Could a ban on assault rifles curtail mass shootings?
Robert Spitzer, distinguished service professor and chair of the political science department at the State University of New York, College at Cortland and author of Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights (Oxford University Press, 2015), weighs the repercussions of a ban, in light of the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history in Orlando.
He also delves into the impact the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, which lasted from 1994-2004, had on mass shootings.
Spitzer said while research about the impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban hints that the law curbed gun violence, most of the research is inconclusive, but there are more contemporary examples of effective gun laws in U.S. states that would have made the purchase of the AR-15-style assault rifle and a Glock handgun used in the Orlando shooting, impossible to obtain, legally.
"In New York to purchase a handgun there is a very rigorous process than that which exists in Florida," Spitzer said. "And the many behavioral problems that this man exhibited in Florida, which were well known to friends, coworkers etc., were irrelevant to him getting a legal permit, but would be relevant if he lived in New York. And indeed, in all likelihood he would not have been able to obtain a handgun legally in New York because of its much more rigorous procedures. With respect to assault weapons, it's legal to own assault weapons in New York State but they're two very important things: one is that those weapons have to be modified or manufactured so that you cannot drop out or pull out a new bullet magazine, it has to be fixed to the gun itself, and secondly that magazine cannot hold more than 10 bullets. So you can't have a situation where a shooter can rapidly interchange one magazine for another after emptying it or that the magazine can hold 30 bullets or 50 bullets or 100 bullets. So the weapon itself is available but its ability to fire large numbers of rounds in a short space of time doesn't exist legally in New York and that I think indicates how it's possible to have a reasonable type of gun regulation that allows people to have those guns but not the big kind of firepower that causes so much mayhem."