Additional research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found deaths caused by guns dropped from 38,505 in 1994 to 29,573 in 2001. Ten years after the assault weapons ban was passed, Los Angeles Chief of Police Bill Bratton said: Since the assault weapons ban was passed in 1994, we have seen a 66 percent decline in the frequency of assault weapons use in crime.…”