General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Why are people buying the line that this was driven primarily mental illness [View all]HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)AK47s are still tightly regulated. And the Bushmaster functions the same as any other semi-auto hunting/target rifle, regardless how its styled.
The simple facts, available on FBI website, are that deaths by so-called "assault" rifles aren't very common. Deaths by automatic weapons are virtually non-existant. The majority of gun deaths are by handguns. The shooter would have been just as deadly using them. And in the Aurora shooting, the shooter's large magazine jammed (which has a high likelyhood of occuring), and he did a lot of his shooting with a handgun.
So if you want to waste political capital banning irrelevant hardware, then you'll find there'll still be killings. Just saying.
If you want legislation that will actually reduce gun deaths, then support private sales via gun dealer (where a background check can be initiated), more thorough background checks that include mental health database checks, and limiting handgun sales/ccw permits.