David French from the National Review laid out 3 reasons why an Assault Weapons ban is bad policy.
First, an assault-weapons ban is irrelevant to suicide deaths. The large majority of gun deaths are suicides, and there is no credible argument that an assault-weapons ban will have the slightest effect on suicide. I’m not sure that I’ve ever even heard anyone make the argument.
Second, an assault-weapons ban is statistically meaningless to homicide deaths. Rifles of all kinds kill fewer people annually than knives or even feet or fists. An assault-weapons ban (really a ban on future sales; proposed laws would not take a single so-called assault weapon off the streets) would be aimed at a firearm that is rarely used to kill.
Third, there’s no evidence that banning assault weapons would prevent mass shootings. This is a key point. The post-shooting debate is often conducted as if folks think that if a mass shooter can’t get an assault weapon, he won’t shoot at all. Blocking access to a new AR-15 is not remotely the same thing as stopping a mass shooting.
The left’s attacks on gun rights is a very simple one. They use emotions and slow walking to attack gun rights. The emotion one is simple. They show you a scary black big gun and say ‘We need to ban it’. They then throw people being killed in front of you as a way to stop you from arguing. Slow walking is a name for describing the piece by piece approach leftists take when attacking guns. They make sure to never give up what they truly feel and ask to ban certain things one by one. Whether it is an accessory or a type of gun they look to take our rights piece by piece until they finally decide to come for the 2nd Amendment.
The bottom line is that an Assualt Rifle Ban would do nothing but infringe on the rights of the American people and David French does a great job of laying that out.
2004: DOJ led study finds Federal ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Did Not Reduce Crime