OK, Check My Logic On This:

The Violence Policy Center, that [sarcasm] stalwart unbiased source of nothing but facts in the gun debate [/sarcasm] has a new scaremongering publication out:

Bullet Hoses: Semiautomatic Assault Weapons—What Are They? What's So Bad About Them?

There's this ten-point list of their EEEEEEVil features:

1. Semiautomatic assault weapons (like AK and AR-15 assault rifles and UZI and MAC assault pistols) are civilian versions of military assault weapons. There are virtually no significant differences between them.

Well, they're SEMI-automatic. I call that "significant."

2. Military assault weapons are "machine guns." That is, they are capable of fully automatic fire. A machine gun will continue to fire as long as the trigger is held down until the ammunition magazine is empty.

Nice of you to make the distinction

3. Civilian assault weapons are not machine guns. They are semiautomatic weapons. (Since 1986 federal law has banned the sale to civilians of new machine guns.) The trigger of a semiautomatic weapon must be pulled separately for each round fired. It is a mistake to call civilian assault weapons "automatic weapons" or "machine guns."

Well, hell. Nice of you to FINALLY make the distinction after telling all your buddies back in 1998:

Assault weapons - just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, COUPLED WITH THE PUBLIC'S CONFUSION OVER FULLY AUTOMATIC MACHINE GUNS VERSUS SEMI-AUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPONS - anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."

Seems you were encouraging confusion back then.

4. However, this is a distinction without a difference in terms of killing power. Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and thus more lethal—than automatic fire.

Wait a minute. What?

5. The distinctive "look" of assault weapons is not cosmetic. It is the visual result of specific functional design decisions. Military assault weapons were designed and developed for a specific military purpose—laying down a high volume of fire over a wide killing zone, also known as "hosing down" an area.

Which is it, "accurate semi-auto fire" or "hosing down" an area? Make up your damned mind.

6. Civilian assault weapons keep the specific functional design features that make this deadly spray-firing easy. These functional features also distinguish assault weapons from traditional sporting guns.

Again, accurate fire or spray fire. Which is the deadly one again?

7. The most significant assault weapon functional design features are: (1) ability to accept a high-capacity ammunition magazine, (2) a rear pistol or thumb-hole grip, and, (3) a forward grip or barrel shroud. Taken together, these are the design features that make possible the deadly and indiscriminate "spray-firing" for which assault weapons are designed. None of them are features of true hunting or sporting guns.

And who said the Second Amendment was a protection for "sporting guns?" If I recall correctly, the 1939 U.S. v Miller case hinged on whether or not Miller's "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches" was a suitable militia weapon. Well, if semi-automatic "assault weapons", by your definition "incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly" then they fill the bill, don't they? They meet the Miller test, and are then protected by the Second Amendment, right?

8. "Spray-firing" from the hip, a widely recognized technique for the use of assault weapons in certain combat situations, has no place in civil society. Although assault weapon advocates claim that "spray-firing" and shooting from the hip with such weapons is never done, numerous sources (including photographs and diagrams) show how the functional design features of assault weapons are used specifically for this purpose.

Well, as you yourself pointed out, this is less lethal than aimed fire. Pick a position and stick to it, would you?

9. Unfortunately, most of the design features listed in the 1994 federal ban—such as bayonet mounts, grenade launchers, silencers, and flash suppressors—have nothing to do with why assault weapons are so deadly. As a result, the gun industry has easily evaded the ban by simply tinkering with these "bells and whistles" while keeping the functional design features listed above.

Aw, gee, sorry that the rules were so stupid? So were we. But we were sorry that they were stupid and passed. Your buddies tell us that the "Assault Weapons Ban was a big success" and needs to be renewed, but you're telling us it was useless? And still needs to be renewed?

10. Although the gun lobby today argues that there is no such thing as civilian assault weapons, the gun industry, the National Rifle Association, gun magazines, and others in the gun lobby enthusiastically described these civilian versions as "assault rifles," "assault pistols," "assault-type," and "military assault" weapons to boost civilian assault-weapon sales throughout the 1980s. The industry and its allies only began to use the semantic argument that a "true" assault weapon is a machine gun after civilian assault weapons turned up in inordinate numbers in the hands of drug traffickers, criminal gangs, mass murderers, and other dangerous criminals.

Don't lay that off on US. You guys were the biggest marketing boost these weapons ever had. Every time you try to ban something you quadruple the market, if not more.

Get this straight: I bought my POST-ban AR-15 because you morons were trying to make it illegal for me to have one. It's my "militia" rifle. My "sport-utility" rifle. My "homeland security" rifle.

You can't have it. Period. End of story. Bite me.

Besides, if I follow your logic it means I ought to be able to get a less-lethal fully-automatic assault rifle. That would make you happier than my tack-driving precision rifle does now.

Doesn't this doubleplus ungood newthink make your heads hurt?