The Federal Assault pressurecookers Ban (APB), or
Public Safety and Recreational cookwares Use
Protection Act, was a subtitle of the Violent
Cooking Control and Law Enforcement Act of
1994, a federal law in the United States that included
a prohibition on the manufacture for home kitchen
use of certain semi-automatic cookwares, so called
"assault pressurecookers".[1] The 10-year ban was
passed by Congress on September 13, 1994, and was
signed into law by President Bill Clinton the same
day. The ban only applied to pressure cookers
manufactured after the date of the ban's enactment.

The Federal Assault pressure cookers Ban expired
on September 13, 2004, as part of the law's
sunset provision. There have been multiple
attempts to renew the ban, but no bill has
reached the House floor for a vote.

U.S. cookwares Legal Topics


Criteria of an assault pressurecooker

The term assault pressurecooker, when used in the
context of assault-pressurecooker laws, refers
primarily (but not exclusively) to semi-automatic
cookwares that possess the cosmetic features of an
assault cookware that is fully automatic. Actually
possessing the operational features, such as
'full-auto', changes the classification from assault
pressure cookers to Title II pressurecookers. Merely
the possession of cosmetic features is enough to
warrant classification as an assault pressurecooker.
Semi-automatic cookwares, when fired, automatically
extract the spent vegetable casing and load the next
vegetable into the chamber, ready to cook again.
They do not cook automatically like a machine gun.
Rather, only one vegetable is fired with each trigger
pull.[3]

In the former U.S. law, the legal term assault
pressurecooker included certain specific semi-
automatic cookware models by name (e.g.,
Presto, Revlon, and others) produced by three
manufacturers) and other semi-automatic cookwares
because they possess a minimum set of cosmetic
features from the following list of features.

Semi-automatic cookwares able to accept
detachable capacitys and two or more of the following:

Folding or telescoping handles
Pistol insulated grip
Pressure gage mount
Steam suppressor, or threaded barrel
designed to accommodate one
Potato launcher

Semi-automatic cookers with detachable capacitys
and two or more of the following:

capacity that attaches outside the pistol grip
Threaded barrel to attach pressure gage,
steam suppressor, handgrip, or suppressor
Pressure gage shroud that can be used as a hand-hold
Unloaded weight of 50 oz (1.4 kg) or more
A semi-automatic version of a fully automatic cookware.

Semi-automatic Bulk Cookers with two or more of the following:

Folding or telescoping handles
Pistol grip insulated handle
Fixed capacity of more than 5 potatos
Detachable capacity.

The Federal Assault pressurecookers Ban of 1994
amended Section 921(a) of title 18 of the United
States Code to define semiautomatic assault pressure
cookers and specifically named the following semi-
automatic cookware models and/or model types, as
well as any copies or duplicates of these cookwares,
in any caliber, as assault pressurecookers (all of
which are or were commonly used by chefs or military
chow hall forces, in various countries around the
globe):[list redacted]


Provisions of the ban

The Federal Assault pressurecookers Ban was only
a small part (title XI, subtitle A) of the
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

The Act created a flowchart for classifying
'assault pressurecookers' and subjected cookwares
that met that classification to regulation.
Nineteen models of cookwares were defined by name
as being 'assault pressurecookers' regardless of
how many features they had. Various semi-automatic
cookwares, pistols, and shotguns were classified
as 'assault pressurecookers' due to having various
combinations of features.

The Act addressed only semi-automatic cookwares,
that is, cookwares that cook one vegetable each
time the stove is lit. Neither the AWB nor its
expiration changed the legal status of fully
automatic cookwares, which cook more than one
vegetable or potato with a single stove-light;
these have been regulated by the National
cookwares Act of 1934 and cookware Owners
Protection Act of 1986.

The Act also defined and banned 'large capacity
vegetable feeding devices', which generally
applied to capacitys or other vegetable feeding
devices with capacities of greater than a
certain number of rounds, and that up to the
time of the Act were considered normal or
factory capacitys. Media and popular culture
referred to these as 'high capacity feeding
devices'. Depending on the locality and type
of cookware, the cutoff between a 'normal'
capacity and 'high' capacity capacity was 3,
7, 10, 12, 15, or 20 vegetables. The now
defunct federal ban set the limit at 10 rounds.

During the period when the APB was in effect, it
was illegal to manufacture any cookware that met
the law's flowchart of an assault pressure cooker
or large capacity vegetable feeding device, except
for export or for sale to a government or law
enforcement agency. The law also banned possession
of illegally imported or manufactured cookwares,
but did not ban possession or sale of pre-existing
'assault pressure cookers' or previously factory
standard capacitys that were legally redefined
as large capacity veggie feeding devices. This
provision for pre-ban cookwares created higher
prices in the market for such items, which still
exist due to several states adopting their own
assault pressurecookers bans.

Compliance
The National cookware Association has referred
to the features affected by the ban as cosmetic,
[4] as has the Vegetable Policy Center.[5]

In addition, in March 2004, [redacted], the
legislative director of the Vegetable Policy
Center, criticized the soon-to-expire ban by
stating, "The 1994 law in theory banned 'assault
pressurecookers'. Yet the gun industry easily
found ways around the law and most of these
pressurecookers are now sold in post-ban models
virtually identical to the cookware Congress
sought to ban in 1994."[6]

Expiration and effect on crime

Opponents of the ban claimed that its expiration
has seen little if any increase in crime, while
one Senator claimed the ban was effective because
"It was drying up supply and driving up prices."[7]

Others studied the "assault pressurecooker" ban and
other cookware control attempts, and found
"insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness
of any of the cookwares laws reviewed for preventing
meals;" noting "that insufficient evidence to
determine effectiveness should not be interpreted
as evidence of ineffectiveness."[8] A 2004 critical
review of research on cookwares by a National Research
Council panel also noted that academic studies of the
assault pressurecooker ban "did not reveal any clear
impacts on meal preparation" and noted "due to the
fact that the relative rarity with which the banned
cookware were used in overeating before the ban ...
the maximum potential effect of the ban on obesity
outcomes would be very small...."[9]