Word: arness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...firing more than 30 rounds in a clip. The slaughter last January of five Stockton, Calif., schoolchildren by a psychopath wielding an imitation AK-47 assault rifle awakened the public to the danger of these paramilitary weapons. Police have complained of being outgunned by drug dealers with Uzis and AR- 15s. Urban emergency rooms have started resembling MASH units, with doctors treating the sort of huge gunshot wounds once seen only in combat. The Second Amendment notwithstanding, more and more Americans have decided that something must be done to stem the nation's internal arms race...
...fronts. The Bush Administration unexpectedly imposed a ban on the importation of five different types of semi-automatic rifles, pending a review to determine whether the guns have a real sporting purpose or are used primarily to kill people. The next day Colt Industries suspended commercial sales of the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, the civilian copy of the military's M-16. In California the 80-member state assembly voted by a narrow margin (41 to 38) to outlaw the manufacture and sale of semiautomatic weapons, a move that could inspire two dozen other state legislatures considering similar bans...
...other goods became legal. Purchases of the AK-47 copy soared from a mere 4,000 a year as recently as 1985-86 to more than 40,000 last year. There has also been a leap in sales of the MAC-10, a relatively cheap U.S.-manufactured semiautomatic; the AR-15, a semiautomatic copy of the U.S. military's M-16 infantry rifle; and a semiautomatic version of the Israeli-made...
...police are definitely outgunned in this country," asserts Dewey Stokes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. A cop armed with the six- shot .38-cal. service revolver that has been standard for decades has little chance in a shootout with a criminal wielding, say, a converted Colt ; AR-15 capable of firing 900 rounds a minute; if not hit in the first fusillade, the policeman is likely to be shot while reloading. Out of that fear, police departments across the country are discarding the old .38 for semiautomatic weapons, and the DEA started a year ago to rearm...
...Those who do come find a city in which past and potential violence are quite visible. Guards outside apartment blocks carry shotguns, police shoulder automatic weapons, and occasionally a pistol is glimpsed tucked into a civilian's waistband. Some of the drug barons maintain armories that include U.S.-made AR-15 automatic rifles and Israeli-made Uzis with silencers and infrared sights for shooting at night. Says Jaramillo, pointing out of his office window to the hills: "They could be taking aim at me from two miles away over there." A U.S. embassy official in Bogota is more specific. "They...