(New York, April 15, 2003): News outlets reported this morning that a gunman carrying an AK-47 assault rifle sprayed bullets at students in a New Orleans high school gymnasium yesterday, killing one student and wounding three others. New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV) the statewide organization devoted to reducing gun violence, and the Mid-Atlantic Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence (MAC), the collection of state gun violence prevention groups and state councils of the Million Mom March in the five state region (MD, DE, PA, NJ and NY), joined in both deploring the availability of assault weapons and calling on legislators to strengthen the existing, but soon to expire, federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB).

Andy Pelosi, Executive Director of NYAGV said: "Sadly, this is one of those ‘only in America stories.’ The United States is the only developed country where such overwhelming firepower as provided by weapons of war, such as the AK-47 used in New Orleans, as well as Uzis and Bushmasters and AR-15s, is available legally and illegally."

Assault weapons are guns originally designed for military use. As such, they operate semi-automatically, firing a bullet at each trigger pull. Assault weapons can hold ammunition magazines of 10, 20, 50 or more bullets. It is their ability for rapid fire of many bullets and their design to be held at the hip for spray firing that denotes assault weapons.

Pelosi was echoed by Bryan Miller of MAC, who said: "The purpose of assault guns is to kill as many people in as short a time as possible. Americans agree that these guns are totally inappropriate in civil society, yet, due to the effective work of the gun lobby and the machinations of the gun industry, assault weapons are available for legal purchase in most states, including Louisiana and New York." Miller’s only brother, FBI Special Agent Mike Miller, was one of three law enforcement officers killed in November 1994 at Washington, DC police headquarters by a lone gunman wielding a concealed assault pistol.

Pelosi continued: "The existing federal AWB, which the gun industry has managed to evade, expires in September 2004. This is a prime opportunity to enact a new AWB, one that effectively meets the intent of the original ban, to prohibit the production and sale of military-style assault guns for the civilian market." Pelosi referred to the gun industry’s practice of deliberately making and selling copycat versions, with the same lethality, of banned guns.

"President Bush has made much of the need to invade Iraq to prevent its use of ‘weapons of mass destruction," said Miller. "Guns that are made for rapid spray fire, as the AK-47 used in the New Orleans school shooting was, are truly ‘weapons of mass destruction’ as well. While we applaud Bush’s call last week for reauthorizing the AWB, we look to his support to pass an effective law. We demand that the US Congress pass and the President sign a new AWB, one that will truly ban these ‘weapons of mass destruction.’"

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