AS THE PRESIDENT and Congress look the other way, America is about to suffer a fresh onslaught of menacingly efficient deadly weapons across the homeland. At midnight Monday -- barring a sudden change of heart on the Hill -- the any-model-goes marketing of military assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines can resume as a 10-year ban on certain firearms expires. So much for the past efforts of four presidents -- Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton -- to rid the landscape of at least some of the weapons that have no place in a civilized society.
President Bush -- who said during the 2000 campaign that he favored a prohibition -- has yet to lift a finger for it. White House spokeswoman Clare Buchan has said that Mr. Bush "supports the reauthorization of the current assault weapons ban," adding that "the president's views are well known" among GOP leaders in Congress. Just as well known is that those Republican leaders won't act unless specifically prodded by the president, and that hasn't happened.
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Meanwhile, gun manufacturers are poised to roll out their holiday lines of assault weapons, complete with bayonets and other features outlawed by the ban. The Post's Dan Eggen reported yesterday that a study by the Consumer Federation of America, based on interviews of gun industry officials and reviews of advertisements and other sales materials, concluded that the new models will be more efficient and less expensive than those sold before the ban took effect. To spur sales, Beretta has offered customers two free 15-round magazines with the purchase of two of its weapons. The law restricts magazine capacity to 10 rounds.
Police officers whose lives are at risk on the streets have repeatedly pointed out that assault weapons are not useful in hunting or sport. D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey and more than 70 other police executives have called on Congress to extend the ban. But to be far more effective, the ban should be changed to include a prohibition on knock-off models that have been sold to circumvent the law, which is limited to 19 types of semiautomatic weapons.
No sporting shooter needs to own these weapons, no criminal should find them so easily on the market, no kids should face them in their schools. To stand by and allow a flood of assault weapons into the wrong hands makes no sense. Instead of drying up the supply, manufacturers will be given the official go-ahead to increase the gross domestic arsenal. Why won't the president act?
