Gun debate afflicted with inaccurate, emotional terminology

It appears that the most recent attempt to implement a nationwide ban on assault weapons has failed, and now is a good time to examine why this happened.

Any discussion of an "assault weapon" must include a history of the term and what it means for a modern society grappling with the politics of the private ownership of any and all firearms.

The term "assault rifle" is a translation of the German word "sturmgewehr," which literally means "storm rifle" as to "storm" an enemy stronghold. The name was actually coined by Adolph Hitler in 1944, when the German army designed what has come to be known as the world’s first assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr 44.

In strict terms, an assault rifle must have at least the following characteristics:

» It must be an individual weapon that can be fired from the shoulder.

» It must have an intermediate-power cartridge (more power than a pistol but less power than a standard rifle).

» It must be able to accept a detachable magazine.

» It must have a firing range of at least 300 meters.

» It must be capable of selective fire, meaning that it can fire in a semi-automatic mode, and with a flick of a switch can fire in a fully automatic mode.

This last characteristic is crucial to the current debate over whether ordinary citizens should be able to own an "assault rifle" because of the extreme difficulty of obtaining any weapon that is capable of firing in a full automatic mode in most states. Many proponents of firearms ownership correctly maintain, at least on a technical level, that this definition makes almost all rifles that gun control advocates have called "assault rifles" to be nothing more than "rifles" that simply appear to be military-grade weapons, but are not assault rifles at all.

This basic disagreement about what actually makes a rifle an "assault rifle" goes to the very heart of the issue. While supporters of gun rights maintain that the intimidating appearance of these rifles is really the driving factor against them, gun-control advocates claim that these weapons, with their high-capacity magazines, are not suitable for private ownership regardless of the true definition of an assault rifle.

The gun-rights advocates do have a point — the recent assault weapons ban backed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein did not include the fixed-stock Ruger Mini-14 rifle but specifically named the Bushmaster AR-15 that was used in the Sandy Hook massacre last December. The Ruger Mini-14 fires the same cartridge as the AR-15 (.223), can take the same size magazine (30 rounds), and is, in trained hands, capable of the same rate of firepower as the AR-15. So why did the AR-15 deserve to be banned while the Mini-14 wasn’t?

In a word, appearances. While the AR-15 has a military-style black finish and thus an intimidating appearance, the Mini-14 has a wooden stock that is very similar to a traditional hunting rifle. Even though both weapons are capable of the same amount of destruction in the same amount of time, the Mini-14 doesn’t look "scary" while the AR-15 does.

Gun-control advocates should consider focusing more of their time and energy on formulating laws and restrictions that are more rational and less emotional. At the same time, gun-rights advocates should be willing to have an honest, open conversation about possible effective measures that would reduce the chances that firearms of any kind do not get into the wrong hands.

If not, the widening gap between "gun-people" and "anti-gun people" is sure to grow with time, helping no one and accomplishing nothing of any real value.