A 10-year-old federal ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons expired Monday, allowing members of the firearm industry to now legally produce and distribute the guns in the United States.
The bill, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994, prohibited 19 types of military-style assault weapons. The ban expired because Congress did not reauthorize it as prescribed in the original legislation.
Studies by special-interest policy groups and the Justice Department show conflicting results as to whether the ban reduced violent crime, but local officials involved with gun violence prevention remained concerned about the overturn’s effects.
“Naturally our police department is disappointed that the ban was not renewed because the expiration of the ban could affect the availability of assault weapons in our community,” Durham Police Department Chief Steven Chalmers said in a prepared statement. “We are certainly concerned about how this could affect gun violence in Durham and other communities.”
In a prepared statement, Rob Faggart, coordinator for Durham’s Project Safe Neighborhoods program, expressed disappointment over the public’s new access to the weapons, which include such firearms as the TEC-9. Some foreign-produced weapons, such as the Russian- or Chinese- produced AK-47s and the Uzi from Israel, are still banned as a result of a 1989 law prohibiting their importation.
“Unfortunately, the expiration of the assault weapons ban will make it easier for criminals to gain access to deadlier weapons, endangering the lives of citizens and law enforcement officers,” Faggart said.
Gun manufacturers contest claims that lifting the ban will result in a run on the weapons or inundate the market.
“The thought that people are lined up around the block or that guns are going to flood the streets, that’s nonsense,” Mark Westrom, owner of ArmaLite Inc., a gun manufacturing company, told The Associated Press.
Others, including Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said the differences between guns allowed under the ban and the previously banned assault rifles were merely “cosmetic.”
“To lead anyone to believe we’re talking about a class of guns that’s more powerful, makes bigger holes, shoots more rapidly is not true,” LaPierre said Monday on “The Early Show.”
Other regulations concerning the sale or possession of assault weapons, including individual states’ laws and the federally-mandated background checks established through the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, will stand in light of the ban’s expiration, FBI officials said.
About a dozen states, including California, Connecticut and New York, have additional bans on the firearms, but North Carolina does not legislate the possession, manufacture or sale of assault weapons.
The Associated Press contributed the story.
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