> Yes, assault weapons are a different category, legally and technically, from semi-automatic weapons
What's the clear legal definition of an assault weapon?
E.g. as referenced elsewhere in the comments here, the federal assault weapons ban clearly talked about "semi-automatic assault weapons", suggesting the legal definition was not so clearly "only full-automatics"?
https://www.politifact.com/article/2017/oct/02/difference-be...
Whereas past laws that used the term clearly considered it not to be fully-automatic only. E.g. the law that's commonly known as the "Federal Assault Weapons Ban" (1994-2008) literally regulated "semiautomatic assault weapons", a category which doesn't make any sense if you insist that assault weapons always are fully-automatic. So what's changed that you now can insist that including semi-automatics doesn't make sense? I won't claim I know all relevant legislation, but it seems pretty obvious that not that long ago, it wasn't as clear-cut as you present it.
Certain military-grade rifles that are semi-auto but can also be made to fire fully auto are classified as assault weapons, officially and militarily speaking.
Civilian anti-gun activists just call anything "assault" that even looks kind of military, like a black AR-15 that might only fire .22 bullets, one at a time. By the way a .22 bullet might not stop a man unless it's a heart hit; this is why police (and bad guys) tend to use .45 or other larger caliber weapons. A .22 is quieter, less kick, cheaper ammo, and is good for killing rabbits.
This is precisely the problem that people have with the term "assault weapon".
If you are using the words "assault weapon" you are basically saying that you want to ban guns that look scary, because this is what the original assault weapons ban did.
But after a bit of googling I guess I found the missing context: "Assault weapons" being full-auto amounts to a US gun scene shibboleth to make it easy to dismiss anyone making the mistake of using the term without having to engage the substance, even if many people, including law makers, define the term differently.
"People call all kinds of things assault weapons based on stupid criteria, what specifically do you mean" would have been a far stronger point than this "haha, semi-automatics are normal guns and not assault weapons" game.
Specifically, the assault weapons ban has nothing to do with banning semi-auto weapons. It has to do with banning things like bayonets on weapons.
Thats the point. The only definition of assault weapon, that has ever existed in the law, has been regarding banning mostly cosmetic features of a gun.
> without having to engage the substance
The substance of the assault weapons ban, is regarding mostly cosmetic features. It is instead other people, who are trying to ignore talking about the actual substance and specifics.
The anti-gun lobby has conflated the terms to push a blanket ban on anything that looks remotely military. But functionally, it's two separate categories and fully automatic weapons require a federal permit that takes about a year.