They're not ignorant of anything. Americans will comply. They I did in 1994.
Speak for yourself.
I was in high school in '94, caring about the ban wasn't at the top of my to-do list. And yes, as far as I know, I did comply with the ban until '04. I know for a fact that I never intentionally violated it.
Care to enlighten us all as to how you violated a federal firearms law for ten years?
I do remember the ban itself and therefore can comment from personal experience rather than a lack thereof. This is especially true since I legally owned AR's before, during and after the ban.
Other than what TRH said, the ban was pretty hard not to comply with. It was mainly a ban on the new manufacture of goodies as opposed to stuff generally already laying around that you could buy and violate it. I'm sure lots of guys bought AR's and unintentionally violated it through ignorance. The full guns were only sold to LE but there were plenty of parts laying around that could easily be changed out if you were of a mind.
I complied because you had to actively break the law to not do so. I also didn't have to do anything to comply. If millions of gun owners become felons or potential ones overnight by a "turn them in" order or "register them" it is a whole different state of events than the '94 ban. For an idea on how many would comply, you can look at California, which has had the Roberti-Roos Law in effect for many years now. I remember that as well since I was an avid reader of
Guns and Ammo and subscribed to
Handguns and
American Survival Guide, both based in Cali. I also subscribed to
Backwoods Home which was based in neighboring Oregon and commented frequently on issues in Cali.
California is a liberal state overall but also has a huge number of conservatives. They hadn't been beaten and watered down at the time either. There are and were more conservatives in Cali than in many states where people constantly make fun of them and talk them down, despite the idiots that get air time on the news. Ronald Reagan was a Californio.
There was mass disobedience of the Roberti-Roos Law as people didn't register or turn in their weapons. Several years after the amnesty period was over, IIRC the compliance rate was much less than 10% of the estimated assault rifles that had been in the state at the time of the ban.
Californians are routinely used as whipping boys on this site, so if they are as pussified as some here claim and they disobeyed the ban at a 90% or greater rate, where does that leave the average American?
Leaving out people who don't know or pay attention to it due to ignorance willful or otherwise, a ban that just deals with new manufacture of full guns will be easily followed. If you have to actively do something to follow it, it will be massively disobeyed judging from our most liberal state.
