"Assault weapons"...there's that term again. Assault rifles, on the other hand, are those issued to our military. They are generally small arms capable of fully automatic, burst mode, and semiautomatic discharge. Assault weapons is a blanket term I suspect was created by gun control advocates so as to enable them to vilify semiautomatic, scary black rifles and handguns; the kind owned by millions of Americans the vast majority of which are never used to harm people.