A Look Back: The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban

Happy Patriot's Day everyone. Don't forget to raise Old Glory at sunrise.

September 13th, 2004 the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban expired, I found it apropos to post this article today, Patriot's Day, just two days before the anniversary of an event that changed firearms in America.

There is no debating that the law was bad and a clear violation of the Constitution, but there was a silver lining. 

The NRA, which took a lot of flak for this, they chose to endorse the bill, if and only if, it contained a sunset clause. The ban on the sales of "assault weapons" was only for 10 years. The results of its passing created interesting political theater to say the least. 

The election following the passage of the bill not one Democrat running for reelection won, they all lost including the sitting speaker of the house: Tom Foley. This was the first time that had happened since 1863. 

The Republicans gained 52 House seats and 8 Senate seats, a nearly unprecedented swing. The Republicans had a majority in both houses for the first time in decades. Known as the "Republican Revolution", the change in mood also affected state elections where Republicans now held 24 Governor Seats compared to 14 prior to the "revolution". Some will argue that there were other reasons for the revolution, such as the attempt to take over the health care system, but no one and I mean no one was more determined than the NRA, they spent millions to win that election and their efforts paid off. 

In addition, the ban would prove that there is no connection between laws against sales of guns and violent crime. To this day no one has been able to prove the ban was responsible for lowering violent crime, which was already on a steady decline for a number of reasons. Again, some may argue that the loophole allowing existing guns to remain in the hand of the owners meant that the ban was never going to have real effect. I say to that, poopy cock! You leftists wanted the ban, you got the ban and it didn't do what you said it would do, end of story!

Typically speaking a good economy means lower crime and the economy had improved in the late 80's thanks to Ronald Reagan, in addition police forces were getting more vigilant, anti-drug programs like D.A.R.E and "just say no" were having an impact on the youth.

Another interesting posit was the Donohoe-Levitt hypothesis that Roe V. Wade became law almost exactly 20 years before the reduction in crime. The idea is that the criminal gangs were largely made up of unwanted children who since 1973 were now being aborted.

The AWB had another effect. It made the weapons targeted by the ban, extremely popular. Before the ban there were somewhere around 400,000 AR-15s in America, making up only 2.2% of firearm sales. Today there is an estimated 20 million in private hands and sales make up more than 20% of firearm sales, which makes it the most popular rifle ever sold in America.  

Case in point, before the ban I owned no AR-15s, AK-47s or Mini-14s, after the ban I own several AR-15s, an AK-47 and Mini-14.

Nearly every firearms manufacture sells an AR-15 or variant, this led to a massive price drop. A typical AR-15 rifle that once cost over $1500 are today selling for $400-$500.

This is known as the "Streisand Effect", named after an incident, when actress Barbara Streisand tried to prevent the distribution of pictures of her Malibu, CA home (legally documenting coastal erosion). Her efforts to stop the pictures from being distributed made them extremely popular, so instead of limiting the number of people who saw them, it did just the opposite.

The features most sought after today are also the ones targeted by the ban. Part of this might be human nature, we all want to own what the government tells us we cannot or should not own, part of it might be that the features targeted by the ban were also the ones that made the gun so compatible with most shooters things like adjustable stocks and pistol grips. 

What's more? The rise of 80% lower receivers, that's what. It is perfectly legal for an American to make their own gun. Some machine shops and gun makers started selling lower receivers that were not 100% machined, they still needed material removed and holes drilled, which could be accomplished via a jig like the one below. This allowed an Americans to legally make a gun with no serial numbers, no paperwork, no "registration" and no way of anyone knowing you own the gun.

The AR-15 is not the only firearm to see an increase in sales, the Ruger Mini-14 has seen an increase as well. While it was not specifically included in the AWB, Ruger decided in 2003, (with the AWB sunset looming) to revise the gun to improve accuracy and reduce production costs. Ruger also changed the name of all the Mini-14 pattern guns to "Ranch Rifle". In 2018 Ruger and Samson reintroduced the factory folding stock that features a pistol grip, folding butt stock and barrel shroud, all items that were outlawed by the 94 AWB.

The AK-47 has seen a jump in popularity as well. For years you could purchase a "kit" which was basically parts of an AK-47 that has been "demilled". "Demilling" involves cutting the receiver in half and removing the fire control group, parts which would have allowed full auto fire. The kit below came from Romania after the fall of Communism.

Many of these kits were reassembled with homemade stamped receivers. These receivers come flat and can be bent into shape with a jig, thus eliminating serial numbers and a paper trail.

In addition, we now have companies manufacturing AK-47s here in America, with more on the way.

In conclusion, the ban, while unconstitutional and upsetting actually made the rifles much more popular, much cheaper and thus much harder to ban in the future. Despite this, violent crime continues to be much lower than it was in the early '90s. Proving without a doubt, that more guns in private hands does not equal more crime.

This was a case of unintended consequences on the part of the Democrats. As for the NRA, I am not quite sure they could possibly foresee semi-automatic rifle becoming so popular and affordable, if they did, it is pure genius. Either way they should the get credit for our current freedoms and the popularity of the semi-automatic rifle.

Sources:

Report: Over 24.4 Million AR-15s, AK-47s in Civilian Hands | The Reload

Bill Clinton: The Fall from Grace | PragerU

Winchester Model 67 Project Part 1

 A friend of mine asked me to refinish his son's .22 rifle. I recognized it immediately as a Winchester model 67, single shot, 22.

Made from 1934 to 1963, just under 400,000 were produced.

This one is an early version, 1st or 2nd year production as it has the finger grooves in the stock and the external thumbscrew.

Here is a representative picture

disassembly is always the 1st step. The bolt is removed by holding the trigger down and pulling it rearwards

The stock is removed by simply unthreading the take-down thumb screw.

I then disassemble the bolt so I can reblue the cocking handle

Then I drift out the sights

You can see the degraded finish, or lack thereof

Then I remove the trigger guard and butt plate from the stock

The takedown screw was a little beat up, so I gently pounded the metal back into place and used a file to clean up the surface

The next step is refinishing the wood, someone had applied several coats of varnish, now we need to strip it off so we can apply a traditional oil finish. I use Citristrip as it is non-toxic and gets the job done.

Once the varnish has bubbled up, I scrape it off with a putty knife, then using acetone and steel wool, I scrub the surface until clean.

Once clean it is ready for sanding, but we must reattach the butt plate before sanding or we risk rounding the edge of the wood.

Once the butt plate is reinstalled, we begin sanding with 100 grit clot backed sandpaper. I use a block to prevent dishing out the wood.

Immediately it became obvious that the previous refinish job was done sans butt plate, we will need to remove material to get it flat again. We could cut a sliver off the back of the butt plate, or sand it smooth, either way not much needs to be taken away.

I opted to use the belt sander (60 grit) and remove just enough to make the line disappear and both surfaces flush

Once the whole stock has been sanded with 100 grit, we look for dents, I found several of them.

The two biggest dents were both on the left side of the stock.

I attempted to steam them out, using a wet rag (old pieces of a t-shirt) and an iron.

After steaming the grain will be raised, so I went back and re-sanded those areas with 100 grit.

Not all dents can be removed, sometimes the wood fibers are broken or too deeply smashed to lift, some imperfections will have to be lived with.

Stayed tuned, in the next post we will finish the sanding and begin applying the traditional oil finish.

Interesting Firearm Photos #91

 

Not sure if this is a yard sale or ATF bust