The History of the 'Assault Weapon' Hoax. Part 1: The Crime that Started it All - Volokh Conspiracy : Reason.com

The History of the 'Assault Weapon' Hoax. Part 1: The Crime that Started it All - Volokh Conspiracy : Reason.com:
"The "assault weapon" controversy first became a national issue in January 1989, when a career criminal murdered five children at school playground in Stockton, California.
The failures of law enforcement before and during that crime—and the media and political failures thereafter—were similar to those related to the recent murders in Parkland, Florida. 
These failures are part of the reason why school shootings, and other mass attacks, persist in the United States today.

• This article is the first in a series detailing the "assault weapon" hoax from 1989 to the present.

The Stockton perpetrator, had whose name I won't repeat, had a difficult start in life.
...In a period of about two to five minutes (reports vary), he fired around 105 shots.
He hit 37 people, including one adult; five children were killed.
The police arrived five minutes after he had begun shooting.
By that point, he had killed himself.
The Stockton murderer could have been stopped before he started if the government had enforced existing criminal laws or had used existing laws to commit and provide mental health treatment for a plainly disturbed and imminently dangerous individual.
The same has been true for many subsequent mass killers.
In an article for the Howard Law Journal, Clayton Cramer I detail other notorious homicides, including mass shootings, that could have been prevented if existing laws had been used to commit and treat people who were well-known to be severely and dangerously mentally ill.
...Part of the problem was apparently that the Broward Sheriff, and the school administration, were diligently implementing the Obama administration's demand to shut down the "school to prison pipeline," by not arresting students...

• The next article in the series will examine the rifle the Stockton criminal used, and the misinformation that was spread about it.
• Future articles, will examine more of the past and present media inaccuracy about so-called "assault weapons," the many libels against law-abiding gun owners, and media coverage that has the effect of inciting copycats.

And of course the 1989 and 2018 stories of Presidents who imagined that they could find political advantage by breaking their campaign promises and betraying the people who elected them."
Read it all!