A new law allowed gun owners to keep assault weapons if they disclosed them. Illinois county registration rates ranged from 0.5% to 1.8%. [More]
Salt of the earth people you could leave your doors unlocked around… and they’ve had enough.
Come and take them?
[Via Jess]
These compliance rates are like nailing jelly to a tree. No one knew just how many “assault weapons” were in the states before the bans were passed. No one knows how many people elected to sell or move their guns out of state. No one knows how many elected to destroy theirs. The states probably have numbers on how many were registered or surrendered to cops, but would they disclose those numbers if they were really embarrassing? So any statement on compliance rates are no more than a WAG, a Wild Assed Guess.
But we can predict with some certainty the the pro ban folks will claim dramatic decreases in mass shootings as a result of the bans. We can predict there will be fluctuation in the numbers that are statistically negligible although of great importance to the victims and communities.
We can also predict that, since none of these bans address VP Giggles’ “root causes”, no real reductions will result.
So….. Which state will be the next to jump headlong down this rabbit hole?