"assault weapons" should NOT be banned

You attack my statement on the inaccuracy, visibility and bulkiness on the grounds that the AR-15 (which you seem very attached to, by the way) is, in fact, accurate, while failing to understand that the statement itself still holds true for a majority of assault weapons. By questioning the statement on minor technical grounds, you completely miss the sentiment, so here it is anyway: The function of assault weapons in societies is dispensable. Again, you refute my other statement, which was "None of these three activities ( self-defence, target shooting and hunting) actually REQUIRE assault weapons." Your problem with this is that AR-15's are the supposedly the best weapons for home defence. This may or may not be true (I'm going to presume it is), but that in no way means that you "require" them, in any sense of the word. They are replaceable, and if there could be a positive impact from replacing them and bringing down the homicide rates to some degree, then they should, in fact, be replaced. You also seem to disagree with what the FBI Handbook on Gun Regulations has to say about AR-15's when you rubbish the claim regarding the conversion of AR-15's to full auto. Now, I'm of the opinion that the FBI knows what they're talking about. I may be wrong. Whether James Holmes committed the mass shootings as a result of the mental illnesses he was supposed to be suffering from or whether he carried them out due to psychiatric medication is irrelevant. The point I am trying to make, which you seem to have missed, is that the shootings probably would not have taken place if he hadn't had legal access to the AR-15. Simple. You raise repeatedly some fairly important points about the limited use of assault weapons in mass shootings, saying that they are barely used at all. However, contrary to this, here's a fairly interesting survey: http://tinyurl.com... . Now, this survey, despite being around a year old, states that 20 assault weapons out of a total of 143 firearms were recovered from perpetrators of mass shootings taken into consideration. These figures are in no way overwhelming, but are irrefutably valid. Assault weapons are used in mass shootings to a considerable degree. Also, it is undeniable that that assault weapons are a firearm of choice among criminals. In a study of young adult purchases of handguns in California buyers with minor criminal histories were twice as likely to purchase automatic pistols as those with no criminal history. This was even higher at five times as likely for those who had been charged with two or more serious violent offences (Page 17 of http://tinyurl.com... ). This goes to show, though you will no doubt find a way to disagree, that assault weapons are often purchased by those looking to use them for violent ends. I would also like to base my debate on the principle that a single life saved makes the ban worthwhile. Even so, if you take the lowest estimate of assault-weapon caused deaths to be true (1%), it means that 90-100 lives a year could be saved by an assault weapons ban, while the highest (7%) means 630-700 lives. I ask you, is even the possibility of saving 630-700 lives your definition of "no effect?" Is that how a little a human life means to you, and is that how little it should mean to a country?