"When we passed the assault weapons ban, mass shootings went down. Nor do most mass public shootings involve "assault weapons." Fifty-five percent involve only handguns, and only 11 percent solely involve rifles of any variety. Based on these numbers, it's hard to argue that the ban did anything at all. When the ban was in effect, from 1995 to 2004, the figure stood at just 4.9%. The percentage of firearm murders committed with rifles was 4.8% prior to the federal "assault weapons" ban that took effect in September 1994. Only a small share of murders are committed with rifles, let alone "assault rifles," and that share has grown even smaller over time. Focusing on so-called "assault weapons" is not only not going to stop mass public shootings, but it won't make a difference in reducing murders at large. He doesn't seem to realize that over 92% of violent crime in America has nothing to do with guns. But once you adjust for population, there are many other countries, from Germany to Russia to Finland, that have comparable rates of school shootings.īiden says that we need common-sense gun laws, but what he proposes simply will not help. Since 1998, there have been a total of nine attacks similar to the Robb Elementary School shooting. Even including lone suicides, accidental discharges (including those by police) and gang fights, the number-as compiled by my organization, the Crime Prevention Research Center, is about half of what Biden claims it is: 470. But someone committing suicide in a car parking lot at 2:00 AM, two gangs fighting over drug turf in a parking lot after school hours and an accidental discharge in a firearms training class are not remotely similar to the sort of shooting that happened on Tuesday. When mentioning the Sandy Hook, Parkland, Santa Fe and Oxford school shootings, Biden claimed that there were 900 instances of gunfire at schools over the last 10 years. Instead of trying to bring the country together, it politicized the attack. While there have not been any problems with armed teachers, the number of people killed at schools without concealed carry has increased significantly over the course of the last decade.īiden's speech Tuesday night contained one misleading or false statement after another. There has been only one accidental discharge by a teacher in recent years, and that was outside of school hours. People fear teachers irresponsibly using guns or students obtaining a teacher's gun. Since the year 2000, there has yet to be a single case of someone being wounded or killed from a shooting, let alone a mass public shooting, between 6:00 AM and midnight at a school that lets teachers carry guns. Nineteen other states also allow concealed carry in schools. Teachers and staff can carry concealed handguns in about 30% of Texas school districts, so we don't need to guess how the policy would work. For example, the perpetrator of the Buffalo shooting from a couple of weeks ago wrote in his manifesto: "Areas where" carrying with a concealed weapon " are outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack." Just as with so many of these attackers, the man who attacked Robb Elementary School picked a place where people were banned from carrying concealed handguns. Unfortunately, his proposals won't solve the problem. With 19 elementary school students slain, President Joe Biden was right when he said Tuesday night that Americans have had enough. Another horrible tragedy occurred on Tuesday with the attack on the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
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