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ASSAULT_ON_WEAPONS

                                             January 10, 2013

Obama has come out against "assault weapons":

My take is that nothing useful
is likely to come of this.           Words like cynical and
                                     manipulative come to mind.

Getting rid of "Assault Weapons" is
a popular idea but the term doesn't
have any real meaning (unlike, say,
the distinction between semi-auto
and auto weapons).

"Assault weapons" largely refers to a style,
a marketing category.  In practice banning
them means you're requiring that all guns
have homey-looking polished wood stocks, just
like that hunting rifle that stereotypical
dads keep locked in their closets.

     But wouldn't it be interesting
     if it turned out that I'm                     DATA_GUN
     wrong, and this *does* matter?

     My complaint is that this is a
     complaint about design style, not
     capability... but it could turn
     out that having something that
     *looks* like an Assault Weapon
     inspires the rambozos to commit
     assaults?

         When you're talking about social
         mechanisms, you don't get to pretend                MADNESS
         that all the players are "rational actors"          RATACT
         just for your convienience.



                                 My take: banning "assualt weapons"
                                 is meaningless, and yet... it could
                                 be that I'm making too much sense.



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