Discussion on “Assault Weapons”
Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, recently spoke with a Washington Bureau of Gun Control, claiming that the term “assault weapon” is merely a “made-up category.” In her remarks, Dhillon addressed Denver’s ban on what are referred to as “assault rifles,” including the widely used AR-15.
She emphasized, “It’s a made-up category, the concept of ‘assault rifle’ or ‘assault weapon.’ It’s just an adjective applied to an effective and popular firearm or category of firearms.”
A report from Breitbart News referenced a 2014 article in the New York Times, which suggested that the term “assault weapon” was invented by Democrats in the 1990s as part of a strategy to ban certain firearms. The article pointed out that America faced a spike in gun violence during that time, leading to this politically defined categorization of guns.
Despite a reported decline in crime rates from 1994 to 2004, the Times mentioned that investigations found no concrete evidence linking the reduction in crime to the ban on these firearms.
Additionally, Breitbart noted that a federal assault weapons ban study included comments from Professor Christopher Koper of the University of Pennsylvania. He stated, “We cannot definitively attribute the recent decline in gun violence in this country to the ban. And, in fact, there has been no measurable reduction in the lethality and harm of gun violence.”
