Assault Weapons Ban

Assault Weapons Ban

Congress passed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban as a subtitle of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that was passed in 1994. This law prohibited the sale of semi-automatic "assault weapons" manufactured after the date that the law was passed. Although the law expired 10 years after it was enacted, it is important note the impact that it made.

Up until the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was enacted, there was no previous definition of an assault weapon in a legal context.

This law defined an assault weapon as a semi-automatic firearm with certain cosmetic features. A semi-automatic firearm is a firearm that when the trigger is pulled, it automatically loads the next round and is ready to be fired again. Almost all pistols manufactured in the past century are semi-automatic except for pistol revolvers.

Semi-automatic rifles were not allowed to have more than two of the following features: a folding stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount (to affix a knife on the end of the rifle), a threaded barrel (to attach a flash suppressor