What’s an Assault Rifle?

Whenever the media gets filled up with stories and editorials about a mass shooting, one of the arguments which invariably breaks out is how we define an ‘assault rifle.’ The gun-control crowd always wants these guns to be banned or at least more tightly controlled, and the pro-gun gang claims that when it comes to these so-called ‘assault rifles,’ the Communists and Pinkos who want to deprive America of their 2nd-Amendment ‘rights,’ don’t understand what the term ‘assault rifle’ really means.

So, for example, Fox News ran a big story about how Gail Collins of The Failing New York Times completely screwed up the definition of an assault rifle in calling for a ban of those guns to which their so-called gun expert, a guy named Stephen Gutowski, was trotted out to set the record straight.

What makes Gutowski an ‘expert’ on guns? He runs a website about guns. Want to refer to yourself as an ‘expert?’ Open a website, okay?

My knowledge about assault rifles is obviously much scantier than Gutowski’s expertise. I own three or four such guns right now, having bought the very first such gun ever sold in the United States. It was a Colt Sporter which I purchased back in 1977 or 1978.

I also have sold more than several hundred ARs in gun shops that I owned in three states — South Carolina between 1978–81, New York between 1984–1991 and…