The majority of firearm crimes are not conducted with rifles but with handguns, most of which are not considered assault weapons (although most assault weapon bans also list certain "assault pistols" among the banned firearms). Although limited data on the weapons used in homicides are available through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Supplementary Homicide Reports and details of the weapons and ammunition used in mass shooting incidents are increasingly being compiled on a case-by-case basis (e.g., by Mother Jones magazine), none of the articles meeting our inclusion criteria for this policy analyzed crime or violence outcomes by weapon type. To most precisely characterize the causal effect of these laws on violent crime or mass shootings, the ideal data would distinguish crime and violence outcomes by whether a designated assault weapon or high-capacity magazine was used. In a mass shooting incident, the lower rate of fire should allow for more people to evacuate and for law enforcement or others to intervene more easily. That is, other things being equal, a shooter with an assault weapon or other semiautomatic weapon equipped with a high-capacity magazine can fire more ammunition and hence inflict more casualties in a given length of time than would a shooter using weapons with a lower rate of fire and capacity. The bans could impact firearm-related violence by decreasing the number of shooting incidents, decreasing the number of casualties in a given shooting, and decreasing the incident casualty rate. Both types of laws are primarily intended to reduce firearm-related casualties and fatalities from violent crime-and, more specifically, from mass shooting incidents. How Bans on the Sale of Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazines Affect Gun Use OutcomesĪlthough laws restricting assault weapons and those restricting high-capacity magazines are distinct constructs, these policies have almost always been implemented together in practice, so disentangling their potential effects is challenging. It was not renewed in 2004, and thus there is not currently a federal assault weapon ban (Plumer, 2012). The law included a sunset provision, calling for its repeal after ten years. Department of Justice, 1994 see also Pub. In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which banned "the manufacture of military-style assault weapons, assault weapons with specific combat features, 'copy-cat' models, and certain high-capacity ammunition magazines of more than ten rounds" (U.S. Furthermore, they argue that the characteristics used to differentiate banned firearms from nonbanned semiautomatic weapons are cosmetic and do not make them more deadly than similar weapons without those features. Those in the gun industry refer to many of these firearms as modern sporting rifles, contending that assault rifle applies only to fully automatic weapons used by militaries (National Shooting Sports Foundation, undated). In state and federal gun laws, it generally refers to specific semiautomatic firearm models that are designed to fire a high volume of ammunition in a controlled way or that have specified design features, such as folding stocks or pistol grips (for differences in definitions across states, see the state implementation section on this page). The term assault weapon is controversial.
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