re: High Capacity ban... It won't won't stop anything.

We can't know for sure exactly how many AR-15's are in the U.S., but using manufacturing, importing and sales numbers as well as trends in growth of sale and manufacturing we can get a pretty good estimate.

Using these number and factors, slate.com estimates that as of 2012 there are roughly 3,750,000 legally owned AR-15's in the United States. This estimate is also likely on the low side since it does not account for AR-15's that were pieced together from individual parts obtained over time, which is a common hobby among gun enthusiasts.

According to the FBI, assault weapons are used in 1% of gun crimes and 0.20% of violent crime. We'll make the same assumptions as before that all of the guns in these crimes are legally obtained and used only in one of the individual crimes. We'll also use the crime numbers from 2008 which will again be higher than the number of gun crimes in 2012 due to the trend of decreasing crime in the U.S.

1% or 0.01 x 303,880 = 3,039

3,039/3,750,000 = 0.00081 or 0.081%.

And keep in mind that the denominator in this equation is simply the number of AR-15's in the country and the numerator is the number of guns crimes where assault weapons were used. It does not take into account the other firearms that would fit the definition of an assault weapon. If those were taken into account, the percentage would be even lower.

So are we to ban or severely limit the use of these "scary" assault weapons for every law abiding citizen who owns one over the 0.081% who use them in crime? A far higher percentage of people abuse welfare, insurance, prescription drugs, and even their own children. Are we to ban all of them as well?