When the term became official legislation it became real, even if it is a totaly innacurate misleading term. You cannot ignore the term without ignoring the law.
The term does not actualy refer to a specific type of weapon, neither rifle, nor handgun, nor shotgun.
Everyone has a different definition, and they generaly add to the scope of included firearm types.
All you need to do is look to CA for an example.
A pistol with a threaded barrel is an assault weapon, certainly something even the gun owner that thinks they have a grasp on the term's definition would not think of.
A firearm that holds over some number of arbitrary rounds becomes an assault weapon.
Even gun owners often think they know what the term refers to, but they really do not.
It is a legal term with different and changing definitions, not an actual weapon type. Even by anti standards, the definition is totaly inconclusive.
In CA a .50 BMG weapon is an "assault weapon", whether semi-auto, or bolt action, even with a 5 round magazine, or even single shot that has to be broken down to reload after each shot. It is the chambering not any feature that creates the "assault weapon" status in that situation.
If you really think you know the definition of "assault weapon" then you are already partialy defeated.
"Assault Weapon" means whatever the antis want it to mean in the minds of the listener. That is more or less in different states, depending on what legislation they think they can get away with.
In some states it is an AR, AK, in others it is a rifle with a magazine over 10 rounds, 15 rounds, 20 rounds...
In some it is a pistol with a threaded barrel, or chambered in a certain cartridge. In some it is a semi auto shotgun that holds over an even lower number of rounds than allowed for rifles, or that takes any detachable magazine.
In some it also means any rifle under 30".
You do not know the definition of "Assault Weapon" and the term will encompass something different as time goes by. It is a legal term, designed by the antis to fight a legal battle to remove a constitutional right.
However because it is a legal term, it is a real ever changing thing.
Unfortunately because they have legislated the term we must use it to challenge the legislation.
If someone created laws regarding some other fake thing, you would still need to use the fake name to challenge the law.
I think the term everyone is dancing around is "para-military."
Read my post again. You do not know the definition of "Assault Weapon".
Clearly in your mind it is paramilitary rifles. Itself a term that conjures images of items used for violent military purposes in the general population.
However a 26-30" hunting rifle is an Assault weapon in CA. A pistol with a threaded barrel is, including many target pistols and those with no military practicality.
You do not know the definition because there is no set definition and new bills to add additional weapons, features, calibers etc to "assault weapon" restrictions come up every year. If they pass they modify the existing state definition.
Do they suddenly became "para-military" at that point? They may have never been or ever will be "para-military". So no.
They do however suddenly became "assault-weapons".
If you think you know the definition you are already helping defeat your rights!
The term "assault weapon" is effective because it conjures up restrictions of an "acceptable" nature in some while having no real definition. In the really uninformed the very term including "assault" makes them bad items. Nobody needs to be assaulting others, so weapons for that purpose should be banned.
In some others informed enough to be thier own worst enemy they think it means a certain type of military weapon.
Both are wrong.
Those people can then be exploited, and the legal term can slowly encompass more and more.
