Victor Fazio: “I rise in support of H.R. 4296, the Assault Weapons Ban Act. California, along with three other States and more than…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 4296, the Assault Weapons Ban Act. California, along with three other States and more than thirty cities and counties, already has its own assault weapons ban in place. The Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act, which is currently in effect in California, is the Nation's oldest assault weapons ban. It was enacted in 1989 in response to the shooting spree at a Stockton schoolyard, where a gunman armed with an AK-47 and several semiautomatic pistols fired over one hundred rounds, killing five children and wounding 30 other people before killing himself. Because it bans weapon names, instead of weapon features, however, the California ban has not been as effective as necessary in preventing the sale and use of new weapons. We are finding that some domestic manufacturers get around the ban by producing copy-cat weapons under different names. On a national level, we are faced with a similar challenge. As a result of the current ban on the import of 43 foreign-made assault weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF] estimates that 750,000 assault weapons have been kept out of the country--that the number of imported assault weapons traced to crime declined by 40 percent. Unfortunately, domestic manufacturers are also producing copies of these banned weapons, so the number of domestic assault weapons traced to crime remains the same.”