 I think it would help to have a quick clarification on the precise meaning of two terms. Terms I've unfortunately misused multiple times already. Assault weapon and assault rifle. First the assault rifle. Militaries use two main classes of rifle long guns, a battle rifle and an assault rifle. The battle rifle fires a heavy or long cartridge either in single burst or auto, and typical examples from World War II are the Mauser 98k or the Lee infield. The standard service rifle used in most modern militaries since about the Vietnam era is the assault rifle, which fires an intermediate cartridge sized between that of a pistol and a battle rifle cartridge. Assault rifles are generally smaller and lighter and used at shorter ranges. They match the highly mobile tactics of a modern military, trading penetration and precision for faster movement and tracking. Now that we know what an assault rifle is, what exactly is an assault weapon? The term has a legal definition in the US that I'll get to in a moment, but generally the requirements are semi-automatic fire, meaning the weapon fires every time you pull the trigger, and a detachable magazine as well as any two features associated with a military style design. These features include a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a mount for a bayonet, a built-in flash suppressor, or a mount for a grenade launcher. Pistols with semi-auto capability and detachable magazine can also be included in the category of assault weapons if they have a magazine that attaches anywhere other than the pistol grip. If they have a threaded barrel to accept a barrel extender or, quote, suppressor, which in the movies is called a silencer, or they have a hand grip on the barrel. Semi-auto shotguns can also be classified as assault weapons if they have an adjustable stock, a pistol grip, a removable or revolving cartridge, or they carry more than five rounds internally. The laws around defining assault weapons were previously in Title 18 of US Code Chapter 1944, but these definitions expired in 2004 with the end of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. I've been sloppy in my use of the term assault rifle to mean a semi-automatic rifle that meets the older definition of an assault weapon. My thanks to those who pointed out my mistake in terminology. In particular, I mean the AR-15, a semi-auto rifle with many of the same features of its military assault rifle equivalent, the M16 or M4. We saw the AR-15, or a similar type of semi-auto rifle, yet again this weekend, in use to kill innocents at the Los Angeles International Airport. My thoughts go out to the family of the victims of that tragedy. I want to point out that the AR-15, while a recurring theme in tragic mass shootings, is also one of the most popular weapons here in the United States. The reasons for its popularity as a hunting or a sport rifle are generally stated as its low recoil, making it friendly for smaller or lighter people to fire. Its use in hunting, where the semi-auto magazine fed rounds allow for multiple shots on the same target. Its flexibility, accepting a wide variety of peripheral devices like scopes to customize it to a user's particular application. And lastly, its availability and low cost. In my previous video, I stated that assault weapons fell closer to the hand grenade end of the use-miss-use spectrum, and many people assumed I meant that it was more dangerous in the hands of criminals, which it honestly probably is. In spite of the FBI statistics showing that it is rarely used, it's been used very publicly for a particular type of indiscriminate mass shooting. But my argument is that they aren't especially good at self-defense. While shooting them may be comfortable for people with smaller frames, they'd be hindered in close quarters or against a charging attacker by the nature of the barrel and cartridge. Assault-style weapons are designed for high fire rate over intermediate ranges. That makes them more valuable to an attacker, in my opinion, than to a defender in civilian hands. You're welcome to disagree, and it's not essential to my argument that we can use objective criteria to evaluate the risk-to-benefit ratio of firearms. That any particular weapon has a particular ratio. My primary point is that the design of a weapon, whether it be a hand grenade or magazine-fed shotgun, is relevant to the issue of how best to write legislation to regulate it. I look forward to further discussion. My goal here, as always, is productive dialogue. I know this is a contentious issue, but it's also an important one. Too important, so far as I am concerned, to leave in the hands of politicians. Thanks for watching.