Momentum returned with two back-to-back mass shootings in 1993: one at a San Francisco law firm that killed eight people and injured six more, and another on a Long Island Railroad train that left five dead and 19 wounded. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, architect of the 1994 assault weapons ban, said that “it was the 1993 mass shooting at 101 California Street in San Francisco that was the tipping point for me. That’s what really motivated me to push for a ban on assault weapons.”
The San Francisco shooting “made clear that the increasing sophistication of weapons had made it possible for a mass shooter to murder large numbers of people in a matter of minutes,” Feinstein said. “The goal of the ban was to reduce the frequency and deadliness of mass shootings.”
The final piece of legislation that we now know as the federal assault weapons ban was signed into law a little over one year after the San Francisco shooting.
The 1994 law included a ban on 18 specific models of assault weapons, as well as a ban on any firearms containing certain military-style features, like a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor or a folding stock. It also banned high-capacity magazines capable of holding more than 10 bullets. The bill allowed individuals already in possession of such weapons to keep them. It was also set to expire after 10 years' time.
“The original intent of the assault weapons ban was to reduce the carnage of mass shootings,” Klarevas said. “And on that front the data indicate that it worked.”
Klarevas has compiled data on gun massacres involving six or more fatalities for the 50 years before 2016. His numbers show that gun massacres fell significantly during the time the assault weapons ban was in place, and skyrocketed after the ban lapsed in 2004. A separate mass shooting database compiled by Mother Jones magazine shows a similar trend.
Klarevas wasn't surprised by the 2004 report showing the ban had little effect on overall rates of gun crime. “If there was going to be any benefit on [overall] violent crime, that would have been a pleasant surprise,” he said. But, “the real objective of the assault weapons ban was always to reduce both the frequency and lethality of mass shootings.”