With more and more Americans supporting the view that gun ownership is an individual right protected by the Second Amendment, gun control groups such as the Brady Campaign are losing ground. This is giving rise to a new tactic, where gun control advocates declare virtually every gun to be an “assault weapon” and then ask for “reasonable restrictions” on the so called assault weapons.
First, lets clarify the confusion surrounding so “Assault weapons”:
The fact is, there is no such thing as an “Assault weapon,” as the assault weapons bans simply outlaw cosmetic features, safety features, and standard capacity magazines that have been around for over 100 years, as previously discussed. Nor are the so called “assault weapons” machine guns. Machine guns have been banned since before World War II, and all of the so called “assault weapons” are semi-automatic guns, not machine guns. I’ll say it again: The so called “assault weapons” that the gun control lobby is trying to ban are NOT machine guns, since machine guns are already banned.
Now to the new gun control tactic of calling everything an “assault weapon”
The gun control groups recognize that Americans are tired of handgun bans that don’t work, as seen in cities like Chicago and D.C. So instead of fighting to ban ordinary guns like handguns, the gun groups are now trying to get these ordinary guns classified as “assault weapons,” so that it easier to ban them. For example, nobody would think of an ordinary handgun such as the Springfield XD as an “assault weapon,” but the bans on “assault weapons” extend to cover this and many other handguns.
How, you ask? Simple: The bans on so called “assault weapons” define a magazine with the capacity to hold more than 10 rounds as a “high capacity assault weapon feeding device.” Then, ordinary guns such as the Springfield XD, or even the guns that have been around for over 100 years and won the wild west, are suddenly classified as “assault weapons.” Since such a definition defies common sense, most people don’t know that their ordinary handgun, or antique lever action rifle is now an “assault weapon” until they are arrested and jailed.