Much has been made lately of the soon-to-expire Asault Weapons Ban. Antigun people love this law, and want it extended/renewed; for the most part, people who’ve actually read the law laugh out loud at how ridiculous it it. The big, ugly secret is that “assault weapon” is a meaningless term that has nothing to do with the actual functions of a given rifle; the weapons banned by the AWB are weapons that fail cosmetic, not functional, tests. (Remember that fully-automatic weapons are already illegal, and that semiauto guns must not be easily convertable to full-auto, so the AWB has nothing to do with rate of fire.)

It’s just plain a bad law. People who oppose gun regulation already hate it, but people who support gun control laws ought to hate it, too. For illustration, see if you can tell the illegal ones from the legal ones.