September 13, 1994: President Bill Clinton Signs the Crime Bill

Clinton hugs Biden at the bill's signing.

Behind them, left to right: First Lady Hillary Clinton,

House Speaker Tom Foley of Washington,

Representative Patricia Schroeder of Colorado,

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California,

Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine,

Representative Chuck Schumer of New York,

and House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri.

September 13, 1994, 30 years ago: The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, a.k.a. simply "The Crime Bill," largely written by then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. More than anything else, it was responsible for the reduction in crime in American cities at the end of the 20th Century.

It included a ban an "assault weapons," military-style rifles that were useless for hunting, since they caused so much damage that the animal was useless as either food or a trophy. Their only purpose was to kill other human beings in a war zone. That part of the bill had been written by 2 members of the House of Representatives who would both, by 1998, be elected to the Senate: Chuck Schumer of New York, now the Majority Leader; and Dick Durbin of Illinois, now the Majority Whip and the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

But, as a concession in the hopes that some Republicans might vote for it, the assault-weapon ban was listed to last only 10 years. When it ran out in 2004, the Republican Party controlled both houses of Congress, as well as the Presidency, and, despite its success in reducing firearm deaths, there was no chance of a renewal bill getting anywhere.

Still, even with mass shootings happening nearly every day, they tend to happen in the suburbs, where police departments are less-equipped to handle them than major cities. In those cities, crime is higher than it was in 2004, but still far below what it was in 1994, when huge swaths of the urban landscape were "no-go zones."

Films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The Warriors and Fort Apache, The Bronx seemed like documentaries. (All were set in New York City, released in 1973, 1976, 1979 and 1981, respectively.) The fear that 1997 might look like the 1981 film Escape from New York, that 2019 might look like the 1982 film Blade Runner, and that "the near future" would end up looking like the 1987 film Robocop, seemed legitimate. Thanks to Schumer, Durbin, Biden and Clinton, that has never come to pass.