> The original proposals had none of that silliness. They targeted tactical rifles: short to be light, portable, and effective indoors and at close quarters, with detachable magazines to maximize sustained ability to engage targets.

This doesn't match up with my understanding of the history of assault weapon legislation. Roberti-Roos in California (1989) banned weapons by name, not by how light they were or how useful they'd be in close quarters combat. I can't find any early drafts of alternative proposals. By the time the Federal Assault Weapons ban came around in 1994, this approach was exposed as unworkable because manufacturers would make minor changes, change the model number, and get around the ban list. That's how you got the feature tests, which were added to Roberti-Roos in 1999.

If you know of any early assault weapon ban proposals that banned based on functionality, I'd really appreciate some citations. I've seen more recent proposals to ban all semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, but nothing that dated to the 1980s.

According to Wikipedia the 1994 law banned both by name and by functionality: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban#...

The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons ban was the source of the irrational feature tests under discussion. These feature tests originated here because California's experience showed that name bans were easily subverted. The 1994 FAWB did not contain a functionality ban aside from the feature tests only applying to semiautomatic pistols and rifles with detachable magazines and semiautomatic shotguns. Semiautomatic pistols and rifles with detachable magazines and semiautomatic shotguns remained legal.

Will track down! It'll be somewhere in my pile of bookmarks.

Here you go:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/386...

This was Metzenbaum's reaction to the Stockton massacre; it was covered in the NYT (both at the time and in retrospectives about how we ended up with our batty FAWB). Note that in addition to definitionally regulating AR-15s, it also bans them outright by name.

(The definitional criteria here is --- this is from a skim and from memory, so correct me but don't jump on me if I have this wrong --- any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine that accepts more than 10 rounds).

I understand your point about current legislation being proposed against the backdrop of prior fights. I’d point out two things:

1) Gun control advocates appear to believe that assault weapons are banned here in Maryland, based on the ban on “scary looking guns.”

2) A large segment of gun control advocates—indeed, the mainstream of Democrats until last month—seek to distinguish between sporting and hunting rifles and assault weapons. That drives these bans on cosmetic features. I’d assume they genuinely believe in that dividing line, or at least believe they’ve got the votes to ban assault weapons but not hunting weapons. Do these centrists (1) not understand how guns work, or (2) assume their constituents don’t understand how guns work?

My read is:

* Gun control advocates attempted in the mid-late 1980s to ban semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines, wholesale.

* They failed and the proposal got whittled down the FAWB.

* Democratic politicians (by the time the FAWB passed, the ideological sort had completed and they were all Democrats) have ever since tried to save face by fighting a rear-guard action over cosmetic features, tacitly acknowledging that real policy changes would require political capital they were unwilling to spend.

All I'd add to that is, since Heller's overreach and (especially) Sandy Hook, the political capital equation has changed, and I don't think the FAWB capitulation is determinative going forward. Which is refreshing, however this stuff sorts itself out; aren't you exhausted by how stupid the last 15 years of gun debates have been?

If we agree that FAWB-ish regulation is stupid, and we're discussing policy futures, what do FAWB definitions matter?

>Again: the notion that a weapon is an "assault weapon" due to grips, sights, and flash suppressors is an artifact of a political fight from the 1980s, one the firearms lobby won handily.

You might want to check your facts: the federal assault weapons ban was passed in 1994 (with a 10-year sunset clause) and prohibited guns based on grips, sights, and flash suppressors.

The firearms lobby certainly didn't "win" this one; though you could consider it one of their victories that the ban wasn't renewed (which it has been in perpetuity in certain states).

>given a history of opposition from firearms advocates.

You are aware that it's the opposition to firearms advocates that continue to parrot these definitions, correct? You'd think that if they were wrong (and they are) that they'd've wisened up in 30 years, but since fundamentally this is about what voters themselves think that "assault weapons" are rather than what they actually are, they have not.

I think you've misread me. I acknowledge that the FAWB was based on those irrelevant details. My point is, that's because the original proposals were beaten back by the firearms lobby.

So you've written, multiple times, with no citation (e.g. a bill number andvrev).

See upthread. Did you think I was just making that up?

You only mentioned the Metz bill, which never went anywhere (not even one committee), so your "gun lobby" claim is odd.