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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Babagounj" data-source="post: 2239726" data-attributes="member: 12952"><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/26/what-is-assault-weapon/" target="_blank">What Is an 'Assault Weapon?' - Breitbart</a>With incessant calls to ban “assault weapons” arising from the Democrat Party — calls that sometimes hit a fever pitch when you add in the voices of Democratic surrogates in the media and gun control groups — it seems to be a good time to ask a key question: What is an “assault weapon?”Does the term “assault weapon” only apply to black guns? Or can an “assault weapon” be white or green or red or brown or camouflage? Can it be pink?Here’s the point: “assault weapons” is a made up term that applies to whatever best serves Democrats who are pushing gun control at any given time. After all, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/the-assault-weapon-myth.html?_r=1" target="_blank">New York Times reports</a> that the term “assault weapons” is a “myth” Democrats created in the 1990s.And according to the NYT, the “myth” came into play when the Democrats — who were eager to find a scapegoat for escalating crime in the early 1990s — created a “politically defined category of guns” they could then demonize and ban. They subsequently achieved an “assault weapons” ban in 1994, and it lasted until 2004. And when today’s Democrats appeal to that ban as one that should be re-instituted, they prove they understand little about it.For starters, the 1994 did not ban “assault weapons.” Rather, it banned cosmetic features that Democrats consider part and parcel to “assault weapons.”To put it another way, the 1994 ban did not ban AR-15s in general. Rather, it banned flash hiders, certain fore stocks and grips, collapsible and folding rear stocks, “high capacity” magazines, etc. It banned things that made the gun look like the scary guns Democrats think about when they think about an “assault weapon.” But it did nothing to change or ban the actual gun.Were certain guns explicitly banned? Yes. But the larger scope of the ban was so cosmetically based that manufacturers could simply remove certain features, lengthen the barrel slightly, label the gun a “target rifle,” and continue selling them. For example, according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2012/12/17/everything-you-need-to-know-about-banning-assault-weapons-in-one-post/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a>, while the Colt AR-15 James Holmes used in his attack on the Aurora movie theater would have been banned, a “Colt Match Target rifle” would not. The difference between the AR-15 and the target rifle is largely cosmetic.Note: None of the differences in the two guns impacts basic operation, just as the presence or absence of a collapsible stock has no effect on bullet velocity.</blockquote>

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