1) "Assault Rifle": An intermediate caliber, select-fire weapon (capable of both semi- and fully-automatic fire) designed to replace both rifles and submachine guns in the hands of troops.
2) "Assault Weapon": A legal term applied by the justice department in 1989 by executive decree to certain imported semiautomatic firearms with a combination of scary-looking features. In 1994 the definition was expanded to include certain domestically-made guns, but that was again dropped in 2004 after the sunset of the AWB. Ironically, the term "Pre-ban assault weapon" is an oxymoron, since by definition an "Assault Weapon" is a weapon with X combination of features that was built after the ban took effect.
That is all.
Ah, those wacky Clintons. Care to guess if we'll see a resurection of the Clinton AWB if Hillary gets elected in 2008? Not that I'm holding out any hope that any of the current crop of "republicans" will be any better. Egads, pray for us!
ReplyDeleteI'll be attending a hearing on SB 5197, one of the "gun show loophole" bills, today in Olympia, WA, so it should be interesting. With luck it'll be blog worthy material. Complete with "anti" pics, etc...
Actually, the term "Assault Weapon" was coined by the Justice Department of that wacky George H. W. Bush. The Clinton administration just expanded it to include scary-looking domestic guns as well as imported ones.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, the whole thing is nothing more than a construct by your elected officials to make people afraid of a bogus boogeyman in an effort to make everyone think that government can save them.
ReplyDeleteSickening.
"the whole thing is nothing more than a construct by your elected officials to make people afraid of a bogus boogeyman in an effort to make everyone think that government can save them."
ReplyDeleteYup. The phrase that best describes it is,
Government: A disease masquerading as its own cure.
DAL357
IIRC, the wording on the AWB is so ambiguous you'd think they'd be snatching AirSofts out of our hands because they fit the criteria (they "expel a 6mm projectile at a velocity" after all).
ReplyDeleteGood post, by the way.