If gun ban expires, will violence escalate?

Congress may be planning to let a 10-year ban on semiautomatic weapons sunset at midnight today without firing a shot, but local gun lovers and haters are still keeping a sharp eye out.

"We've been waiting for this for many years," said W. Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Self Defense Instructors' Network and representative of the National Rifle Association in Utah. "There are people opposed to the sunset, but they realize there's not enough oomph for it to go anywhere."

Aposhian predicted a last little flurry of lobbying will kick up and then the Brady Bill will expire.

Gun opponents here say it's not the weapon but the idea behind the ban that is being lost: A society that represents itself as civil should in no way permit a gun that has no other purpose than to inflict mayhem as fast as a shooter can pull a trigger.

"We're not anti-gun, we're anti-gun violence, and these guns are all about violence," said Marla Kennedy, executive director of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah. She said she knows the difference because she grew up in rural Utah handling deer rifles herself.

President Bush has said he would sign a ban renewal if Congress passed it, but Republican leaders have said they won't vote on whether to continue the ban that went into effect in 1994. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the "will of the American people is consistent with letting it expire."

Utah public safety agencies can't say whether the ban has had any effect here. There has never been a high-capacity gun-related crime nor mass shooting such as the 1993 Long Island commuter train massacre that in part spurred lawmakers to institute a federal ban.

Joyce Carter, firearms section supervisor for the Utah Department of Public Safety, said the big stories that involve lots of shooting are few and far between and she doesn't believe any agency in Utah has tracked the use or nonuse of assault weapons in crimes. Mostly, people committing armed robberies use the smallest, cheapest type of firearm they can, she said.

Dave Larsen, of Doug's Shoot 'N Sports in Taylorsville, said his store has preordered some high-capacity (15 or more rounds) magazines in anticipation of the ban ending, but he doesn't expect much to change on the banned rifles, except some may be shipped with collapsible stocks and some manufacturers may reinstall flash suppressors.

"Two big federal studies, from the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, found out that the crime bill did nothing to deter crime," Larsen said. "It did nothing to get weapons off the street. They need to get criminals off the street."