I really don't care if you agree or disagree with the assault weapons ban.

Regardless of what you think about assault weapons, the debate about them should be honest.

And it just isn't.

People are lying to you. Don't you hate it when people lie to you?

Politicians on both sides of the aisle stretch the truth to make a point. They exaggerate on lots of issues.

When it comes to guns, the exaggeration knows no bounds.

In the assault weapon debate, you listen to the anti-gun people and they paint a picture of criminals spraying schoolyards and neighborhoods with military-type automatic weapons.

First of all, the things are not automatic weapons, and they are not military weapons.

The so-called "assault weapons" are functionally identical - read that again, functionally identical - to other more common, and much more widely owned hunting and target rifles, such as the Remington 7400, Valmet Hunter, Ruger Ranch Rifle, Springfield Armory National Match target rifle, and many others ... not to mention literally dozens of more concealable, more common and much more widely owned semi-automatic handguns.

So what makes them different? The way they look. Cosmetics. And, of course, politics.

Also, one should consider that the banned weapons fire low- or intermediate-power cartridges (e.g. 9 mm Parabellum, 5.56x45 mm, 7.62x39 mm) with nonexpanding bullets. Those kinds of cartridges are considerably less deadly than most high-power hunting cartridges - .243 Winchester, 30-06, .300 Winchester Magnum - loaded with hollow points.

Aside from all that, a remarkable preponderance of data actually shows the misuse of assault weapons has been completely exaggerated.

The guns are used in generally zero to 3 percent of gun crime even in the worst hotbeds of violent and drug crime.

Nationwide, the percentage falls below 1 percent.

And I heard the promo on CNN: "Should America put assault weapons back on the street?"

That one gets bandied about all the time.

Of course it assumes that assault weapons have left the street and that is patently false.

The legislation banned the sale and manufacture of 19 types of "new assault weapons." Key word, "new."

Does that mean there were none of those weapons on the street after the ban? No.

Does that mean that you can't buy one today? No.

The reality is that the guns are still available. They were grandfathered in. But most people think quite the contrary.

The biggest problem for me with the whole idea of banning assault weapons is from the standpoint of flawed logic and bad public policy.

Think about it.

If semi-automatic weapons are not important factors in crime - which research shows to be the case - it is senseless to regulate any of them.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say semi-automatic weapons are an important factor in crime. It makes even less sense from a crime control standpoint to willfully exclude the most widely owned models of semi-automatic weapons from the ban.

Of course, the biggest - and most oft-quoted - gun myth goes like this: "A gun in the home is 43 times more likely to kill you or a friend than a criminal intruder" or "For every case of justifiable homicide with a gun, there are 43 unnecessary deaths."

This "factoid" came from a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and has been repeated thousands of times by gun opponents and the media.

You have to work really hard to make it even remotely resemble a fact.

First of all, the folks who did the study counted suicides. Of those 43 deaths they're talking about, 37 are suicides. The study, then, appears to be saying that owning a gun makes you more likely to become suicidal. That's ludicrous.

It also seems to suggest that those suicides may not have occurred had there not been a gun in the house. My guess is if you're suicidal, you'll get the job done one way or another.

Next, the study counted all homicides in all households with guns, even if the household gun wasn't involved in the shooting. If a criminal carrying his own gun broke into your house and shot you while your gun was locked safely in a gun cabinet, they counted it as one of the 43 deaths.

For purposes of the study, it didn't matter that the homeowner's gun had absolutely nothing to do with the shooting.

Also for purposes of the study, "you or a friend" meant you or anybody known to you. If the shooter knew the victim in any way, they counted it in the 43. Even if it was a drug dealer shooting another drug dealer over a deal gone bad or a woman shooting a violent ex-boyfriend who was stalking her in her home. In the 43-to-1 study, all justifiable self-defense homicides are counted among the 43. The one only counts a total stranger.

The study also assumed that the only measure of a success for gun use is a dead intruder.

Anything short of that didn't count. This despite credible evidence that, 98 percent of the time, defensive use of a gun does not involve shooting. In those cases, the intruder surrenders or flees upon sight of a gun. The value of a gun isn't measured in the body count on your front porch or in your living room but, rather, in crimes prevented and lives saved.

The people who did the study set out to make guns look as bad as possible and slanted all their numbers to make the case. The 43-to-1 study is useless drivel.

But, no matter, anti-gun politicians use it all the time. And the media spoon feed it to us.

Over the past several years, I have devoted considerable space and effort in this column to debunk these myths many times over the years because they keep popping up anytime there is a debate about guns.

To me, pro-gun or anti-gun isn't the issue. The issue is truth. [[In-content Ad]]