Assault weapon ban not a cure-all

If you think the proposed federal ban of assault weapons is a panacea for America's pandemic of spree killings, I'd hate to be the one to burst your bubble with a muddy twig as it expands to head size.

The ban won't be a cure-all. For most Americans, it's not an inconvenience either, but anybody who expects everything to automatically be hunky-dory if the ban passes is going to be in for a disappointment. We know this from experience. The ban was in force from 1994 to 2004. In support of the ban, a user of Democratic Underground (the DLC-friendly website that threw Anthony Weiner under the bus) sarcastically says, "The ban was just SO AWFUL when it was in effect!" This user continues, "I mean, civilization reeled! Everyone who wanted a gun was unduly oppressed and the misery the Assault Weapons Ban inflicted can never be fully understood, it ran so deep!"

Well, the ban wasn't awful. But everything else that was going on at the time was. Look at the date of the ban again - 1994 to 2004. 1994 to 2004. Do you really want to return to those days? That era saw the largest increase in serious crime in America's history. Granted, it wasn't because of the ban - but because of right-wing policies like the rise of the police state, catatonic oppression of the poor, increasing censorship of media, economically ruinous trade policies, official encouragement of criminal behavior, school uniforms, wage freezes, and government inaction in areas where action was necessary. One thing I'll always remember about the 1990s and 2000s is feeling stupid for working hard and paying my bills while the Evil Empire was being mollycoddled.

Civilization did reel when the assault weapon ban was in effect. I'm not blaming the ban, but I place much blame on people who expected other factors to not matter. What I'm worried will happen is that the ban will pass again while everything else is left alone to fix itself. We must do much more that doesn't necessarily involve bans. We saw how inaction and bad policy destroyed lives in past years, and if nobody else acts, we must.