Quoted from Nicholas Kristof in his Op-Ed column in the NYT:

Still, assault weapons, while amounting to only 1 percent of America's 190 million privately owned guns, account for a hugely disproportionate share of gun violence...they accounted for 8.4 percent of the guns traced to crimes between 1988 and 1991, and they are still used in one in five fatal shootings of police officers.

Yet, as the column asserts, the president is allowing a 10-year ban on assault weapons to lapse on September 14 (and thus reneging on his 2000 election-year promise to support an extension on the ban).


Which is a big relief for me, since I was afraid I'd have to cancel my upcoming squirrel-hunting trip using my new Browning M2 .50 caliber (belt-fed, of course).