"Violence rates were quite volatile during that period generally for reasons that had nothing to do with gun regulation," Cook said.
Philip Cook at Duke University said the death toll is real, but complicated. That’s the consensus among a number of researchers. "It is pretty much impossible to prove cause and effect," he said. On the key policy question of whether the ban drove the decline, DiMaggio urges caution. The impact of the law is debated, but some researchers say that data and logic show that limits on large capacity magazines and assault weapons help reduce fatalities. The drop during the ban is less clear cut. That said, the evidence shows that mass shooting deaths rose in the years after the ban. Should rampages using other kinds of assault-style weapons count? Plus, mass shootings happen much less frequently than other gun crimes, which puts any scientific analysis at a disadvantage. The law banned only certain types of semi-automatic firearms along with magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
The topic is riddled with tough data challenges. Proving cause and effect is a heavy lift.) (Clinton’s tweet assumes that the presence or absence of the ban changed the number of mass shooting deaths. This is the first time we examine its specific tie to mass shooting deaths, and whether the death toll rose after the ban ended. We’ve dug into the general question of the impact of the 1994 law before. We must act now.- Bill Clinton August 5, 2019Ĭlinton touched back on the trend in an op-ed for Time on Aug. How many more people have to die before we reinstate the assault weapons ban & the limit on high-capacity magazines & pass universal background checks? After they passed in 1994, there was a big drop in mass shooting deaths.