None of the guns that the Newtown murderer used was an assault weapon under Connecticut law. This illustrates the uselessness of bans on so-called assault weapons, since those bans concentrate on guns' cosmetics, such as whether the gun has a bayonet lug, rather than their function.
What some people call "assault weapons" function like every other normal firearm—they fire only one bullet each time the trigger is pressed. Unlike automatics (machine guns), they do not fire continuously as long as the trigger is held. They are "semi-automatic" because they eject the empty shell case and load the next round into the firing chamber.
Read the article: The Wall Street Journal
APPEARS IN
News
Kopel: Guns, mental illness and Newtown
Thursday, December 20, 2012
TRENDING NOW
Monday, February 9, 2026
Beginning with the Obama-Biden administration, financial institutions developed a troubled relationship with the firearms industry.
Sunday, February 8, 2026
Last night, the New Mexico Senate passed an omnibus gun control package by a vote of 21 to 17 that would severely undermine the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding New Mexicans and threaten the viability ...
Monday, February 9, 2026
Today, February 9th, the Senate will vote on several gun control bills, including the semi-auto and magazine ban and the industry liability bill.
Monday, February 2, 2026
Astute Virginia gun owners anticipated terrible gun control legislation from the 2026 General Assembly. Still, some may be shocked to learn that anti-rights zealots in the Virginia Senate have advanced a bill to CONFISCATE standard capacity firearm ...
Monday, February 9, 2026
It’s bad enough that anti-gun activists and politicians, aided by the mainstream media, are busy pushing out lies and fantasies about guns and gun control, but now inanimate chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) tools are ...
More Like This From Around The NRA
