Sorry but it was expected This was from the Editors, not a write in comment
C/P from
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0601260116jan26,0,1714046.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed
Ban assault weapons in Illinois
Published January 26, 2006
The federal ban on assault weapons suffered a quiet and unfortunate death in September 2004 as concerns about national safety got swallowed whole by politics.
That's too bad. Statistics suggest the ban on 19 kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons reduced the use of such guns in crimes.
In the five years before the Federal Assault Weapons Act was enacted in 1994, such weapons figured in 4.8 percent of guns used in crimes, as traced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In the years the ban was in effect, assault weapons constituted only 1.6 percent of guns used in crimes. That assessment of ATF figures comes from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
If the ban had not been passed, the Brady Center estimated, 60,000 more assault weapons would have been used in crimes over the decade.
It's hard to tell whether there's been a surge in the use of assault weapons in crimes since September 2004. But we know they're still around. In Chicago, since the federal ban was lifted, police have seized more than 500 assault weapons.
The worst mass shootings in this country have often involved semiautomatic weapons.
A 1984 McDonald's shooting in San Ysidro, Calif., claimed 21 lives.
A 1989 Stockton, Calif., schoolyard massacre took the lives of five young children and wounded 29 others.
A 1989 workplace shooting in Louisville killed seven.
A 1993 shooting at a San Francisco law office killed eight people.
Those killers were efficient, in part because the weapons they used allowed them to unload their magazines in a hurry, even if they had to pull the trigger for each bullet. That makes attacking a crowd with a spray of bullets that much easier.
Police in San Jose test-fired an Uzi assault weapon in fully automatic and semiautomatic modes. On fully automatic, a 30-round magazine emptied in slightly less than 2 seconds. On semiautomatic, it emptied in 5 seconds. Not much difference.
Last week, Gov. Rod Blagojevich called in his State of the State address for an Illinois ban on assault weapons. Illinois would join seven states, including California and New Jersey, in enacting such a ban. The leadership of Blagoje-vich and Mayor Richard Daley on this is welcome and essential.
A federal ban would have more far-reaching impact than a state law. But even a state law would put a dent in the sale of such weapons.
Passage will be difficult. A vote for gun control is hard for many Downstate lawmakers. What has been frustrating is the number of suburban legislators who resist gun curbs, even when they are popular with most of their constituents. The hope here is that the governor and the mayor will press for a vote in the House and Senate on this. It's an election year--let's put the lawmakers on record and pass an assault weapons ban.