LaPierre and three other current and former NRA leaders are facing a lawsuit that alleges they violated nonprofit laws and misused NRA funds to finance their lavish lifestyles.
Wayne LaPierre resigned as leader of the National Rifle Association on Friday, ending his decadeslong reign over the prominent gun rights group, days before the start of his civil trial in New York.
In announcing his departure, LaPierre, the organization’s executive vice president, said he has been a “card-carrying member” of the NRA for most of his adult life and that he would “never stop supporting the NRA and its fight to defend Second Amendment freedom.”
“My passion for our cause burns as deeply as ever,” LaPierre said in a statement.
The Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act or Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) was a subsection of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a United States federal law which included a prohibition on the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms that were defined as assault weapons as well as certain ammunition magazines that were defined as large capacity.
The 10-year ban was passed by the U.S. Congress on August 25, 1994 and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 13, 1994. The ban applied only to weapons manufactured after the date of the ban’s enactment. It expired on September 13, 2004, in accordance with its sunset provision. Several constitutional challenges were filed against provisions of the ban, but all were rejected by the courts. There were multiple attempts to renew the ban, but none succeeded.
The scientific consensus among criminologists and other researchers is that the ban had little to no effect on overall criminal activity, firearm deaths, or the lethality of gun crimes. Studies have found that the overwhelming majority of gun crimes are committed with weapons which are not covered by the AWB, and that assault weapons are less likely to be used in homicides than other weapons. There is tentative evidence that the frequency of mass shootings may have slightly decreased while the ban was in effect, but research is inconclusive, with independent researchers finding conflicting results.
