That was a pretty detailed analysis, and I’d say your conclusion was well-supported. I would make a couple points.
First, the first graph you posted showed that homicide rates had been falling prior to the AWB being enacted, so while I understand the purpose of each of the following graphs attempts to isolate the effect of the AWB itself, normalizing them to year 1 removes the context of the trend that was already in progress.
Second, gun control proponents have long understood the greater danger of handguns, in fact that used to be what they pushed for much more than an AWB. The Brady Campaign was initially known as Handgun Control if I recall correctly. The reason they’ve shifted is because handguns are simply no longer a soft target as its much easier to argue for the publics’ right to own handguns than it is for assault weapons, and also because the Heller and McDonald decisions have taken handgun bans off the table. As you noted, rifles look scarier, and since the public in general has no understanding of what differentiates an assault weapon from a non-assault weapon, they’re open to the claims that there’s something inherently more dangerous about those categorized such. They’re told by dishonest politicians that the features that made X rifle an assault weapon are those that make it more dangerous to the public, when the actual legal categorization relies on stupid things like a pistol grip and a bayonet lug, because of all those bayonet stabbing sprees that keep happening…
Another interesting point that would have factored well into your analysis of the ban’s effectiveness is the number of weapons registered immediately prior to the ban. When the ban was passed, there was a registration period before it was implemented where purchase of the weapons was still allowed. During that window, an amount of rifles were purchased that was equivalent to the approximately ten preceding years. Now since the core of the argument for the AWB by its proponents was the notion that there was a directly proportional relationship between the number of these guns in civilian hands and crime, that notion was directly refuted by introducing a decade’s worth of guns into circulation all at once while crime continued dropping at increasing rates. While those numbers may not necessarily support the more guns less crime narrative, they certainly refute the more guns more crime narrative.
