To pretend that SKSs, AKs, ARs, and the like our anything other than designed for punching holes in people is disengenuous at best.
And .30-06's, and .308's, and all Winchester lever-actions (which were developed as military weapons, remember), and 9mm's, and .45's, and so on. Grandpa's hunting rifle, and his hunting ammunition, often was ORIGINALLY designed for use against soldiers, not animals.
The "sporting weapons" discussion is a red herring. That is not the purpose of the 2nd. No point in even giving the "sporting weapons" credence by debating it as though it is legitimate.
This is true in the abstract, but pragmatically the argument can be useful in limited situations--such as when when debating with someone who is comfortable with people owning "hunting rifles" but not something as "powerful and lethal" as an SKS or an AK lookalike. You can point out that an SKS is less powerful and less lethal than the hunting weapon they believe people should be allowed to own.
I agree 100% that hunting has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the RKBA, and we gunnies who DON'T hunt are actually a substantial majority of gun owners (ballpark figures are ~80 million gun owners and only ~16 million licensed hunters).
The SKS is'nt high powered? Maybe not when compared to a .300 WinMag, but these things are largely relative. It is high-powered enough to punch police armor with relative ease.
The SKS is "high powered" like a 1987 Toyota Camy with a 2-liter 4-cylinder engine is "high powered." It is powerful enough to double the speed limit. It can accelerate to 60 mph faster than a 1930's race car. It has 110 horsepower, which is three or four times as much as you need to maintain 55 mph. And it can go fast enough to make any accident a nonsurvivable catastrophe. BUT, to refer to the 1987 Camry 4-cylinder as a "powerful car" would be very misleading.
The problem with describing an SKS as "high powered" is that such terms are ALWAYS interpreted relatively by the public at large; using the term implies to Joe Citizen that the rifle in question is more powerful than the average centerfire rifle, whereas the SKS is actually among the LEAST powerful of centerfire rifles.
The prohibitionists know that connotation is just as important as denotation in winning the public to their side. That's why they refer to a "blast" from an SKS instead of a "shot," because "blast" implies fearsome power.
The SKS is'nt an assault rifle? Tell that to any Korea vets who faced a human wave.
True. But the term "assault rifle" does have a specific definition (selective-fire rifle chambered for intermediate-power cartridge). And since "assault weapon" is a pejorative term coined by the gun prohibitionist lobby, it doesn't help our side to adopt it, any more than adopting the term "cop-killer bullets" for FMJ rifle ammunition would.