Wisconsin: Attorney general doubts impact of assault weapons ban

 

ISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen suggested Tuesday that a ban on assault weapons likely wouldn't have prevented the Connecticut school shootings and urged lawmakers not to make "knee-jerk" decisions on new gun-control measures without hard evidence.
The Republican attorney general has led state Justice Department investigators through multiple mass shootings since he took office in 2007, including one in August at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek that left six worshippers dead. He told the Associated Press during an interview no one has any simple answers for stopping mass killers.
"We've known there are going to be crazy people who do horrible things long before I became attorney general, whether you go back to Columbine or whatever the case may be," Van Hollen said, referring to a mass shooting in 1998 at a Littleton, Colo., high school. "If there were simple solutions we would have come up with them then."
Adam Lanza killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Friday. Van Hollen said it may have been impossible to stop him because Lanza didn't own any firearms, killed his mother so he could steal her guns and then broke a window at the school to get in.
"The argument can be made the offender in Connecticut never even owned a firearm so how could he have been prevented from getting one?" Van Hollen said. "He actually killed the owner of the firearm to get it. And he broke into a

building, breaking and entering to use it. This is one person who's misused this firearm versus the millions who don't abuse it."

Wisconsin: Attorney general doubts impact of assault weapons ban - TwinCities.com