No such thing as an 'assault' rifle

By: JIM TRAGESER - Staff Writer | Sunday, September 12, 2004 9:26 PM PDT ∞

Today marks the expiration of the federal ban on the sale of so-called "assault" rifles. There will be much wailing in the national media, with concerned spokespeople from a variety of organizations warning us that our safety is at risk.

Of course, in Cailfornia, we're not affected by this lifting of the federal prohibition, because an even stricter state ban remains in place.

But if nothing else, Californians might want to use the expiration of the federal law to ask themselves if the state law really does anything to protect us, or if it's simply another surrender of our rights to the government.

Because the reality of assault rifles is this: They are identical to the very legal hunting rifles in all but cosmetics.

The so-called assault rifles are no more deadly than hunting rifles, they're just sexier. They tend to have a sleeker look to them, a plastic stock instead of wood, a web-style sling instead of leather. It's much like the difference between a sports car and a station wagon. Is the sports car really any faster? Not usually ---- it just looks it.

Imagine if we decided to ban sports cars in the name of safety. Out with the Mustang, in with the Taurus.

Would we be any safer?

Some might argue that the cosmetic (and marketing) differences associated with the sports car encourage more dangerous driving, but would we let the exercise of First Amendment free speech rights be used to ban sports cars?

Why, then, should we let the government ban an entire class of firearms based solely on appearance rather than measurable performance?

What's oddest about the politics of the assault-weapon bans is that the same folks who are generally appalled by any effort to increase the government's authority over us ---- those who oppose the Patriot Act, for example ---- are nearly slavish in their support of this extension of federal power.

And yet the fact remains that these supposed assault weapons are no different from the unregulated hunting rifles still for sale in California. The hunting rifles use the same ammunition and fire at the same rate ---- i.e., as fast as you can pull the trigger.

Nobody is talking about legalizing machine guns, which spit out a steady stream of bullets. The so-called assault weapons are the same semiautomatic rifles that hunters and target shooters use perfectly legally, just dressed up in camouflage and plastic.

If there is a real, functional difference between assault and hunting rifles it may be this: Hunting rifles are probably a bit more accurate, since they tend to have longer barrels. So in the interest of safety, we've banned the less-accurate weapons and left the more accurate, just as powerful hunting rifles on the streets.

If there's any sense in the above, I can't see it.

Short of banning all semiautomatic guns (which would include revolvers), Congress ought to take some common-sense approaches before getting back into the business of the wholesale outlawing of previously legal products. Prohibiting large clips should address the concerns of law-enforcement agencies over being outgunned ---- nobody outside the Marines or Army needs to be able to fire 50 or 100 shots at a time; a limit of five or eight rounds per clip is more than adequate.

But until the gun-banning crowd can come up with a substantive difference between these supposed assault rifles and hunting rifles, the rest of us ought to be a bit warier about signing over our rights to the government.

Jim Trageser is the assistant online editor. Contact him at jtrageser@nctimes.com.