God Bless The United States of America.

Let’s see – you say “Cop-Killer” bullets are armor piercing rounds, and hollow-pointed highly lethal bullets.” First, not all hollow-point rounds will penetrate standard-issue body armor. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s likely that most HPs won’t. And you don’t need an armor-piercing round to go through body armor. Any decent centerfire hunting rifle round will do it. The point is – ANY bullet can kill a cop, just like it can kill anyone else. Just do a little research for stories in which a cop was killed by a bullet going under his arm (bypassing the vest) or in the head. You don’t need a “cop-killer” bullet to do that. These type of bans are just a form of creeping incrementalism – desenstizing the public to the notion of increased government control of what you can and cannot buy.

You then say: “Flash-suppressors are intended to prevent the location of a shooter from being determined by looking for the muzzle flash.”

Woopsie! Wrong. You’ve been drinking the Brady Campaign Kool-Aid, haven’t you. Flash suppressors are designed to reduce the visibility of the muzzle flash to the SHOOTER to prevent the shooter from being blinded by the bright incandescent flash. A flash suppressor does not reduce the visibility of the flash to anyone down-range of the weapon, including the would-be target of the shooter.

“Bottom line, is that these Assault Weapons restrictions are intended to remove weapons designed for combat, i.e. killing people, from the same class as those used for sport: hunting and target practice. If you want these guns to go hunting with, then you are the type of person that would go fishing with dynamite, and are an idiot.”

ANY gun can be used to kill people. And in fact, lots of people go hunting with “sporterized” versions of your so-called “assault weapons.”

“If you don’t want to hunt with them, then you want to shoot people with them, and you are a dangerous idiot.”

Hmm… seems to be a dangerous idiot calling someone a dangerous idiot. I happen to own several firearms, none of which I hunt with; yet I do not own them to go shooting people with. Once again, your “reasoning” is highly flawed.

“bayonet lugs…have no effect on the lethality of the weapon” what are you gonna do, attach your beef jerky to the end of your gun?”

No, but neither am I going to attach a bayonet to the end of the gun. When was the last time you heard of a mass bayoneting, or a drive-by, gang-related bayoneting? Gee, I thought the rationale for banning these so-called “extremely dangerous” firearms was because they were so easy to use in mass killings and wiping out entire schools. How does a bayonet lug do that? And when has anyone used a bayonet lug for such a purpose?

“If you want to be a sportsman (or sportswomen) there is nothing ’sporting’ about assault weapons (no matter how neat the technology is).”

See, now you’re off on that misguided assumption that the right to firearms is based solely on hunting. Which, by the way, is uh, wrong. And if you’re in favor of people having only hunting rifles, well guess what – plenty of hunting rifles are FAR more powerful and accurate at greater distances than the middling firearms “banned” by the AWB.

In my own humble opinion, Mr./Ms./Mrs. Evan, any weapon that is available to the Armed Forces should be available to any citizen who is of legal age, sane, and has a clean criminal record. Anything less is an infringement of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Second Amendment.

And, finally, the anti-gun lobby doesn’t care about sportsmen or hunters. They want all civilian firearms banned, no exceptions. Since they can’t pull that off all at once, they work by degrees, manipulate public hysteria over gun-related deaths, and exaggerate and outright lie. Before Prohibition, people thought “Oh, they won’t ban my beer or my wine! Just that evil hard liquor (assault alcohol?)!” But no! With the small exception of wine for Christian religious services, alcohol was banned, which lead only to a rise in organized crime and increased alcohol consumption. So, unless you’re being deceitful and are one of those who wish to ban all guns, don’t try to sell me on that “I just want to ban the ‘people-killing machines’!” line. Guns kill, and a gun that kills well is a machine that does its job well. And, as long as our government and the crooks have access to such machines, so too should law-abiding citizens.