Here; also reprinted below:

Politician Ron Johnson and columnist Christian Schneider have claimed that assault weapons don't need to be banned because they already are. They say this to deflect attention from the AR-15-style weapons used by the Orlando murderer, since his weapon was a semiautomatic, and since it shares the same kind of reloading mechanism used in many other kinds of rifles that are primarily used for sport — target or hunting — and does not deserve the pejorative "assault" adjective.

Weapons are tools of intent. Black-powder muzzle loaders are obviously weapons used with the intent to hunt, and to do so with particular skill, given opportunity. Bull-barrel blowback semiautomatic pistols are intended to hit targets accurately without reloading after every shot (I own one). Blowback and recoil-operated shotguns with tube magazines are intended to allow better chances to kill waterfowl in flight (as improved over older double-barrels).

And then there's a lightweight, gas-operated, rapid-fire semi-or-fully automatic that fires high-powered but small-bore cartridges, complete with high-capacity magazine and (usually) a field hand-grip/sight first designed by the U.S. government for the single-minded purpose of what is genially called "anti-personnel field combat." What would you call that?

If that murderer in Orlando had used a classic Gatling gun, it would not have been automatic or semiautomatic by contemporary parlance. It is a single-fire rapid-repeating mechanically driven weapon that, using the vocabulary of Johnson, et al, would not have been an "assault weapon."

Shame on them for using mere words to try and wash away obvious truths about what should be public policy.