Guns That Nobody Needs

Not everyone agrees on the need for a comprehensive ban on firearms. That’s a controversial issue on which it is possible to have lively argument indeed. But a lot of people, it seems to us, would agree that there’s no justification for anyone possessing a rifle similar to an M-16, the firearm that was standard issue for U.S. soldiers fighting in Vietnam. Yet guns like this are all too readily purchasable.

One such commonly availably gun is the Colt Sporter, a semiautomatic altered for so-called “civilian use.” But what possible use could it have--except to kill other citizens as rapidly as possible? Law-abiding game hunters don’t use such a weapon. Why shouldn’t it be banned?

In 1989 the California Legislature tried to ban military-style assault weapons. But the eventually approved legislation, in outlawing 67 semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns, was worded in such a way that allowed manufacturers to skirt the prohibition by merely changing model numbers or slightly altering a design. One of these copycat weapons, the DC-TEC-9, was used last July by Gian Luigi Ferri to kill eight people in a San Francisco office tower.

What’s terribly ironic here is that the gun lobby, which worked so hard to weaken the legislation in the first place, now takes the position that since the law is full of holes it should be junked. But the opposite should happen. The Legislature should stop caving in to intimidation and threats and pass a stronger, generic ban that includes a broad definition of an assault weapon. That way, guns with features such as a high-volume detachable magazine, folding stock, pistol grip and a short barrel would be less available for ripping human bodies apart.

On the federal level, a helpful assault gun ban has been authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). It passed the Senate as an amendment to the crime bill and now goes to the House. It’s true that assault weapons are involved in only a small percentage of shootings and that there’s no way to stop all armed lunatics. But that shouldn’t be an excuse to continue to allow people access to a class of weapons with the capability to cause carnage. President Clinton was right the other day when he said Congress should approve a crime bill with an assault gun ban.