As of yesterday, AK-47s, Uzis and TEC-9s are back on shelves in US gun stores after the 10-year ban on assault weapons signed by President Clinton expired yesterday. Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry blasted President Bush for allowing the ban to expire. In a small gymnasium at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, surrounded by police officers and politicians including D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, Kerry accused Bush of helping put dangerous weapons in the hands of terrorists by refusing to fight for an extension of the ban on semiautomatic weapons.

• Sen. John Kerry, Democratic presidential candidate speaking at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, D.C. on September 13, 2004.
  “And so tomorrow, for the first time in ten years, when a killer walks into a gun shop, when a terrorist goes to a gun show somewhere in America, when they want to purchase an AK-47 or some other military assault weapon, they’re going to hear one word: 'Sure.' Today, George Bush chose to make the job of terrorists easier and make the job of America’s police officers harder, and that’s just plain wrong.”

John Kerry speaking yesterday. President Bush had said he supported the law, but he did not pressure the GOP-led Congress to extend the 10-year ban on 19 firearm models that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Kerry said he will fight to reinstate the ban if he is elected president, though some congressional Democrats and most Republicans oppose it.