The (American) market for assault rifles

There was a time when Americans thought that rifles were for hunting game, and assault weapons were banned.  That has changed.

The Washington Post has the story:

The gun that divides a nation. The AR-15 thrives in times of tension and tragedy. This is how it came to dominate the marketplace – and loom so large in the American psyche. By Todd C. Frankel, Shawn Boburg, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker and Alex Horton 

"The AR-15 wasn’t supposed to be a bestseller.

"The rugged, powerful weapon was originally designed as a soldiers’ rifle in the late 1950s. “An outstanding weapon with phenomenal lethality,” an internal Pentagon report raved. It soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in the Vietnam War, where the weapon earned a new name: the M16.

...

"Today, the AR-15 is the best-selling rifle in the United States, industry figures indicate. About 1 in 20 U.S. adults — or roughly 16 million people — own at least one AR-15, according to polling data from The Washington Post and Ipsos.

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"One Republican lawmaker, Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama, introduced a bill in February to declare the AR-15 the “National Gun of America.”

"It also has become a stark symbol of the nation’s gun violence epidemic. Ten of the 17 deadliest U.S. mass shootings since 2012 have involved AR-15s.

...

"the U.S. firearms industry came to embrace the gun’s political and cultural significance as a marketing advantage as it grasped for new revenue.

"The shift began after the 2004 expiration of a federal assault weapons ban that had blocked the sales of many semiautomatic rifles. 

...

"Today, the industry estimates that at least 20 million AR-15s are stored and stashed across the country.

"More than 13.7 million of those have been manufactured by U.S. gunmakers just since the Newtown massacre in late 2012"

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NPR puts some history into perspective:

The Nashville school shooting highlights the partisan divide over gun legislation , by Ron Elving, April 1, 2023

"The Stockton schoolyard shooting in 1989

...

"The Stockton story was national news, featured on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "Armed America." Public alarm at Stockton pushed the legislature to be the first to prohibit the sale of assault weapons that year.

"Stockton was still reverberating three years later when California, the home of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, sent two liberal Democrats, both women, to the U.S. Senate It also stocked its legislature and congressional delegation with big Democratic majorities and gave its Electoral College vote to Bill Clinton.

"One of the two women senators elected that year was former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who had first become mayor when her predecessor was shot to death in his office in the 1970s. She had long been outspoken on gun control and brought that commitment to Washington, D.C., becoming one of the principal sponsors of a bill banning assault weapons ban in her first year.

"The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994

"Feinstein and her cosponsors wanted to end the sale or manufacture of 14 categories of semi-automatic assault weapons. They also wanted to go beyond the California ban by outlawing copycat versions of earlier models and high-volume detachable magazines that held more than 10 rounds.

"But the bill did not address the status of an estimated one million assault weapons nationwide. "Essentially what this legislation does is create a freeze," she said. She lamented the resistance that rarely produced actual arguments among her colleagues. She said had never realized "the power of the NRA in this town."

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"There were literally hundreds of exceptions included in the final version, distressing many of the bill's supporters. But getting the ban into the crime package to be passed in that Congress (with billions in new police funding) required many compromises. Ultimately, to get to a majority, Feinstein would have to accept a sunset provision by which her restrictions would need reenactment after 10 years.

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"So when the 10-year expiration date on Feinstein's bill arrived in 2004, Democrats were no longer the majority party in Congress and all attempts to extend the 1994 ban were unavailing.

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"The Sandy Hook Test in 2012

The next time serious energy developed behind renewing the ban was in the winter of 2012-2013. Barack Obama had just been reelected president, and the Senate was still in Democratic hands.

"Just as important, the effort to address the gun issue had been given an enormous boost by a new and more horrific tragedy.

"On Dec. 12, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20 — described by counselors as fascinated with mass shootings — killed his mother and took guns she had legally purchased to a Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"There he shot dead 20 children, ages 6 and 7. He also killed six adults on the school staff. Then he killed himself.

"The national shock at the time is hard to appreciate a decade later, as there have been so many like it. 

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"But the 113th Congress came and went in 2013 and 2014 without passing notable gun legislation. A compromise measure on background checks, offered by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey, got 54 votes in the Senate but needed 60.

"As for prospects for reviving gun legislation in the current Congress, the situation looks much as it did a decade ago. The 118th Congress has a Senate where Democrats have a nominal majority that depends on the cooperation of several independents. Feinstein is still in the Senate, the longest-serving incumbent Democrat, but planning to retire next year.

"The current House, like that of a decade ago, has a Republican majority led by a speaker whose power depends on placating a hardcore group known as the House Freedom Caucus."