GQ: Banning ‘Assault Weapons’ Would Have Nearly Zero Effect on Crime

Participants fire their infantry and assault rifles during the traditional 'Ruetlischiesse
REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
AWR Hawkins

On October 28, GQ magazine published an article which highlighted the fact that banning “assault weapons” would have nearly zero effect on crime.

GQ’s exact words: “Banning assault weapons would do almost nothing.”

According to GQ, the push to ban “assault weapons” is misplaced and misses the fact that very few homicides are committed with any type of rifle, much less an “assault” rifle (i.e., “assault weapon”).

GQ observes:

After every high-profile shooting, Democrats like Hillary Clinton call for a ban on “assault weapons,” the military-style rifles that have been dubbed the weapon of choice for mass shooters. There’s a problem with this popular liberal idea: banning these guns would not do much to save American lives. Only 3.6 percent of America’s gun murders are committed with any kind of rifle, according to FBI data. The majority of gun murders are committed with handguns.

And GQ stresses that this is not new news — that “the Democrat staffers who wrote the now-expired 1994 federal assault weapon ban knew it was a largely symbolic policy.”

This ties back perfectly to a September 26 story in which Breitbart News reported FBI statistics showing twice as many people were killed with hands and fists in 2015 than were killed with rifles of any kind. In a subsequent story, Breitbart News reported FBI statistics to show three times more people were stabbed to death in 2015 than were killed with rifles and shotguns combined.

GQ’s observation that banning “assault weapons” would really have no impact on crime comes as Hillary Clinton is campaigning for an “assault weapons” ban and Donald Trump is campaigning against it. Trump has been vocal against “assault weapons” bans, clearly stating that Americas should be able to own the “firearm of their choice.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.