I think it probably makes sense to drop the term “assault rifle” and just ban guns that can accept high-capacity magazines (along with all high-capacity magazines). But I’d like to turn around this question:
What the Hell Is an ‘Assault Weapon’?
…The underlying problem is that there is no essential, objectively identifiable “assaultness” that makes these arbitrarily chosen weapons especially threatening.
My question is “What the Hell Is a ‘Hunting Rifle?'”
I’ve said it before, but the merit of outlawing assault weapons is not that they are functionally more dangerous than other semiautomatic rifles. The merit is cultural and hard to define. It’s basically an agreement that rifles designed solely to kill lots of people in a short period of time are obscene. Hunting rifles are not obscene. An AR-15 is obscene. The difference in not in their utility, but in their purpose.
An assault weapon is a civilian version of a military rifle. A hunting rifle is used, obviously, for hunting, or for competitive shooting. If a hunting rifle is semi-automatic, it is just as lethal as an assault weapon and just as suitable for home defense. Why ban the former and not the latter? Because we want to reinforce that there is no legitimate reason for people to play G.I. Joe, while there are some legitimate reasons to have a semi-automatic rifle, like varmint eradication.
The hope would be that the de-militarization of the culture would lead to fewer homicides. This could also be something for police forces to think about. Perhaps they shouldn’t be so militarized, either.
But I think it would far more reasonable to ban high-capacity magazines for all guns, and perhaps license out exceptions for people (ranchers, for example) who might have a legitimate reason to use a high-capacity magazine.
