After Newtown, Gun Control Steps We Can Take

In September 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban into law. Some in the gun industry were distraught. “We’re finished,” Ron Whitaker, then the chief executive of Colt, told several other members of a firearm trade association. Colt made substantial profits from the AR-15, the quintessential assault rifle. Whitaker, it turned out, was wrong. The AR-15 was not finished. It was just getting going.

In the face of a ban that turned out to be laughably easy to evade, the industry kept making civilian versions of military rifles. The prohibition actually helped transform what had been a marginal product for most manufacturers into a gun-rights poster child, celebrated by the National Rifle Association and sought-after by a much bigger share of the gun-buying public. The law was written to last just 10 years, and in 2004 this porous excuse for gun regulation expired.