Popularity can't extend '94 assault weapon ban

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Popularity can't extend '94 assault weapon ban

USA Today | September 9 2004

Comment: The possibility of a staged school shooting to try and stop this ban expiring s dangerously high.

WASHINGTON — The Republicans who lead Congress plan to let the federal law that bans the manufacture and sale of 19 semiautomatic assault weapons die quietly Monday, without renewing the statute that is a symbol of the gun-control movement's success during the Clinton era.

The law most certainly will die, but it won't go quietly. A frenzied version of the emotional debate that occurred before the ban became law in 1994 is playing out here.

Supporters of the ban — including police chiefs from across the nation and relatives of gun-crime victims — are here to twist lawmakers' arms, if congressional leaders won't. Gun-control groups have taken out full-page newspaper ads that offer dire predictions of increases in violent crime once weapons that can fire several bullets a second are available for sale again. Today, a new ad will feature Osama bin Laden with an assault rifle, under the headline "Terrorists of 9-11 can hardly wait for 9-13."

On the other side of the debate, gun rights groups' Web sites are scoffing at the notion that the ban will drive up crime. The sites use clocks to count down the hours until the law dies at midnight Monday. Gun manufacturers are preparing to take orders on weapons that will become legal again.

The law's demise is playing out against a curious backdrop: Several polls have indicated that there is broad public support for the ban, and both President Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry say they support it.

So why is the law being allowed to die?

Because the politics of gun control have changed: Crime rates have been down for years, which has lowered the issue on the national agenda. The war in Iraq, fears about terrorism and other issues are getting more attention this election season.

And Democrats — many convinced that the ban's passage cost them at least 20 seats in Congress in the 1994 elections and that Al Gore's support for gun-control measures cost him the presidency in 2000 — largely have backed away from pushing gun control.

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