What Does DOJ Really Think About Gun Control?

According to a DOJ memo obtained by the NRA, Washington really knows that assault weapons are infrequently used in crimes and that banning high capacity magazines really will not change anything. These are just drums beat by the administration to get the public in a frenzy over the “epidemic” of gun violence. So what do they really want to do? You guessed it, a national firearms ban. What follows is a summary of the memo found in an article up at Town Hall.

The memo, under the name of one of the Justice Department’s leading crime researchers, critiques the effectiveness of gun control proposals, including some of President Barack Obama’s. A Justice Department official called the memo an unfinished review of gun violence research and said it does not represent administration policy.

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on “requiring gun registration,” and says gun buybacks would not be effective “unless massive and coupled with a ban.”