FBI crime stats for 2014 show that no rifles of any kind–“assault” rifles or otherwise–were used to murder state residents in 2014, the last year for which such stats are available.
This is crucial information because it was just on July 20 that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D) unilaterally expanded the state’s “assault weapons” ban under the guise of saving innocent lives.
Healey announced her expansion of the ban by pointing to murders committed with “assault weapons” in other states–Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; San Bernardino; CA; and Orlando, FL–but mentioned none in Massachusetts. According to The Boston Globe, she pointed out that “10,000 assault weapons were sold [in Massachusetts] just in the last year,” but did not mention a murder committed with any of the weapons.
According to the FBI, there were no murders to list. No rifles of any kind were used to murder Massachusetts residents in 2014. Moreover, no shotguns were used. The fact that no shotguns were used is important because many gun-grabbers, when banning “assault” rifles, will include a number of semiautomatic shotguns in their ban, as well. We saw this with Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) attempted “assault weapons” ban following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
On July 21, Breitbart News reported that “assault weapons” bans, like the one in Massachusetts, have very little to do with stopping crime, but much to do with political opportunism. In light of the FBI stats, it is even clearer that the motivator for banning “assault weapons” in Massachusetts is something other than crime.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.