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<\/a><\/center><\/p>\nEveryone is making a big deal about the New York Times article entitled “The Assault Weapon Myth” as if the NYT has had a change of heart in their staunch stand against scary black guns, but that’s not the case at all. The article was written by Lois Beckett<\/a> of ProPublica<\/a>. A quick look at her published work there tells me that she may be a supporter of the Second Amendment, whereas the New York Times is not. <\/p>\n Ms. Beckett makes some good points in article crossposted at the Times<\/a> from ProPublica<\/a>, the original title was not the same title that the Times used by the way. It was “Why Do Democrats Keep Trying to Ban Guns That Look Scary, Not the Guns That Kill the Most People?<\/em>“;<\/p>\n [I]n the 10 years since the [1994 Assault Weapon] ban lapsed, even gun control advocates acknowledge a larger truth: The law that barred the sale of assault weapons from 1994 to 2004 made little difference.<\/p>\n It turns out that big, scary military rifles don\u2019t kill the vast majority of the 11,000 Americans murdered with guns each year. Little handguns do.<\/p>\n In 2012, only 322 people were murdered with any kind of rifle, F.B.I. data shows.<\/p>\n The continuing focus on assault weapons stems from the media\u2019s obsessive focus on mass shootings, which disproportionately involve weapons like the AR\u201315, a civilian version of the military M16 rifle. This, in turn, obscures some grim truths about who is really dying from gunshots.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n Handguns were used in more than 80 percent of murders each year, but gun control advocates had failed to interest enough of the public in a handgun ban. Handguns were the weapons most likely to kill you, but they were associated by the public with self-defense. (In 2008, the Supreme Court said there was a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense.)<\/p>\n Banning sales of military-style weapons resonated with both legislators and the public: Civilians did not need to own guns designed for use in war zones.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which gets to the truth of the matter; the media (including the New York Times) made an entire class of modern sporting rifles into something that they’re not based on the appearance of the weapons. Just like they’ve demonized Glock pistols by claiming that the handguns can be smuggled through metal detectors at airports (although not a single incident of that has happened). Beckett continues that the scary looking gun ban resulted in a reduction from 2 to 1% of the weapons recovered by police, that the Justice Department admitted that reinstatement of the ban would have an immeasurably miniscule impact on crime. <\/p>\n