The "Assault Weapons" Ban

Frank Borelli
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com

On July 26th, Officer.com posted the poll question: Do you believe that the so-called 'assault weapons' ban makes police officers safer?. As the Editor for the site I was responsible for posting that poll and I fully expected to receive some blow-back from it. After all, we're constantly hearing from gun-control groups that the rank-and-file police officers in the United States strongly favor any and all gun control measures, right? So, I kept track as the responses grew. On July 30th there had been 607 votes tallied with only 14% responding, "Yes, they are important to officer safety." The other 86% of the responses were either neutral ("they make no difference") or against the "assault weapons" ban (No, and in fact they impede my on- and off-duty safety). I'd like to say I was surprised, but I wasn't. I've not met many officers who strongly favor gun control and I've met not many more who favor gun control beyond background checks and training. The next day (July 31st) there had been 80 more votes but the percentages hadn't changed. Only 14% still favored the assault weapons ban. I didn't look for two days, but on August 2nd there had been 893 votes and the percentage in favor of the gun control law had dropped to 13%. Quite comfortable that I was indeed in touch with reality I skipped another day and came back to look on August 4th only to find that the only number that changed was the number of votes at 1,010. Now, statistically speaking, once a poll reaches 1,000 responses it's considered "representative" and usually there's some mumbo-jumbo added on about the accuracy (=/- 2 points) or some such. I'll state now clearly and for the record: this wasn't a scientific poll. Unless the system tallying the results is also controlling the results though, I'm not sure there's such a thing as an unscientific poll either. Expecting that we'd close the poll after two weeks, on August 9th I looked again and found a total of 1,359 votes. 13% still favored the "assault weapons" ban with the other 86% still either neutral (49%) or against it (37%). Thanks to a glitch in our software management system the poll was actually left up until the morning of August 10th (the day I'm typing this). Just before the poll was taken off the home page and archived the numbers were: 185 votes: 12%: Yes, they are important to officer safety 704 votes: 48%: They make no difference 549 votes: 38% No, and in fact they impede my on- and off-duty safety. Now maybe it's just me, or maybe I'm just enjoying the confirmation that my belief structure was right going into this, but it seems significant that three times more respondents feel that the "assault weapons" ban has a negative impact on their safety than the number who feel the ban is helpful. Obviously, if these numbers are accurate (and I have no reason to believe they're not) then all the politicians who claim street cops favor the "assault weapons" ban are either out of touch or bold-faced lying. The 48% who feel that such bans make no difference heavily skew the logic - or should I say LACK of logic - of politicians spending so much time composing such legislation and then lobbying their fellow legsilators for it. I am curious to read your thoughts and feelings about this though. I'm just one guy with an admitted pro-2nd-Amendment outlook. Some of you other street cops wanna weigh in? Feel free to do so anonymously but if you'd be so kind... include the general region or state you work in and your rank.

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