What's the difference between an assault weapon and a semi-automatic firearm?

What's the difference between an assault weapon and a semi-automatic firearm?

Paul Helmke (President, The Brady Campaign) gives expert video advice on: How dangerous are assault weapons?; What is a semi-automatic assault weapon?; What's the difference between an assault weapon and a semi-automatic firearm? and more...

The 1994 Assault Weapons Ban defined certain characteristics in certain types of guns. The industry, who wanted to push guns into the community, who wanted to manufacture guns and sell them, made slight changes then to fall outside the scope of the ban. They got around the ban by making modifications. Those who opposed the ban talked about some of the criteria being only cosmetic. Now some of them may look cosmetic to the average citizen, but when you're talking about something that makes it easier to shoot more rounds more quickly because of the way that you hold the weapon, the way the heat from the weapon doesn't get to your hand, the grips of the weapon, the flash suppressors on the weapon -- those aren't cosmetic; those are things that basically allow an individual to shoot more rounds more quickly without having to reload. The crucial thing really with the assault weapons, with the semi-automatic weapons, is the fact that they could handle big clips, ammunition clips. The crucial thing to remember is that if you've got a gun that can hold an ammunition clip or magazine that holds a hundred bullets or fifty bullets, that means that that individual is going to be able to get off a hundred rounds or fifty rounds without having to reload. Now that might be cosmetic to some, because that big clip looks scary, but that big clip holds a lot of bullets and it is scary, it is significant. It's dangerous.