None of the guns that the Newtown murderer used was an assault weapon under Connecticut law. This illustrates the uselessness of bans on so-called assault weapons, since those bans concentrate on guns' cosmetics, such as whether the gun has a bayonet lug, rather than their function.
What some people call "assault weapons" function like every other normal firearm—they fire only one bullet each time the trigger is pressed. Unlike automatics (machine guns), they do not fire continuously as long as the trigger is held. They are "semi-automatic" because they eject the empty shell case and load the next round into the firing chamber.
Read the article: The Wall Street Journal
APPEARS IN
News
Kopel: Guns, mental illness and Newtown
Thursday, December 20, 2012
TRENDING NOW
Monday, June 1, 2026
The fight to defend Second Amendment rights is not confined to Washington, D.C., or even to the halls of state capitals.
Monday, June 8, 2026
Anti-gun lawmakers and their gun control allies exploit menacing language to bolster their arguments against lawful arms: ordinary semi-automatic rifles and pistols become “weapons of war” and “assault weapons;” “large capacity magazines” actually refers to ...
Monday, June 1, 2026
While Virginia’s bans on “assault firearms” and magazines capable of holding more than 15 rounds was signed into law on May 14, and is scheduled to go into effect on July 1, it remains to be seen ...
Monday, June 8, 2026
Last October, a judge in the Circuit Court for the City of Richmond ruled in the case Raul Wilson, Wyatt Lowman, Virginia Citizens Defense League, Gun Owners of America, Inc, and Gun Owners Foundation v. ...
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
On Wednesday, May 27, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed S.9005C, which “enacts into law major components” of the state’s public protection and general government budget.
More Like This From Around The NRA
