A better way to define assault weapons

When someone uses an assaultweapon and highcapacity magazine to commit amass shooting, studies showan average of nine more people are shot and three more killed than with conventional firearms. Yet for some, the definition of “assaultweapon” appears to be highly subjective, leading to fruitless discussions and impediments to effective regulation.

As mentioned in an April 11Sun Sentinel editorial, theNational Rifle Association says it considers anyweapon, including baseball bats, to be an assaultweapon and Sen. Marco Rubio promotes the fallacy that an AR-15 is like any sporting or hunting rifle.

But military-style assaultweapons are functionally different fromstandard hunting rifles in muzzle velocity, rate of fire, and the ability to receive high-capacity magazines. Their distinctive modular design allows for collapsible stocks, fore grips (enabling spray firing), and other features. Mr. Rubio, nearly all of the nation’s largest massacres, including of your constituents in Parkland, were committed with theseweapons, not hunting rifles.

Poor definitions not only impede regulation, but undermine the effectiveness of laws that ban or strictly regulate theseweapons because the gun industry can easily make cosmetic modifications to skirt the regulations.

The1994 federal assaultweapons ban, and current bans in seven states, have defined an assaultweapon on the basis of its features, such as pistol grips, bayonet mounts and flash suppressors, none of which have much impact on the firearm’s potential harm. Howmany massacres or drive-by killings involve bayonets?

I recommend an objective and scientific approach to defining assaultweapons, one based on lethality. Factors should include caliber, muzzle velocity, rate of fire, capacity (number of cartridges that can be fired without reloading), the loading mechanism and design flexibility (the firearm’s ability to accommodate accessories that increase lethality). A scientific committee comprised of gun and wound ballistics experts could develop a “lethality” scoring system. And the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which has some of the most advanced laboratories in theworld, could score every model manufactured or imported into the country.

Classifying firearms in an objectiveway would end the meaningless discussions of what constitutes an assaultweapon and prevent gun makers fromcircumventing regulations by removing features that maymake the gun no less lethal. Classification could proceed on the basis of lethality, with regulation increasing along with lethality.

Restrictions on the most lethalweapons could include a complete ban or special licenses and vetting for owners, registration requirements, special taxes, longerwaiting periods, special storage requirements and severe penalties for noncompliance.

Many of the above restrictions already exist for fully automaticweapons, silencers, and other devices under theNational Firearms Act.

Thomas Gabor is a criminologist in Palm Beach County and author of “Confronting Gun Violence inAmerica.” He can be reached at tgabor@thomasgabor.com.