What Everyone Knows

A full-page ad in yesterday's New York Times, sponsored by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Million Mom March, declares, "You know and every law enforcement officer in America knows: the 1994 assault weapons ban saved lives." Leaving aside the assumption that everyone in America agrees with the anti-gun activists, how is possible for anyone to "know" that this law has "saved lives"? Even a panel appointed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, usually a gun control booster, could not find any solid evidence that the ban, or any other restriction on firearms, has done what it was supposed to do.