The all out assault on guns, gun owners and the 2nd Amendment continues at an unbelievable pace. One of the main reasons it is almost impossible to have a rational discussion on guns and what needs to be done to actually make a difference in violence is this concentration on guns as the problem, and the misinformation and outright lies pushed constantly.

Assault weapon is a term you hear all the time. What is an assault weapon? I guess anything used to assault anyone, from pencils to a piece of rope can be called an assault weapon. The true definition of an assault weapon is an automatic weapon that will fire steadily with one pull of the trigger, or fire in three round bursts. All those guns are already tightly regulated and almost impossible for citizens to purchase or own.

The liberal media and gun ban groups seem to classify any semiautomatic gun as an assault weapon, since they usually say “military style assault weapons.” They usually mean a gun that looks ugly and holds more than ten rounds. That can include anything from my Remington .22 to the now famous Bushmaster AR 15. To ban “assault weapons” can mean ban any gun you don’t like.

High capacity clips are one of the biggest evils if you listen to the media. But many guns hold more than ten rounds. And even if bigger clips are banned, you can change clips in seconds, with little difference in the number of bullets you can shoot quickly between a smaller clip and a bigger one.

The National Rifle Association is demonized daily. The NRA is a gun rights organization that supports hunting and shooting. They also have many training segments, with over 1100 certified police officer trainers. The NRA offers safety training programs for schools and other groups, and insists on safe and legal use of guns.

The NRA has 4.3 million members. Yet the media claim they are a shill group for gun manufacturers and sellers because those businesses support them. Any group that supports an activity will be supported by businesses that sell to those kind of activities. The bass tournament trails are supported by fishing equipment manufacturers but they are certainly not shills for them, any more than the NRA is a shill for gun businesses.

More than 100,000 people have joined the NRA in the past six weeks. The biggest gun ban organization, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, has 28,000 members. That alone should tell you who citizens support, regardless of the claims by the media and gun ban organizations.

Cop killer bullets and hollow point bullets are another evil that gun ban organizations claim only the military need. But the military uses full metal jacketed bullets. Hollow point bullets and soft tip bullets are used for hunting. In fact, bullets that expand are required for big game hunting. So banning them bans hunting bullets. And cop killer bullets are usually defined as any bullet that will penetrate a bullet proof vest, which means any high power rifle bullet suitable for deer and other big game hunting.

Big bullets is a term many gun banners use to define the .223 round used in the Bushmaster and many other rifles. But the .223 is almost the smallest center fire bullet available, and just barely legal for deer hunting. My old 30-30 fires a round almost half again as big around as the .223, and is more powerful since it has more powder. All higher caliber big game rifles fire a much bigger and more powerful bullet.

You will hear about the number of kids killed by guns each year, but the huge majority of those are 18 to 21 year olds, not young kids, and many of them are gang bangers that shoot each other with illegal guns. Any kid killed is a tragedy but no gun ban or bullet ban will affect the number.

The misinformation goes on and on and only leads people like me to work harder to stop misguided laws that only affect law-abiding citizens like me.