There are boom times ahead at the Christian Soldier gun shop, a small emporium with a wide array of lethal weapons and a display window advertising its telephone number: 661-AMMO.
At midnight tonight, a 10-year federal ban on some types of assault weapons will almost certainly expire, and the proprietor of Christian Soldier, Rob Shiflett, expects a stream of customers for newly legal civilian versions of AK-47s and M-16s.
”I am sure there are going to be a lot of people who couldn’t buy one the first time around, and there are going to be a lot of people buying them as investments, just in case there is a ban again one day,” he says.
Shiflett, a former army doctor, has received about a hundred queries from interested buyers. ”People are going to want the true military rifle,” he says.
There are 1,5-million assault weapons in private hands in America. Gun enthusiasts describe them as collectibles, no different from other military memorabilia. Supporters of gun control say they are the weapon of choice for drug dealers and gangs, and that many have been used in the killing of police officers.
The ban, enacted under Bill Clinton, outlawed Uzis, AK-47s, and other brands of guns produced after 1994; accessories that made rapid firing easier (such as higher capacity ammunition clips, pistol grips and folding stocks); and silencers. Guns that incorporated the banned features but that were manufactured before 1994 remained legal.
America’s gun makers soon found ways to exploit this weakness, increasing their output before the ban went into effect, and producing weapons that were very slightly adjusted to comply with the regulations.
”They just banned the cosmetic features,” says Sanford Abrams, the owner of Valley Gun, down the road from Shiflett’s shop in Baltimore. On the rack behind him are about 25 types of assault rifle, all perfectly legal. Most sell for between $1 000 and $1 500. There is an Uzi in the back of the shop, also legal because of loopholes in the law; and, 10 years after the ban on high-capacity magazines went into effect, Abrams still has an almost inexhaustible supply.
Even so, gun control advocates argue that the ban produced a dramatic decline in the use of assault guns in crimes over the last decade.
”In the late 80s and early 90s, the industry was relentlessly marketing its guns to criminals,” said Eric Howard, of the Brady Centre to Prevent Gun Violence. ”When the ban came into effect in 1994 it really put the brakes on this industry.”
Gun ownership is a highly charged issue in America, and the National Rifle Association, the pre-eminent gun lobbying organisation, is one of the country’s most powerful inter est groups. Even so, in a country which has strenuously resisted efforts to control the spread of guns, the ban on assault weapons was relatively uncontroversial.
In an opinion poll last week by the Annenberg Public Policy Centre, 68% of Americans supported an extension of the ban, including 32% of members of the NRA. It also has the support of police federations.
When he was running for president, George Bush, too, supported its renewal. But he has put no pressure on Congress to renew the ban.
Gun control advocates say the expiry of the ban will encourage arms manufacturers to ramp up production and put more guns on the street. The makers of one popular assault rifle were last week taking advance orders.
Lobby groups have taken out full-page newspaper advertisements showing Osama bin Laden clutching an assault rifle, and warning: ”Any terrorist in the US will be free to walk into any gun shop, and buy an AK-47, Uzi or other rapid-fire military-style killing machine.”
The gun lobby and gun control advocates agree on one thing: the price of assault weapons will fall dramatically.
Once production gets under way, and new models of the formerly banned weapons such as AK-47s are on the market, Shiflett is going to have to sell off his old stock at cost price to make space for the authentic new models. – Guardian Unlimited Â