Study: ‘Assault Weapons’ and Magazine Bans Do Not Lower Homicide Rates

A study on state-level gun control laws in the U.S. shows that bans on “high-capacity” magazines and “assault weapons” do not lower homicide rates.

The study was headed by Boston University School of Public Health’s Michael Siegel and another listed study author was Harvard gun control advocate David Hemenway.

The study, The Impact of State Firearm Laws on Homicide and Suicide Deaths in the USA, 1991–2016: a Panel Study, isolated four states to study ten different types of gun control to see if certain gun controls were successful in reducing homicide and/or suicide rates. Via their research, they discovered that “high-capacity” magazine and “assault weapons” bans do not lower homicide rates.

In an interview with Futurity.org, lead study author Michael Spiegel elaborated: “Although I completely understand the desire to ban assault weapons, I just don’t see empirical evidence that such bans have any substantial impact on homicide rates. These bans are most often based on characteristics of guns that are not directly tied to their lethality.”

He observed, “Laws regulating the sale of assault weapons are unlikely to have a large impact on homicide rates, because these weapons are used in only a very small proportion of homicides. The vast majority of firearm homicides in the United States are committed with handguns.”

The study Spiegel oversaw also shows researchers discovered “changes in household gun ownership were not found to be significantly associated with homicide or suicide rates.” This runs 180 degrees counter to the Left’s incessant claims that a gun in the house puts the homeowner at greater risk.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.