By the way, does anybody know where this "20 times as likely" is from?
The prefatory clauses to the ordinance here made negative comments about firearms in general and made two allegations about “assault weapons.” Wilson, 394 Ill.App.3d at 535-36. First, it claims that “assault weapons are 20 times more likely to be used in the commission of a crime than other kinds of weapons,” id. at 535, but the U.S. Department of Justice study found that “AWs [assault weapons] were used in only a small fraction of gun crimes prior to the [federal] ban: about 2% according to most studies and no more than 8%.”7
I'm not very fluent in legalese, but I assume that refers to something in the original Wilson case... was it the judge's ruling? Or the county's argument in that case?
Just curious because that's a HUGE difference. At a glance "8" vs "20" seems similar - but those are different scales. Let's translate those both into percent of total gun crimes.
DOJ says: assault weapons used in
2% to 8% of gun crimes.
Cook county says: assault weapons are 20 times more likely to be used in a crime, which means for every 1 non-assault weapon used, there are 20 assault weapons used.... or
95.24% of gun crimesSomebody's lying, and I doubt it's the DOJ study.