Some thoughts on guns and the 'assault weapon ban' The more I think about it, the more I tend to think gun safety regulation should focus on the ammunition rather than the gun. Nb. it's a fairly thin distinction between a semi-automatic and an automatic weapon (thin enough in some cases to field modified)... in fact, the reality of the mechanism is that a semi-automatic is essentially a modified automatic -- an automatic with a governor. Both machine-guns and 'semi-automatics' are designed to make chambering the next round 'automatic,' the question then is whether the weapon defaults to firing round n+1 until a) you release the trigger or b) you run out of ammunition in the clip or belt. or whether it defaults to _not_ firing round n+1 until you pull the trigger again. nnb. pulling the trigger again is not necessarily that much more physically demanding than hitting the next key on a keyboard. How many letters per minute can you type? Given these mechanics, the question with a semi automatic is "when do you have to hit the carriage return?" (for those who remember mechanical typewriters). i.e. when do you need to put in a new magazine? And the answer is, depends on how big the magazine, and how small the bullet.... one of the things distinguishing these 5.56mm weapons is that the bullets/cartridges are small, about as small they come (allowing even smaller, 4.7mm caseless ammunition in "civilian" "semi" automatic weapons would be a very bad idea). As a result, you can pack more bullets into a reasonably small magazine. It is worth remembering that the assault weapon ban expire in 2004, not to be renewed. Now, as Paul will point out, the AWB covered semi-automatic firearms which require a trigger-pull each shot (though nothing more). Fully 'automatic' firearms -- weapons that could be termed machine-guns -- remain illegal. Of course, as we can see from Newtown, semi automatic weapons are quite sufficient to shoot large groups of people multiple times. This because, like a machine gun, they use some of the energy of each shot to rechamber the next one. At one point, I'd have been somewhat more persuaded by the argument that the AWB was silly because it simply focused on guns that 'looked nasty' or 'looked military.' One thing that distinguishes these assault weapoins is that they are designed to fire the smaller, lighter, more portable ammunition -- 5.56 or .223 cal... As we get more and more of these shooters who seem to have been living in their own 'army of one' fantasy-land, I'm increasingly convinced that the look of these guns may be a trigger for these b--- male fantasies: i.e. there's plenty of reason to ban them precisely for the reason that they a) don't particularly serve the intent of the 2nd amendment and b) seem particularly attractive to the true gun nuts.