assault rifles gettting some more play time. Been a busy two years!

[DirkGently]

18. Isn't that a pretty obvious obfuscation?

To what should we attribute the design differences in weapons like those? Would someone looking to kill a large number of people in a short time, in a small area, not have a preference, unless they had a lot of silly ideas about what some keep calling "cosmetic" features of weapons?

Why does the pro-gun side of the "assault weapons" argument pretend that there isn't a people-killing design element to weapons the firearms industry first started calling "assault weapons?" Why do they deliberately avoid the basic point some weapons -- which we keep hearing are "tools" are, like all tools, function specific. You don't bring a phillips-head screwdriver to pound a nail. Are we actually all supposed to pretend all weapons are the same?

"Assault weapon" is not an "anti" term, right? It's a marketing term. Are the gun manufacturers lying when they suggest that certain design components make a gun a better choice for combat than hunting?

The depth to which these silly rhetorical notions have been ingrained in some people is confounding. It's "irrational" and shows "ignorance of firearms" to note that certain weapons have design components focused on killing, vs. hunting, or even simple defense? If that's the case, why don't cops carry .22 target pistols? Why don't soldiers carry single-shot hunting rifles (anymore)?

The basic discussion is as simple as this: Does the public have a legitimate interest in regulating types of weapons on the basis of their design application? Do we have the right to be more concerned about someone stocking up on weapons with a combat focus vs. hunting, target-shooting, etc.?

Either point of view may be legitimate. But pretending there's no such thing, and all discussion of types of weapons and their intended focus is meaningless is not an honest argument, period.