Word: lawness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...bursts with a single pull of the trigger (a semi-automatic, despite its rapid-fire capability, requires a separate squeeze of the trigger for each round). A skilled gunsmith can accomplish the conversion for almost all semiautomatics, and there is a considerable demand for that service. Since 1934 federal law has made full automatics, such as machine guns, difficult to buy for anyone except police, the military and licensed collectors. A private purchaser has to obtain both federal and state licenses and undergo a rigorous federal background check...
Semiautomatics have become the weapon of choice for drug gangs looking for more firepower to blast away any threat to their giant profits, from police or rival peddlers. Law-enforcement officials note that the rise of semiautomatic weaponry parallels almost exactly the virtual takeover of parts of big cities by crack dealers. "In considerably more than half the crack arrests we make, we also seize firearms -- that is, good firearms," reports Robert Stutman, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in New York State. "The paranoia induced by the drug, which most of the traffickers use themselves, makes them pick...
...simple self-defense, law enforcers are also turning to heavier and more sophisticated artillery, ratcheting up the arms race another notch. "The 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...
...final and most dismaying turn in this cycle: responsible, law-abiding citizens -- afflicted by a lack of confidence in the police, reading every morning and watching on TV every night the stories about shootouts endangering innocent bystanders -- start arming themselves in case they have to join the battle. It used to be that the great majority of American gun owners bought their weapons for hunting or sport (target shooting, for instance). But recent surveys show nearly 50% mentioning self-protection as their primary reason. Says Mark Warr, a sociologist at the University of Texas: "It's a giving...
...effective, any law regulating semiautomatic assault rifles would have to be federal. It would make no sense to ban such weapons in, say, California, if they could be legally purchased in neighboring Arizona or Oregon. But tens of millions of Americans -- not to mention the Bush Administration -- resist the thought of giving Washington that much power over citizens' lives...