The U.S. Senate’s vote this week to ban the manufacture, sale and possession of 19 types of semiautomatic, military-style assault weapons is another small but crucial step in the nation’s agonizingly slow progress toward rational gun control.
The measure wouldn’t affect 650 kinds of guns used by hunters and sportsmen. It wouldn’t outlaw assault weapons that are already built. Plenty of legal weapons would remain available.
Still, gun groups, such as the National Rifle Association, complain that the proposed ban would disadvantage what they call the majority of law-abiding owners of assault weapons who seek to protect themselves from criminals.
It seems more evident that the purpose of assault weapons is to kill lots of people. The answer to America’s crime problem isn’t providing citizens, law-abiding or otherwise, with bigger, more powerful weapons capable of firing more ammunition more lethally, in a shorter time.
Polls suggest that Americans are sick of violent crime and increasingly intolerant of the ease with which guns can be bought. So it’s gratifying to see Congress start to challenge the death grip of the gun lobby on our nation’s gun laws.
