September 14, 2004

If Congress and the Bush administration were serious about protecting our homeland, they would have renewed the ban on assault weapons, which expired Sept. 13.

The 10-year-old bill, which President Clinton signed into law in 1994, had banned 19 types of military-style assault weapons and limited magazine clips to 10 rounds.

Now that the ban has expired, law enforcement officials warn that gun crimes will increase. The International Association of Chiefs of Police says the weapons ban has helped reduce the crime rate.

What's more, public polls consistently show a vast majority of Americans support the ban.

But the National Rifle Association (NRA) opposes it, and the electoral clout of this powerful group apparently has persuaded Congress to ignore common sense.

President Bush said he favored the measure and promised to sign it if it reached his desk. But he has not pushed Congress to renew the weapons ban, and has been eerily inert on an issue that law enforcement officials insist endangers homeland security.

Bush even refused to meet with the police chiefs to discuss the ban.

"We cannot afford a repeat of the carnage on our streets in the 1970s and '80s," Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton said at a news conference of police chiefs. "We need sanity in our gun laws."

But apparently sanity is less important than political expedience.

Bush is avidly seeking the NRA's important endorsement, which it has withheld pending the outcome of the assault weapon legislation.

What's more, many Democratic politicians recall that they lost the House the same year Clinton signed the ban. Although Congress members will never admit to succumbing to the NRA's blandishments, the threat of retaliation was in the air. Meanwhile, congressional opponents of the legislation, like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, derided it as just "a feel-good piece of legislation" that would do nothing to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.

The NRA says it fought to kill the ban for the sake of the Second Amendment and for the right of Americans to be armed.

As a result, we now can legally purchase domestically manufactured AK-47s, TEC-9s, MAC-10s and Uzis again.

We can also buy ammunition clips that carry many more bullets than the 10 round-limit imposed by the ban.

The question is who needs that kind of firepower.

Hunters? Not very likely.

Drug dealers? No doubt.

Not to say the ban was foolproof. Gun manufacturers simply renamed their weapons and made minor modifications to skirt the ban. And weapons sold before the ban were exempt.

But, according to evidence cited by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the percentage of outlawed weapons involved in crime has fallen after the ban was imposed.

"The assault weapons legislation has worked," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in a speech delivered before the ban expired. "No legal owner has been denied a weapon. No weapon has been confiscated. Yet, the supply of these weapons on the streets has declined."

Gun makers have been ramping up their production in anticipation of the ban's expiration, and reports abound that there is a pent-up demand for these weapons and high-capacity clips.

While the gun dealers and manufacturers may be doing a swift business in the days ahead, the streets are getting meaner.

Salim Muwakkil is senior editor of In These Times magazine (www.inthesetimes.com), a Chicago-based publication, and a contributing writer to the Chicago Tribune. He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.