Bob Wise: “in this often contentious debate about gun control, I wanted to talk for a bit about why I supported lifting the ban on…”

“in this often contentious debate about gun control, I wanted to talk for a bit about why I supported lifting the ban on so-called assault weapons, but I would like to move beyond that, as well, as to what can be done. I supported lifting the ban because I do not think it has made much of a difference and I do not think it works. I also think that it is really false advertising. The fact of the matter is that this type of firearm that is sought to be banned is responsible at best, according to the Department of Justice, for something like 3 percent of violent crimes and many suggest in those statistics that it could be as low as 1 percent of violent crimes. Yet this is where 100 percent of the debate has rested for 2 years. I also oppose the ban on so-called assault weapons because I never have understood why it is that you can take two firearms and one looks a certain way, perhaps it has a bayonet mount on it or it has a flash suppressor or a folding stock, one firearm looks one way, another firearm looks another way but they both fire the same bullet at the same speed, at the same impact and they are both semiautomatic, yet one is banned and one is not. Once again, it seemed to me to be cosmetic. Third is because if these are indeed the cause of a lot of violent crime, then why is it that since this ban was passed, well over a year ago, why is it that there has only been one--that is right--one prosecution in the entire country under this law?”