General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The only purpose of "assault" weapons is to kill people. [View all]krispos42
(49,445 posts)Ignoring the fact that "assault weapon"'s definition is a failed attempt to draw a line between "legitimate sporting" and illegitimate weapons of terror", yeah, the weapons that fall under the arbitrary definition are generally intended for killing people.
Of course, in states that have assault weapons bans, there are tons of weapons that are not assault weapons but are as close as the law allows, and they are ALSO optimized for killing people. That's what was used in Newtown, by the way.
And, finally, there are tons of weapons that are not close to being assault weapons, but are also optimized and intended for killing people. They're called handguns.
I'm continually mystified that people that surprised that a weapon that is optimized for self-defense is also optimized for offense. I'm also continually mystified that people don't realize that there's generally not that much difference between a rifle optimized for self-defense and those optimized for hunting, sport shooting, and target shooting.