Politics: is the Assault Weapons Ban worth it?

Matthew Yglesias has a nice post on his blog concering the AWB, which is more important politically than it might be practically. From everything I've read about the AWB, it's a sadly ineffective 10-year-old piece of gun control legislation that will expire Monday with the blessing of the Bush administration. Kerry said recently that the expiration of the AWB would help terrorists by allowing them to easily obtain military-style assault weapons. The statement makes sense, except that it's not a particularly relevant thing to say. The difference between banned weapons and many weapons allowed on the market are not all that significant, and it's not like Al Quaeda isn't going to look on the black market for these things. And given the way that gun-afficionados are paranoid that somebody's going to take their guns away (funny, nobody took their guns away over the last ten years), the AWB is pretty costly politically for the left, and probably not worth it. Let's see a new AWB that's actually effective (fat chance--thanks, Billy F!), and until then, choose our battles wisely. I disagree with Matt's assertion that crime isn't as important an issue in our country as education and health care (as I see gun control to be inseparable from public health), but he's a pretty clear thinking lib on the matter for the most part.

Update: Jeremy the Semanticist Kolonay railed me last night (via IM, not blog) for this line of the above post: The statement makes sense, except that it's not a particularly relevant thing to say. To give background, JK and I once dueled with AK-47s over semantics many years ago, but our wounds have healed since. He questions my use of the word "relevant," claiming that the statement isn't true, which is different than whether it makes sense or is relevant. Jeremy is not a fan of nuance. It IS true that it will be easier for Al Quaeda to obtain assault weapons w/ the expiration of the AWB. Now they can walk into Jim Bob's Gun and Bait Shop and buy their weapon, and a few days later after a probably useless background check, poof! The alternative would be finding these on the blackmarket, which would be less easy--i.e. less convenient (more phone calls), and that 0.02% chance that the cops might catch them. So while the statement makes sense, it's not relevant to the issue, since the change in ease of obtainment isn't enought to effect the outcome of terrorists having the firepower to mow down a shopping mall in 45 seconds. Jeremy loves guns, and I'm sure him having them isn't a danger to me or anybody else. He's a responsible guy, and I'm betting if he had kids running around, he'd keep the things locked up. But people like Jeremy aren't the ones that scare me.