richard-sports Loc: New York City

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I heard that there are already two million of these weapons in the country, so a ban would be too little to late. But it would have prevented Omar Mateen from buying one. So, what is the solution to mass shootings?

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

Please define "assualt Weapon" Is a knife an assault weapon? A bayonet? A crossbow? A shotgun? A lever action rifle? All these weapons have military usages. Every officer in the Armed services carries a pistol, is that an assault weapon. Please define an assault weapon.

dljen Loc: Central PA

This does seem to be the gun of choice for mass murderers.

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

1. Gretchen is not a firearms expert. This commentary is an opinion piece.
2. Mateen did not use an AR-15, the media just used that to cover the fact they didn't yet know what he used and they felt they had to say something.
3. Even if it had been an AR-15 it still wouldn't be an assault weapon, at least not by the military definition of the present day. That would be a light rifle firing an intermediate power cartridge and capable of firing fully automatic or burst mode.
Fully automatic, hold back the trigger and the weapon keeps firing until it runs out of ammunition, jams or you release the trigger.
Burst, hold back the trigger and the weapon fires a pre-determined number of rounds and you then have to release and pull the trigger again. Most bursts are three rounds, why, that is about all most "trained" people can control on full auto, the rest of the rounds go up in the sky or ceiling because relatively light weight assault rifles "climb" due to the recoil from firing.
The AR-15 and those like it are semi-automatic only, one pull, one shoot.

It is one of the reasons the M-14 (classified as a Main Battle Rifle) was largely replaced by the M-16. The M-14 wasn't heavy enough for most people to control the climb and be able to hit their target. There were ways to use an M-14 on full auto and control it, I was trained to do so, but it was of limited use in most situations so we were trained to put our M-14 on semi-auto and use aimed single shots. Today the M-14 is largely used as a sniper or sharp shooter rifle in situations where the M-16 with its less powerful cartridge doesn't have the range or penetration needed. The older BAR was heavy enough to control climb but too heavy and large for general use by most troops.

The AR-15 and others like it are common, relatively cheap, light weight and so is the ammunition plus they not only look "bad" but have gotten a lot of publicity through movies and TV. Likewise the AK family of weapons. You want to think of yourself as "big bad and dangerous" you use one of those guns.

Here in the US the ARs and other .223/5.56 Nato chambered guns are more common and their ammunition is more available.

Keenan Loc: Central Coast California

So, if there is no difference between a AR-15/M-14, and a crossbow, then why do people need guns? Why can't people just defend themselves with a crossbow? Or a spoon? Since, according to your "logic", a spoon can also be an "assault weapon".

skylane5sp Loc: Puyallup, WA

Did you really just write that s**t?

mwalsh Loc: Houston

Odd definition of logic. That explains a lot. So does the Godless thing.

boberic Loc: Quiet Corner, Connecticut. Ex long Islander

You really missed the point of my post, and still have not answered the question-What is an assault weapon? BTW it is interesting to note, that according to FBI ststistics-hands,feet, blunt instruments and knives k**l more people than all rifles and shotguns put together. And cars k**l far many more people than all guns. Why do people need guns? If you don't know the answer to that question, you are beyond help.

hondo812 Loc: Massachusetts

http://thefederalist.com/2016/06/13/the-assault-weapons-ban-is-a-stupid-idea-pushed-by-stupid-people/

Have you read any of Douglas Adams Hitchhiker series? In one of the books he describes the K**l-O-Zap gun.... " Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for h*****g over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with."

Now keep in mind that the scary looking parts don't k**l you. They just scare you. Patton made his men mount bayonets. Less then 1% of soldiers were ever k**led with a bayonet but it scared most of them.

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

No kidding, he has this peculiar way of twisting other peoples words then forming it into an accusatory question.

hondo812 Loc: Massachusetts

In the grand scheme of things it really has nothing to do with that. It's all about volume. When a fishing boat sinks and the 3 men aboard drown it never makes the national news. That happens all year long. But a boat that sinks where 50 people die, that's news! There's a national outcry for preventing such catastrophes. 480,000 Americans die each year from smoking and we still have a tobacco industry. Each death is a single event so it never makes it to the news cycle yet one months worth will eclipse all the mass shooting deaths in the last 7 years. Where's the outrage? Why isn't Congress and the President (a smoker by the way) doing something? Those are preventable deaths.

From the CDC:
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including nearly 42,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.

Duckfart Loc: Olympia, Washington

Banning any type of firearm is a joke.

1. If firearms are banned criminals turn theirs in? No.
2. Anyone with a few machine tools can make an automatic weapon. The WW2 M3 'Grease Gun' cost less than $5 to build, is extremely simple and reliable, and plans are all over the internet on how to build them.

How about making this country so safe that no one will think they need a firearm? Stop paroling violent offenders. Reword the laws so sleazeball lawyers can use loopholes to free clients who have committed serious crimes. Protect our borders. Filter who can cross it to enter this country. Maintain a military that no one wants to mess with.

Just a few thoughts.

Cykdelic Loc: Now outside of Chiraq & Santa Fe, NM

Excellent question, and obviously there is no agreement on this among our elected i***ts. The gun used in Orlando, by the way, was NOT an "assault rifle" using the following wide-spread use:

"It is debated whether the term “assault weapon,” which entered the American lexicon in the late 1980s, originated as a political ploy by gun control advocates or as a marketing ploy by gun retailers. What is certain is that “assault weapon” is not a technical term, a term of art used by firearms manufactures, or a military term. The closest match in any of those categories is the term “assault rifle,” which is a military term referring to a medium-caliber, shoulder-fired rifle that allows the shooter to select between semiautomatic mode (the gun fires one bullet per pull of the trigger) and either fully automatic (the gun continues to fire bullet after bullet, as long as the trigger is depressed) or three-shot-burst mode (the gun fires three bullets per pull of the trigger). Because "assault weapons," as defined by state and federal law, are semiautomatic only and can fire in neither fully automatic mode nor three-shot-burst mode, they are not assault rifles. (THIS article explains the current laws restricting civilian ownership of assault rifles—aka machine guns—in the United States and explains why those weapons are not part of the ongoing debate over gun control in America.)"

Keenan Loc: Central Coast California

Really? Most of the morons who subscribe to that logic that there is no such thing as an assault weapon unless everything is an assault weapon are religious types rather than Godless. So I'm not understanding the connection.