And what would be a legitimate purpose for owning a weapon "like that"
I checked the Smith and Wesson website and it said the weapon was for "tactical purposes"
And you're completely ignoring the issue. You and your family have a history of safely owning guns and safely using guns (I'm assuming you've owned and used them safely). Here's a guy who suddenly starts stockpiling ammunition and is calling around making suspicious calls to owners of shooting ranges. Or at least one of them. We have a system that allows any old crazy person to methodically plan and execute a deadly assault without any oversight whatsoever. He ordered them off of the internet! A felon could easily obtain anything Holmes had by simply having a friend fill out the order form. That's a horrible system. And you protect the sales of semi-automatic assault weapons for what purpose? "Tactical" purposes?
If you don't know its not worth my time explaining it to you.
btw I do own an M4 with a night vision sight for "tactical reasons"
i also own a dozen more that are set up for
1) national match service rifle competition
2) IPSC/USPSA three gun competitions
3) varmint hunting
4) and I have one that is essentially the same rifle cadets,plebes and recruits are taught to shoot with. You see, every couple of years or so, one of my friends' son or daughter gets an appointment to West Point or annapolis or the USAF or goes into ROTC and I teach the kid how to shoot. the last boy I taught had never shot a firearm, he qualified Expert in both rifle and pistol at Annapolis. So I have a rifle that is set up just like what the Marine DIs use to teach those midshipmen. the only difference is its not full auto-for that I have a good friend who has a 9MM colt SMG that is pretty similar and we can shoot it at the indoor range
yeah a felon could obtain weapons by BREAKING THE LAW. a straw man purchase can get you 10 years in the federal penitentiary. In a case I am familiar with since two of my close friends were the prosecutors, a felon got a YEAR IN FEDERAL PRISON FOR EVERY SECOND HE POSSESSED A HANDGUN. some mope was being chased by the Po Po and he tossed a revolver a second mope saw him do it and another cop coming from another direction and he figured he's save his "bro" from getting tagged with a weapons charge so he picked up the gun and tried to throw it over a fence. His bad luck was the fence was a bit higher than his throw and another cop was watching the whole thing. So the cop collars the second mope, recovers the pistol that bounced right back at the mope.
the mope-according to the Po Po possessed the pistol for 15 seconds and the Federal Judge gave him 15 years as a felon in possession
Do you know (of course you don't) that gun haters have called the following "semi auto assault weapons"
1) the most popular olympic target pistol
2) the shotgun Dean Clark won the ISU World skeet title with
3) the shotgun Wayne Mays, Robert Paxton, RIcky Pope, Tito Killian and numerous others won NSSA world championships with
4) the most popular 22 rifle in the USA
5) The shotgun I have used to win 27 sporting clays tournaments with
6) the 5-6 pistols that arm 99% of the police departments in the USA
7) the National Match MIAI and the National Match AR 15
I don't really have much use for ignorant people whining about what kind of guns I own or what I should be able to buy when they have no clue about the subject