Menu

Argument: Assault weapons empower the deranged to kill many people

Issue Report: Assault weapons ban in the United States

Support

The hard truth is disturbed people with easy access to guns kill people, and when there’s an assault weapon involved it’s clear that disturbed people with easy access to military weapons can kill lots of people.”
  • Brian Miller. BBC interview. September 13th, 2004 – “My brother was an FBI agent working on a cold-case homicide squad at Washington DC Metropolitan Police Headquarters on 22 November 1994. That morning a man – actually looking for a different office – walked into DC Police Headquarters, went upstairs, opened the door and opened fire with his assault pistol which was a Mac-10.
He was able to do this because the Mac-10 is small enough to hide underneath the jacket he was wearing but powerful enough to fire off dozens of bullets in a matter of seconds.
When the smoke cleared and the room could be entered, which was actually a couple of hours later because of the danger involved, my brother Mike’s partner – another FBI agent, a female FBI agent, was dead, a DC police sergeant was dead, a third FBI agent was grievously wounded and the shooter had been killed in the gunfight as well.
I felt that [these weapons should be banned], I think, before this all happened but having experienced this in a more direct fashion, I certainly feel it more strongly now.
These are guns that are beyond what is acceptable in my view and frankly in the view of the vast majority of Americans in terms of what’s acceptable in a civil society.”
  • “Assault Weapons in America: Military Guns in Civilian Hands”. Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. Retrieved 2.04.08 – “Assault weapons were used…

    • To kill 5 children and wound 29 others in a Stockton, CA schoolyard in 1989. The AK-47 held 75 – that’s right, 75 – bullets.
    • To kill 8 people and 6 others at a San Francisco law firm in 1993. Two TEC-9’s with 50-round magazines were used in the massacre.
    • To kill 2 CIA employees and wound three others outside the CIA’s Langley, VA headquarters in 1993.
    • To kill 4 ATF special agents and wound 16 others at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, TX, when the officers were attempting to serve warrants on the cult in 1993.”