The federal ban on assault weapons that President Clinton signed into law in 1994 comes to an end today. President Bush neglected to renew the ban when the NRA raised complaints about the three amendments attached in the Senate to it’s renewal.

These amendments were as follows:
- The first required that trigger locks be sold with all handguns.
- The second stipulated closing the gun show loophole that allows felons and the mentally unstable to buy weapons without a background check.
- The third extended the assault weapons ban.

Today the assault weapons ban will expire, and Bush will tell the electorate he would have signed the bill had it reached his desk with no amendments as he requested in early 2004. State and local Police support the ban almost unanimously, and conservative estimates have the ban favored by over 75% of the American public, but Bush has chosen to stay in the good graces of the most powerful special interest group associated with the debacle: the NRA.