TLDR: The 1994 Crime Bill accomplished absolutely nothing because it did almost nothing. Mass homicides remained at the same level and AR-15's were actually used in more of them during the time it was in effect.
Many folks I interact with point to the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban (AWB) as an example of a successful measure in reducing gun related homicides and mass shootings. They posit that similar success would be a reasonable expectation with a repeat of the legislation. I thought it might be a good time to explore the bill's accomplishments, from a data perspective. Having begun shooting competitively during the ban, I'll also share firsthand insight in how it changed market dynamics.
For reference, the bill went into effect September 13, 1994 and sunset on the same day in 2004.
First, what was included in the bill?
Magazines - No magazines with a capacity greater than ten rounds could be manufactured or imported, after the effective date, except for those designated for law enforcement or military use, which were required to be conspicuously engraved as such. It was a major no no to be a civilian caught in possession of these. Magazines already manufactured or imported prior to 9/13/94 were grandfathered in.
Assault Rifles - What we've (incorrectly) come to refer to as assault rifles weren't banned outright. Instead, they were watered down to not be so scary. Rifles with detachable mags were only permitted one of the following list of attributes: pistol grips, bayonet lugs, collapsible stocks, or flash hiders, and grenade launchers. Threaded barrels were banned. As with magazines, those already manufactured or imported prior to 9/13/94 were grandfathered in. There were other rules, but they weren't applicable to the topic at hand.
What was the impact on gun violence?
Figure 1 shows gun related homicides from 1988 through 2011.* While it's obvious the quantity dropped precipitously, while the AWB was in place, the numbers had already begun to decrease when the bill was implemented. Also, it might be tempting to attribute the correlation between number of gun related homicides with the efficacy of the AWB. However, if the decrease did in fact come from the AWB, murders would have returned to pre-ban levels once it sunset, which they didn't. This is another example where correlation doesn't equal causation.
On the mass murder piece, Table 1 shows that there were the same number of incidents during the AWB as the decade prior. There was a slight decrease in the number of fatalities. However, the standard deviation on mass murder fatalities per event of 24.3, there's no statistical difference. AR's were used in more mass murders during the AWB than in the decade prior.**
For clarity, I use the FBI definition of a mass shooting (murder), which is an incident in which four or more people are shot and killed, not including the shooter, and the victims aren't related to the shooter. (i.e. excludes domestic violence)
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| Table 1 |
Table 2 breaks out the numbers of incidents and resulting fatalities, across various time periods, between mass murders committed with AR's versus those that used another firearm. You can see that the AR became more popular with mass murderers but didn't didn't become the most commonly used firearm until the most recent half decade. I'll come back to that later.**
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| Table 2 |
What was the impact to the market and individual gun buyers?
Rifles - You could still buy those without issue. There were plenty of used pre-ban AR's available for sale, although they'd more than doubled in price. New rifles were plentiful as well, with manufacturers simply producing AR-15's without the features the government considered scary. Don't believe me? Pictured below is an AR-15 I bought brand new during the AWB to shoot 3 Gun matches (pistol, rifle, shotgun); it was just as capable as the ones I own now.
Congress was seriously miffed and pulled in the heads of Colt and Bushmaster to explain themselves. I recall the president of Colt testified something to the effect of, "We're in compliance with the law; don't whine to us when you did a shitty job of writing it."
There were other dumb loopholes, as well. The most egregious was the exemption for the Ruger Mini 14, which fires the same cartridge at the same rate of fire and holds the same number of rounds as an AR-15. Just as lethal, but less scary.
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| Not Scary |
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| Scary |
"High Capacity" Magazines - Manufacturers did their best to compensate for the hi-cap mag spigot being turned off. For example, in the months leading up to the AWB taking effect, Glock was using their entire sea freight allocation to bring in almost literal boatloads of hi cap magazines to include with new guns. Other firearms manufacturers were taking similar steps, which meant there were plenty to go around at first. If you weren't able to grab one with your new gun, there were plenty of hi cap mags available on the secondary market, for a price of course. I recall the mags for my Sig P226 mags changed in value from $15 to $100 each overnight. I was forced to pay $50-60 each for scruffy 30 round GI AR mags at the time. Brand new, better designed versions currently sell for $10. In other words, you could still get whatever hi cap mags you wanted, but at an inflated price.
