Multiple studies after the assault weapon ban expired and accounting for the entire period show that it was an effective law.
Observational, level II/IV.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Results: Assault rifles accounted for 430 or 85.8% of the total 501 mass-shooting fatalities reported (95% confidence interval, 82.8-88.9) in 44 mass-shooting incidents. Mass shootings in the United States accounted for an increasing proportion of all firearm-related homicides (coefficient for year, 0.7; p = 0.0003), with increment in year alone capturing over a third of the overall variance in the data (adjusted R = 0.3). In a linear regression model controlling for yearly trend, the federal ban period was associated with a statistically significant 9 fewer mass shooting related deaths per 10,000 firearm homicides (p = 0.03).
Mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the federal ban period (relative rate, 0.30; 95% confidence interval, 0.22-0.39).
Conclusion: Mass-shooting related homicides in the United States were reduced during the years of the federal assault weapons ban of 1994 to 2004.
He calls the results “staggering.”
Compared with the 10-year period before the ban, the number of gun massacres during the ban period fell by 37 percent, and the number of people dying from gun massacres fell by 43 percent. But after the ban lapsed in 2004, the numbers shot up again — an astonishing 183 percent increase in massacres and a 239 percent increase in massacre deaths.
Let's compare states with and without large capacity magazine bans:
Objectives. To evaluate the effect of large-capacity magazine (LCM) bans on the frequency and lethality of high-fatality mass shootings in the United States. Methods. We analyzed state panel data of high-fatality mass shootings from 1990 to 2017. We first assessed the relationship between LCM...
ajph.aphapublications.org
Methods. We analyzed state panel data of high-fatality mass shootings from 1990 to 2017. We first assessed the relationship between LCM bans overall, and then federal and state bans separately, on (1) the occurrence of high-fatality mass shootings (logit regression) and (2) the deaths resulting from such incidents (negative binomial analysis). We controlled for 10 independent variables, used state fixed effects with a continuous variable for year, and accounted for clustering.
Results. Between 1990 and 2017, there were 69 high-fatality mass shootings.
Attacks involving LCMs resulted in a 62% higher mean average death toll. The incidence of high-fatality mass shootings in non–LCM ban states was more than double the rate in LCM ban states; the annual number of deaths was more than 3 times higher. In multivariate analyses, states without an LCM ban experienced significantly more high-fatality mass shootings and a higher death rate from such incidents.
Conclusions. LCM bans appear to reduce both the incidence of, and number of people killed in, high-fatality mass shootings.
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We need to stop conflating everyday gun violence, which is its own wider problem requiring a different - if similar - solution, with mass shootings. There's a difference so let's not pretend there isn't.
We also need to try to find areas where the vast majority of Americans agree on taking action.
Banning all semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines is the answer. Let hunters go back to bolt and lever action rifles...
Common sense solution that most Americans can agree on. Most is the key word.
We can't allow this to continue.
