Justin
Moderator Emeritus
I really don't care what the federal definition was as determined by a bill and neither do the vast majority of americans.
Appeal to Popularity
The purpose of bills is not to define words for the general public but to make law. The inclusion of certain handguns in the Assault Weapons ban was done to outlaw them and putting them under the legal definition of assault weapon did just that.
Then there is no fundamentally rational reason for someone to use the term "assault weapon" in 2011.
If there was a PR battle between gun owners and gun controllers over the definition then we lost.
There was a PR battle. One that was thought to be lost for the better part of a decade. Things have changed since then, and it's idiotic to continue to hew to such a defeatist attitude. Since the sunset of the ban, military-style rifles have become almost as mainstream as Justin Beiber, and the usage of terms like "military-derived," "military style," "sport-utility rifle," and the like have become mainstream. Those outside of the shooting fraternity who still refer to such guns as "assault weapons" are clearly incorrect and need nothing more than a minor correction that their terminology is incorrect.
Calling an AR 15 a sporting rifle is just as disingenous anyways given that is not what the gun was originally designed to do.
"Original intent," if such a thing can even be divined, is fundamentally irrelevant. Law scholar Eugene Volokh has taken this argument apart, and I've linked to it more than once. A search of the archives would be fruitful. Furthermore, many forms of technology developed in one field are eventually widely adopted in other fields. Arguing that an AR15 should be prohibited from the average citizen because it is derived from a military design is almost as stupid as arguing that anti-lock brakes should be prohibited from the average citizen because they were first developed by F1 racing teams and are therefore "only suitable for high performance automobile racing."