Leftist David Corn explains in
Mother Jones why the assault weapons ban failed:
The assault weapons ban proved of little value where it counted most: on the street. The legislation prohibited the manufacture, possession, transfer, and sale of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, yet it defined assault weapons in a manner that would allow gun manufacturers to skirt the ban without much trouble. It exempted 650 firearms and grandfathered in weapons and ammo clips produced or purchased before the enactment of the ban. "It was better to get what we got than nothing," the former Justice Department official says. And the measure's prohibition on high-capacity clips was probably its most effective provision. "Ultimately, the 1994 ban was almost meaningless because it was so defectively drafted," says Tom Diaz, a senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, who worked for the House subcommittee on crime in 1994.
There' s more:
The law did little to affect gun violence. Prior to the ban, nervous gun owners and dealers stocked up on assault weapons and the high-capacity clips, and afterward gun manufacturers made cosmetic changes to semiautomatic weapons so these guns would not violate the new law. And the 1994 federal ban was passed with a built-in 2004 expiration date. When the time ran out, then-President George W. Bush did nothing to extend the law. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama called for reviving the assault weapons ban. But after he became president, his administration took no steps to do so. Guns were too hot (politically) to touch.
Some honesty here.
