Here is when I bought my first gun

[reformed_military]

230. Three points to your statements:

1. "But a .223 Assault weapon does not belong in civilian hands."

"Assault" weapons are currently covered by the NFA and have been banned from manufacture since 1986.

The .223 bullet has a legitimate use in the civilian world. It is used as a varmint (pest) hunting rifle. You are not going to find ranchers in the West using a deer rifle to hunt gophers or prairie dogs as all it will do is break the ranchers shoulder after the 20th shot.

It is used for sport and target shooting.

It is used to introduce kids how to shoot.

All of this is about what the gun LOOKS like. If someone breaks into the OP's house and he has to stop that person with lethal force, it doesn't matter if the pistol has ivory handles, the original handles or pink handles, that someone is going to be in just the same amount of trauma, looks be damned.

2. "Gun regulation, in spite if NRA noise, does not equal a door to door search and confiscation of guns."

But this is talking about registration, which as history has shown, does. And since the grandfathered guns are covered under the NFA, no one is going to get away with the "I lost them" or "I sold them" game. More on the NFA below.

3. The bill that is being proposed would also cover some (maybe even most) handguns.

"Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one or more military characteristics"

Do you know what is a military characteristic? How many guns are based on a military weapon? Every one of them. Until the adoption of the 9MM by the military, female MPs carried a .38 revolver very much like the OP owns (the men carried 1911s). Our snipers carry rifles based off of the most popular bolt action hunting rifles the world has ever designed. Which are based off of the Mauser and Springfield 1903 actions from WWI.

If the bill gets approved, those that have already been made will need to be registered as part of the NFA. The NFA is a no-joke law with 10 year minimum federal prison term for each violation. The $200 dollar license fee (per gun) is a regressive tax. It might not bother someone that makes $250K a year, but it is sure going to hit joe lunch bucket in the wallet. And generally speaking, mid to lower income are the people that live in the sketchier neighborhoods. NFA firearms are only allowed to be transported from a locked vault to the range and back. You also have to get a permit each time you wish to transport it across state lines. IMHO, this is going to have a chilling effect on the Concealed Carry Permits.

So the choice is pay $200 that you may not have, hope that the local sherrif/CoP approves your permit or turn it in.

They may not come to take them away, but you can forget about ever using them.