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

[petronius]

97. A phillips-head screwdriver is an excellent tool for rotating a

phillips head screw, whether you're building a gallows or an orphanage. There are plenty of attributes that might make that screwdriver good or bad, but few if any have a bearing on the structure you're (dis)assembling.

Likewise with firearms - there are few if any features that make a rifle a 'people-killer' in particular, in contrast to being a killer of coyotes, bowling pins, chupacabras, or paper targets. Many aspects might make a firearm attractive to a particular user, but none of them determine the appropriate target.

When it comes to so-called 'assault weapons', if you can specify a feature that is particularly relevant to killing humans (in the undesirable, criminal way) without being related even more strongly to regular use then there'd be something to talk about regulating. Put another way, if there was a way to make firearms more difficult to use criminally without having detrimental impacts on the vaster amount of regular use it would be worth talking about.

But, most if not all of the definitions of 'assault weapons' address features that have nothing to do with lethality or criminal use in any specific way, or determine what the gun's target is supposed to be. Rather, they target cosmetic aspects, or features that are desirable for all users. As used in a policy sense, "assault weapon" seems to be more about misinformation: creating the illusion that there are guns good for killing people and nothing else, or that they're military weapons - machine guns - As Seen On TV. I can see why gun control advocates might wish to foster that confusion, but it's not good for policy.

(As for the marketing angle, if it appeals to the badass sensibilities of the weekend Rambos that may be silly, but it's not harmful in a policy sense...)