'Assault Weapon' Bans Look
More Legally Vulnerable Than Ever

By Jacob Sullum. May 3, 2023

Three days after Washington became the 10th state to enact an "assault weapon" ban, a federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a similar law in Illinois. That decision, which was published last Friday, may signal the demise of a long-running public policy fraud that falsely depicts an arbitrarily defined category of semi-automatic rifles as good for nothing but mass murder.

"Assault weapon" bans, which typically cover specific models along with features such as adjustable stocks, pistol grips, flash suppressors, and barrel shrouds, have always been logically dubious. And under the constitutional test that the Supreme Court recently established, they look more legally vulnerable than ever.

These laws never made much sense. With or without the features that states such as Washington and Illinois have deemed intolerable, a rifle fires the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity.

Even President Joe Biden, who wants Congress to revive the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004, has conceded that the law left would-be killers with plenty of alternatives that were "just as deadly." And contrary to the claim that the rifles targeted by this sort of legislation are the "weapon of choice" in mass shootings, handguns account for more than three-quarters of the firearms used in such crimes and an even larger share of the firearms used in gun homicides generally.

The Supreme Court's precedents suggest that "assault weapon" bans are unconstitutional as well as illogical. .....