AR-15

Just my two cents: According to the dictionary an assault is "an unlawful physical attack upon another; an attempt or offer to do violence to another, with or without battery, as by holding a stone or club in a threatening manner."

So, an assault can be physical or non-physical; it can simply be a threat of violence, as by holding a stone or club in a threatening manner.

Why, then, do some people, refer to an AR-15 as an assault weapon? Because no weapon is an assault weapon until it is used to actually assault someone. A rock is an assault weapon if someone uses it to beat the brains out of another; likewise a knife, a baseball bat, a tire tool, a hatchet, ad infinitum. And it, and it alone, is an assault weapon only with respect to this particular event. It does not permanently convey that title to all the other rocks or baseball bats of the world. The evil resides in the wielder of the weapon, not in the weapon itself.

If someone unlawfully attacks me with a knife, for example, the knife is an assault weapon. If I defend myself with an AR-15, then the AR-15 is a defensive weapon. If an AR-15 has never been used to assault anyone, then it is not an assault weapon. Sure it can be used in that manner, but so can a logging chain or a baseball bat. If you own an AR-15, you do not own an assault weapon, unless you have assaulted someone with it. And then it was an assault weapon for only that instant. Afterwards it is just a rifle, like it was before you used it to assault. Just because an AR-15 (or any other weapon, for that matter) was used in an isolated assault does not mean that all the others are assault weapons and thereby inherently evil. That argument is just plain stupid. An unloaded, single-shot .22 caliber rifle is an assault weapon if you point it at someone in a threatening manner or use it to bash in someone's head. So stop calling my AR-15 an assault weapon. I've never assaulted anyone with it, nor do I have any intentions of ever doing so.