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Comment by gweinberg | Hacker News Reader

It absolutely is though. Guns are classified as "assault weapons" because of cosmetic features like barrel shrouds and bayonet lugs, and the fact that most people don't know this doesn't make it less true. The term "assault weapon" was deliberately chosen to confuse people into thinking it means the same as or something similar to "assault rifle", and that fact isn't really in dispute either.

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And then I come back with 3 paragraphs about the legislative history of the assault weapons ban, which began by singling out a bunch of weapons by name but with a catchall of semi-automatic weapons with detachable clips, and got lobbied down to its cosmetic definition by the NRA.

You might believe I'm completely wrong about all of this, and that's OK. That's how message boards work. But do you think "you haven't read the assault weapons ban and don't know how silly it is" is going to work as a rhetorical strategy here?

Or we can just accept that reasonable, informed people might disagree on these points, and there's no winning this.

>And then I come back with 3 paragraphs about the legislative history of the assault weapons ban, which began by singling out a bunch of weapons by name but with a catchall of semi-automatic weapons with detachable clips, and got lobbied down to its cosmetic definition by the NRA.

Where is this?

There's an older thread where I pasted a link to it, but I'm not going to dig it up right now (you can; I promise you it's there). I'm pretty comfortable with the idea that people will take my word on stuff like this. I'm really not trying to convince people that I'm right about this, only that the question is unsettled.

I'm actually quite interested in your N paragraphs about why the category is written the way it is, and especially about the principles under which it is (or was meant to be) effective..

Frankly it's something I've always wondered about, but as mostly a spectator of these kinds of discussions I've never seen anyone explain. Like a lot of folks, from my surface-level knowledge it seems arbitrary and likely meaningless. But so much so that it feels like I must be missing something.

Or any chance of a link to your previous cpmments on the topic?

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