There was another interesting loophole in that if you already owned hi cap mags, you could repair them (i.e. buy replacement components) if they were damaged. I "heard stories" of my fellow competitors using this loophole to build new hi caps from components. I will neither confirm nor deny doing so myself to support the new competition racegun I had just built.
Ultimately, the numbers prove the AWB had almost no impact in reducing overall gun violence or the number of mass murders because it didn't really do anything meaningful. You could still buy anything you wanted on the secondary market, at a higher price. In reality, the AWB made the AR-15 more popular. I've already written how a gun dealer friend of mine said that he had droves of first time gun buyers come in to his store to buy one. He told me there were a few that literally walked in and wanted "whatever the government doesn't want me to have." While this may be anecdotal evidence, consider that when the bill took effect, there were two manufacturers (Colt and Bushmaster) supporting 95% of the market demand for AR-15's. After the bill sunset, new ones began coming online every year to support the spike in demand. Now, there are no less than a thirty major manufacturers making AR-15's, which have become the most popular gun in the country. The author of the AWB was of course, Joe Biden. Maybe a bit of irony the person who drove the greatest spike in popularity for a gun now wants to outlaw it.
The facts above haven't prevented those who want semiautomatic guns banned from posting falsehoods and nonsense data. The one I see most frequently is the chart showing how mass murders rapidly increased after the AWB sunset. Anyone who understands cause and effect / the scientific method recognizes the chart as the bullshit it is. The AWB was meant to decrease gun violence; was there a drop after the bill was put in place versus the decade prior? That answer is obviously NO.
In order to not perpetuate the falsehood that this piece of legislation was successful in its goals, I will no longer refer to it as the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban...it was the 1994 Crime Bill.
Update: I've been made aware of at least two studies that contradict my findings with respect to the bill's impact on mass homicides. The recent video from Robert Reich you may have seen relies on one of these. Both clearly had an intended conclusion they were seeking and backed into it in some sketchy ways. I'll address each and explain why I don't care about them.
1. A Study Conducted by Stanford Law: This is the one Reich used for his video. This study utilizes the same dataset as I do, but alters the criteria of what a mass homicide is to SIX or more fatalities. They justify this via someone's book I'm not paying $18 for. My position is if the FBI's definition is good for the FBI (and is the standard most entities use), it's good enough for me. We can all manipulate the data and reach any conclusion we want, which is why I'm transparent. FWIW, another author called BS on their findings and this was the article responding to it. In addition to data manipulation, they show a complete lack of understanding of how the bill impacted someone looking to purchase a gun (it didn't). Plus, they were bitchy and petty about being called out.
2. A column by some guy in the Ohio Capital Journal that references some nebulous studies by Dimaggio: This guy copy pasted a chart from the Dimaggio study and provides a link for the data. Said data only includes fatalities by year, with no detail, and those are hopelessly understated (by almost fourfold) versus the FBI's data. Yet, he claims to have referenced Mother Jones, which if you read the footnotes, is the exact same source I use for mass murder data. The data being wildly off and no detail on methodology make this piece a joke.
In conclusion, I'm done with this topic. I lived it as a gun buyer. I easily and legally bought the shit it was supposed to ban, so I know how it impacted the availability of the guns it targeted (it didn't). The data is what the data is and further debate on the subject is a waste of time.
**Source: Mother Jones Mass Shooting Database
***For the sake of simplification, I dumped all assault rifles into the AR(15) bucket, instead of breaking down the various subtypes, such as AK's, etc.
This entry is part of my "Gun Series" that focuses on providing insight into the gun debate and gun violence. You can find the other entries in the series
HERE.
About the author: Sean R is a recovering conservative who owns a consulting firm specializing in strategic marketing. He's been a competitive shooter since the early 90's and holds a High Master classification in PPC and a Master classification in USPSA. As an instructor, he taught courses in gun safety and competition. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his overly vocal dog, Sadie.
