Why ban the guns that kill the least amount of people, and ignore the ones that kill the most? [View all]

[MadDAsHell]

Assault weapon/mass shooting deaths make the most headlines, but their numbers pale in comparison to single victim handgun murders. Why are we letting our psyche/emotions/fear rule our political actions instead of 1) our ability to do math and 2) our sincere desire to save the most lives we can?

In 2013, 11,000+ people were murdered with guns in non-mass shootings (80% of which were handguns).

137 died in mass shootings (most of which were probably perpetrated with a combination of handguns and assault weapons).

We also know that the 1994 assault weapons ban had almost no impact on gun violence, as little assault weapons violence was being committed by legal owners anyway (and illegal owners weren't going to change their behavior due to a ban), and handgun violence (already responsible for the vast majority of gun violence) continued at the same pace.

All gun deaths are tragic, but there are, at a minimum, probably 7,000 more lives we can save by moving on handguns. The NRA is going to fight it no matter what we do; why are we taking the cowardly, least impactful approach YET AGAIN???

This is so damn frustrating.