Italicized from Lopezian:

jcwillis, this is way off topic, but you brought it up.

It was actually brought up in the previous post, which I responded to. My point, which you prove, is that many will blame the tool rather than hold the terrorist/criminal responsible.

I am a hunter. I have guns in my home. But I also have a bumper sticker: GOOD HUNTERS DON'T NEED ASSAULT WEAPONS.

I agree, hunters do not need an assault weapon.

The Orlando shooter used an assault rifle; he couldn't have killed so many people with a hunting rifle, stopping to reload ten times. So the weapon DOES matter.

Had the terrorist/criminal used a hunting rifle, there would have still been many, many casualties. As noted previously, assault rifles are regulated by BATFE and already banned to anyone without a tax stamp. Don't fall for the media hype. The media defines an assault rifle as a semi-automatic that "looks" military.

There is no defensible reason NOT to ban the private ownership of assault weapons. They belong on battlefields, not in nightclubs. Or classrooms. Or movie theaters. Or churches.Lopezian

Assault weapons are already banned to the general public unless one holds a tax stamp as issued by the BATFE. They are highly regulated by the BATFE. The notion of banning semi-autos, as used by the terrorist/criminal in Orlando, takes away firearms used for home self-defense. Criminals/Terrorists will still obtain any banned firearm. Criminals/Terrorists want all firearms banned so that they can plunder and terrorize and spread fear with impunity.

The lgbt community has a more serious concern than banning firearms. There exists another community that truly hates them. More potential victims will be made by banning a tool that the lgbt community might be able to use for self-defense. The Second Amendment was put into the US Constitution for a reason - Everyone's Right to Self-Defense.