🚀 go-pugleaf

In <timmcCy36sp.D2E@netcom.com> timmc@netcom.com (Tim McCanlies) writes:

>Nathaniel McIntosh (mcintosh@rice.edu) wrote:
>: Do you have any statistics to provide which show the percentages of
>: "assault weapons" used in gun crimes?

>One stat I've run across, several places, is: the Asst. Chief of the New 
>Jersey State Police, testifying before Congress recently.  He stated 
>that, since they've been keeping records of gun crimes broken down into 
>category, that assault weapons accounted for 0.026% of all gun crimes.

I believe he also said that his men were more likely to face an
escaped tiger from the zoo than a criminal armed with an assault
weapon.

The figure I've heard is that about 100 people are killed with
assault weapons per year in the US.  That is about the same number
that are struck dead by lightning.  With 100 fatalities out of 
265 million people it doesn't take much to get a big swing in the
percentage, pro or con.  For all of you who suspected that the 45%
figure was bogus, you were right.

Just about every weapon that is used in a crime is reported by the
media as an "assault weapon."  If you read their accounts carefully
it is obvious that they are not.  Sometimes they will even name the
weapon and call it an assault weapon when it is not.  The fact is
that the media are largely clueless about weapons but they know they
don't like them.  They have no idea what an assault weapon is but
they don't like the sound of it.  Most newspaper reporters spent
their youth in graduate journalism school and look down on the 
professions that protect society such as the police and military.
The Pentagon defines an assault weapon as a gun that can fire in
semi-automatic and automatic modes.  Ask your favorite liberal
what an assault weapon is.  It should prove embarassing.


-- 
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* Steve GREGG                 U of North Texas, Denton, Texas, USA *
* sgregg@ponder.csci.unt.edu    "Spotted owls taste like chicken!" *
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