Well, finally they realized that civilians should not be forcibly overpowered by criminals and felons who have "free" access to assault weapons.

This was one of the dumbest laws Congress ever concocted. It banned weapons based on how they looked, not what they did. Hilarious.

Wrong choice, but I'm not surprised that the Bush administration softened Clinton's 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. Just another right-wing ploy.

I don't see this as a victory for the pro-gun lobby as much as I see it as a victory for logical government. This was one of the stupidest bones ever thrown to the anti-gun lobby, completely ineffective, as sundiszmo clearly points out. An honest dialogue about whether Americans are guaranteed the right to own guns/arms/weapons needs to take place, but this poorly written, pandering law simply enraged and roiled up both sides, to the detriment of the national debate.

Not a big surprise. Just another politcally based decison, or lack thereof by old Bush. Bush cannot neglect his NRA buds so he lets the ban expire. Who cares if violent idiots will have the right to buy assault weapons. Hey I have an idea, why don't we just hand out assault weapons to people at the grocery store or at a gas station. Is there anything I can do to speed up this process? The US has to stay on top as the murder capital of the world. I bet we can double or triple those numbers if we increase the availability of weapons. Oh and it should be our right to buy assault weapons because gang bangers already have them and we need them to arm ourselves against them. Terrorists have these weapons and we need them to have them in case they come after us. Am I forgetting any other excuses?

Hahahahahahahaha! Stupid law that do nothing to stop crime go bye bye! numbah and his arsenal rejoyce!

I agree with Sundiszno. The Assault Weapons Ban was never really effective; many of the laws provisions were strictly cosmetic. Assault weapons are rarely used in the commission of a crime. What this really amounts to is a moral victory on the part of pro gun groups like the NRA, but had it been renewed it wouldn't have made much of a dent in crime rates.

The ban seems to be only for free individuals. The secret service was still using and buying them, right? Wasn't the military buying more too? I think that some police stations may have even bought a couple. We know the criminals can get them. So why shouldn't free people have the same rights as every one else? If assault weapons are good enough to protect the president and for our military, they are good enough for me. Governments have a bad history of turning on the people that live within their borders. The Soviets massacred millions upon millions of Russians, Cambodia slaughtered millions in the killing fields, Hitler (well everyone knows about him already), and currently the Sudanese government is using assault weapons to exterminate a certain population within the borders of Sudan. We have had it good in America, so most can't understand how bad it is when governments turn on the people. But the truth is, you can go to sleep tonight and wake up with a criminal government in charge tomorrow, fully ready to use their countless machine guns against you. I hope if that ever happens, us free individual will be armed to the teeth to take care of business.

As usual, a pithy and cogent comment from Sundiszno. Well put, sir.

Sundiszno, an informative and quality post, as usual. While I am in favor of more gun control and don't feel that assault weapons should be legal, the expiration of the 'ban' doesn't bother me - for the reasons that you mention below. The ban had no teeth, and results were inconclusive in terms of its effectiveness in limiting these weapons, or reducing crime. That's not to say that I wouldn't welcome new legislation - it's just that this one wasn't doing anything. Feinstein's appeal to gun makers to not sell these weapons is, uhhh.... unrealistic. If there is money to be made, they will be sold.

I am (or used to be) a serious gun collector, and hope that my comment does not come across as something rabidly pro-gun. Basically, I feel that whether the ban was (or sometime in the near future is) renewed, it won't make much of a difference one way or the other, other than to give the anti-gun folks the feeling that they have somehow won a victory. Right now, the pro-gun advocates may feel that way. The reason I say it doesn't make much of a difference is because I believe that the popular conception in the minds of people who know little or nothing about guns is that somehow the 1994 ban has removed a lot of guns from the streets or has cut off the flow of so-called assault weapons to the domestic market. Wrong on both counts. First of all, existing weapons (and high-capacity magazines) were grandfathered - if you already had one (or more), it still remained legal. Second, from what I remember of the provisions of the ban, because of the definition of assault weapon in the wording of the law, it was easy for manufacturers to make a few alterations, mainly cosmetic, to the weapons and continue to manufacture them so that they now met the letter (if not the spirit) of the law. One example: If a weapon had an attached bayonet, or a bayonet lug, it was classified as an assault weapon: the fix was to eliminate the folding bayonet or the bayonet lug. Now an AR-15, sans bayonet lug, is legal. I ask, parenthetically, just what was the sense of bothering about a bayonet lug - just how many crimes have been reported when someone stuck a bayonet on the end of an assault rifle in the commission of a crime? My answer would be about zero. It would have made as much sense (and had abut the same net effect) if the law had said that assault rifles with black plastic hardware were outlawed - and the manufacturers changed the color to brown. The whole premise is ludicrous, but the lawmakers got to tout a big win in the war against crime! Likewise, assault weapons such as the AK-47 are not usually the weapon of choice for most criminals - too bulky and conspicuous. Pistols and revolvers are almost always used in holdups, murders, etc. Yes, there have been some notable killings in which assault weapons have played prominent roles, but I'd venture to say that those are aberrant crimes, and that the perpetrators (like postal workers, or years ago an attack on a McDonald's) would have done about as much damage with a couple of pistols as well. So, all in all, I don't think that the ban has had any significant effect on crime, and that a renewal would have little practical effect. Assault weapons, as defined and described in the 1994 law, were banned (but not retroactively); however, there are still plenty of non-assault rifle assault rifles being offered on the market today. It's like saying that a Ferrari is defined by being red and having a rampant horse logo on the hood, so if you take the logo off and paint the car black it is no longer a Ferrari. Am I making a point here?