USA Today Editorial Board Calls For Semi-Auto Ban, Voluntary “Buybacks”

By Cam Edwards

AP Photo/Michael Conroy

A week after a front page editorial in the New York Post demanded a ban on the most commonly sold rifle in the United States today, the editorial board of USA Today is following suit by making their own case for a ban. The editors claim that despite the many reasons why banning semi-automatic long guns wouldn’t stop the types of active assailant attacks we’ve recently seen in El Paso and Dayton the nation should still move forward with outlawing the guns.

The arguments against reinstating a federal ban on assault-style rifles are familiar: Handguns account for the vast majority of firearm deaths; the 1994-2004 ban didn’t work; and there are already too many such rifles on the streets for a new restriction to make any difference.

But the fact that handguns are linked with far more killings is no reason to allow a military-style weapon that makes killing far more efficient and, for the hate-filled, more seductive. A fair reading of research into the 1994 ban shows the law lapsed too soon to conclusively assess its effectiveness. That law might have relied too heavily on defining assault rifles …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms