CLAIM: During Monday’s White House presser Karin Jean-Pierre claimed the 1994 “assault weapons” ban brought crime down in America.
VERDICT: False.
A 2004 report by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) demonstrated that researchers could not credit the “assault weapons” ban with any of the reductions in crime or shootings which were sporadically reported elsewhere.
The Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the DOJ’s NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”
The NIJ report continued, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” Read more…
