When President Biden recently claimed that a Clinton-era ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which was allowed to lapse under President George W. Bush, brought down mass killings and should be re-enacted, was he speaking accurately or exaggerating the law鈥檚 impact?
In a recent devoted to that question, Teachers College鈥檚 Louis Klarevas offers strong support for Biden鈥檚 claim.
TRACKING THE TRENDS Louis Klarevas has tracked high-fatality mass shootings. (Photo: TC Archives)
鈥淭here is ample evidence to support President Biden鈥檚 suggestion that a new federal ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines will reduce mass shooting violence and save lives,鈥� says Klarevas, Research Professor and author of (Prometheus Books 2016).
The Post story says that according to Klarevas, who has tracked high-fatality mass shootings, the number of gun massacres during the period the ban was in effect fell by 37 percent compared with the 10-year period before the ban, and the number of people dying because of mass shootings fell by 43 percent. Klarevas reports that after the ban ended, there was a 183 percent increase in mass shootings and a 239 percent increase in deaths over the next 10 years.
There is ample evidence to support President Biden鈥檚 suggestion that a new federal ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines will reduce mass shooting violence and save lives.
鈥擫ouis Klarevas, TC Research Professor, in The Washington Post
Klarevas, who co-authored a 2019 on the topic in the American Journal of Public Health in 2019, also concludes that banning large-capacity magazines saves lives. 鈥淲hen LCMs were involved, the average death toll for gun massacres increased by 62 percent,鈥� he says in the Post story. 鈥淛urisdictions that did not have LCM bans in place experienced a 129 percent increase in the incidence rate and a 206 percent increase in the fatality rate of gun massacres.鈥