Define assault weapon. Seriously.
No serious gun owner will discuss on social media what weapons they have. Seriously. You don’t know what I do or do not have, and that’s a good thing.
The most commonly cited “assault weapon” is an AR-15. It was developed by Armalite in the mid-1950’s as a relatively low power, small caliber civilian semi-automatic rifle (AR for Armalite). It is usually black and sort of odd looking (most of it except the high temperature/pressure components is plastic). It resembles a militaryM-4 in appearance, but an M-4 is a US military “assault rifle.” The AR-15 is not, but both use the same weak ammunition.
Many states prohibit the hunting of deer with it (or with any rifle with the same ammunition) because it is not deadly enough. The M-4 (and its predecessor, the M-16 of Vietnam fame) resemble an AR-15 because the design of an AR-15 turns out to be very good, light, and useful, because it is easy to customize, and has been around long enough to prove itself. But the machinery of an AR-15 is different from that of an M-4 or M-16, because the latter are “machine guns” (technically, “selective fire rifles”) while an AR-15 only fires one round for each pull of the trigger.
Is that what you mean by “assault weapon?”
Or how about a semi-automatic AK-47? That’s the eastern block civilian equivalent of an AR-15 — relatively low power round, looks just like the military AK-47 and shoots the same ammunition, but is not a military weapon.
Why low powered ammunition? Because it is smaller and lighter, and because it is more likely to wound than to kill. A wounded soldier is more of a liability for an army than a dead one, as weird as that sounds (although that might not be true of the Russian army since they have been abandoning or killing their wounded in Ukrain).
Semiautomatic rifles have been available to civilians for over a century. It’s pretty hard to blame them for all the violence we see, especially when more people are killed by beatings than by rifles.
Again, please define “assault weapon” ( a term used only by those unfamiliar with weapons), and “military grade?”
There are actually very strong restrictions on the public accessing true military weapons. On top of the existing restrictions on buying rifles, you need to pass a 6-month or so background check. You need to pay a $200 tax. Your name will be in a federal registry. And, the weapons start at over $10,000 apiece. There are few of those in civilian use, but they do exist. I sometimes rent one (but cannot use it except under the immediate supervision of the Class III firearms dealer personnel at their range).
