These are not the mass shooting victims that public attention has been focused on- these are mostly young, black men killed in episodes of “street violence” (gang violence, drug killings, and arguments, as defined by the New Orleans Police Department). The vast majority of gun homicides in America are perpetuated with the use of handguns- 68.5% of firearm murder victims in 2014, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program. For any significant reduction in the U.S.’s gun violence epidemic, a total semiautomatic weapons ban must be enacted- including handguns. However, as gut-wrenching as these events may be, they constitute a tiny fraction of gun deaths.
It’s a category of weapon generally defined by their intimidating appearance and the roles they’ve played in some of the most horrific, headline-grabbing mass school shootings of recent memory.
In the debate over gun control, many have correctly pointed out the arbitrary nature of proposed bans on semiautomatic rifles (often vaguely defined as “assault weapons”).
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