Mike Levin: “this week, the Million Mom March entered the tenth week of its ``Halt the Assault'' bus tour. The bus tour is traveling…”

“this week, the Million Mom March entered the tenth week of its ``Halt the Assault'' bus tour. The bus tour is traveling across America in a pink RV and making stops in nearly every major metropolitan area in the country. Their message is simple. They are asking Congress and President Bush to act now to reauthorize the assault weapons ban. They are in Illinois this week and they will be in my home State of Michigan at the beginning of August. I hope folks in each State will join them to help convey their important message. In addition to banning 19 specific weapons, the ban makes it illegal 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. These weapons are dangerous and they should not be on America's streets. The ban was designed to reduce the criminal use of military-style semiautomatic firearms, and it has done just that. According to statistics reported by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, from 1990 to 1994, assault weapons named in the ban constituted 4.82 percent of guns traced in criminal investigations. However, since the ban's enactment, these assault weapons have made up only 1.61 percent of the crime-related guns traced.”