Growing up with movies with action packed scenes, as the main protagonist fights the villains henchmen well they have guns that can fire 25 rounds per second. Seeing those guns in actions on the big screens made me want one bad. I now know why my parents didn’t want me to have a gun like AR-15 or an AK-47. The guns weren’t even illegal for our family to have anymore. Here is a history lesson to explain that, in 1994 the assault weapons ban was put into play to help with the Violent Crime Control and The Law Enforcement act. This law made any assault rifle type weapons illegal. That law ended in 2004. Some people today think we need to bring back the Assault weapon ban. But do we need it back? I don't think we need to bring back the assault weapon ban but this is why I think this.

Small amounts of people were killed by assault weapons per year. According to the article  “Assault weapon ‘problem’ overblown” written by Mark Burton of the Daily Herald, all homicides the ones that were caused by a firearm 2.5% which is 323 of all homicides homicides, but not all rifles are assault rifles. Only 20% of all rifle homicides have something to do with assault rifles. That is only 64 of all homicides or .05% of all homicides. What if we take other weapons in account for the homicides and compare them to assault-style weapons. Of all the homicides done with different weapons 13% were done with “Cutting instruments” such as knives. The “cutting instruments” have killed more people then assault- style weapons. But it’s not just its not just “cutting instruments” that have caused more homicides than any kind of assault rifle type weapons. In the category “other weapons” think bats, shovels and croquet mallets, account for 6.7% of all homicides. Once again bigger numbers then assault-style weapons. So the evidence clearly states assault rifle type weapons killed as much as some melee weapons. The crimes done with assault rifle type weapons has the same small numbers.

Gun homicides have gone up throughout the years. But assault-style weapons have not been apart of those homicides. The Huffington Post published an article; “Thousands of Americans are Gunned Down Each Year, But Few Die From Assault-Style Rifle.” By Nick Wing Nationally assault-style weapons; for example,the AR-15, have only accounted for 1.4 percent of crimes. In 2016 there was 267 incidents involving assault-style weapons.not only homicides but weapon thefts, arrest for illegal possession and arrest for people just firing the weapons. Those deaths are only 2% of the 6,153 gun deaths and less than 1% of the 12,560 gun deaths and injuries. If those numbers seem high; according to The Huffington Post the U.S has some of the highest death by gun rates in the  world. Are the prices of assault rifle type weapons that high? Well the article states “Some supporters of stricter gun laws argue it’s far too easy to obtain firearms like the shooter’s Sig Sauer MCX, An $1,800 semi-automatic rifle and a cousin of the highly popular AR-15.” Not to high of a price to get the gun, but most crimes the person with the gun needs money so they can not buy that gun. But the law was just too weak in the first place.

According to The New York times “... 59 percent of likely voters said they favor a ban.” that was taken ten years after the first ban ended in 2004.  They also said that gun control advocates said “The law that barred the sale of assault weapons 1994 to 2004 had little difference.” they also said  “It turns out that big, scary military rifles don't kill the vast majority of 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.” They state that “In 2012, only 322 people people were murdered with any kind of rifle…” They said any kind of rifle not just assault rifles, so that number would drop if we took out every kind of rifle except the assault rifles. Military-style weapons have only been apart of 2% of gun crimes nationwide before the ban. The ban did reduce the number of assault weapons found by police officers, but just by one percent. To be honest the ban was too weak and barely helped with gun crimes in the years it was put together.

All those action movies that made me want an assault rifle. Helped me realise that most of the guns we see on TV, killing all those people with just a few shots, is not like how they are in real life. Most guns like that can not take out that many people with a few rounds and that’s why we don’t need the ban back. Not only did it not help with gun control and gun deaths when the law was in place it would help now because it wouldn’t serve a purpose. Assault-style rifles aren’t a big problem with homicides and crimes. When the ban was done, the crimes with assault rifles have gone down, so why would we need the ban back? If we come out with another ban, why not just ban all guns? Because handguns have caused more death than assault-style rifles each year. If we get another ban, we would have to ban all guns; otherwise, nothing would change. Crimes done with assault-style rifles would just stay the same without the ban.