I would like to hear your comments on this issue on our site. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Shaheen

I think the biggest problem regarding ‘assault weapons’ has been the proliferation of AK-47′s in the U.S. They look scary, they sound scary and people associate them with all the bad guys in those old Chuck Norris movies. I was just watching ‘DEA’ on television the other night and they talked about how these are now very popular with the drug crowd. But their fear is really the rounds they shoot and the possibility of after-market modifications that make them fully auto. Fortunately that only describes a small % of these guns. I’m sure you have been to gun shows and seen hundreds of AK’s that were completely benign and being touted as a decent semi-auto hunting rifle.

As in most things political, you are 100% correct that terminology frames so much of the arguement. Conservatives have been good at this at times but on gun rights, we keep falling short.

An assault rifle is what soldiers use. They can fire in full-auto or burst mode, and if made after 1986, are illegal for the general public to own.

Those made before 1986 are controlled the same way any machine gun is – through the provisions of the National Firearms Act of 1936.

In a nutshell, in order for a regular person to but a machine gun, they have to undergo a federal background check, get permission from their chief local law enforcement officer, pay a $200 tax, and then pony up the money to actually purchase the machine gun, which usually means $10,000 or more.

You’re spot-on in regards to black rifles. They look cool, but are functionally no different than any other “normal” rifle. That’s what everybody is talking about when they use the term “assualt weapon”.

They aren’t talking about machine guns, they are talking about normal guns that look like military ones. But, they want us to think “assault rifle”, so we won’t oppose banning them.

Sorry for rambling.

The so-called ‘black rifles’ out there are certainly configured as ‘assault weapons’ with a smaller frame, more lightweight, etc but I think that only muddy the waters. At the end of the day, they still have a semi-auto rate of fire and that makes them no more dangerous than your average hunting rifle. Yes, they are sometimes more easily concealed, but concealment isn’t the problem. It’s the lead coming out of them when they are un-concealed.