How often are assault weapons used in crimes?

How often are assault weapons used in crimes?

Paul Helmke (President, The Brady Campaign) gives expert video advice on: How dangerous are assault weapons?; What is a semi-automatic assault weapon?; What's the difference between an assault weapon and a semi-automatic firearm? and more...

It's hard to know how often assault weapons are used in crime because the federal government doesn't share information on that anymore. Before congress restricted this information, it was clear from studies that I've seen, it's clear from people I've talked to, that assault weapons were used in crime. I was a mayor for twelve years. I ran a police department. And one of the reasons I supported the assault weapons ban on the early 90s is my police officers were getting out-gunned by bad guys who has the assault weapons. I remember clearly my police officers responding to a bank robbery in a stripmall and getting into a gun fight. My police officers were hiding behind their police car shooting back and the number of rounds coming from the bad guys through the car was significant. It was clear that assault weapons were being used by the bad guys. It wasn't just in my city but in cities around the country.