The real reason for the selective assault on assault rifles is because of what, or rather whom, these guns symbolise. As Bill Clinton put it in a recent press release, they are 'the weapon of choice for drug dealers, street gang members, and other violent criminals'. Drug dealer' and 'gang member' are established in the public mind as euphemisms for black or Latino inner-city dweller. Now 'assault weapon' has been added to the list of racial buzzwords. The use of the category 'assault weapon' seems particularly perverse - as if guns wielded by respectable citizens were 'defence weapons'.
All firearms are by their nature 'assault weapons'.
But in this context, the differentiation is used to distinguish guns wielded by blacks from guns wielded by respectable America. The hysteria about assault rifles is given an added twist today with the fears of gangs spreading out of the inner cities to the white suburbs. People's insecurity, bred by the crisis of American capitalism, is being visited upon the inner cities. Tales of shooting sprees in shopping malls, movie theatres and McDonald's restaurants frighten Middle Americans into barricading themselves against invasion by a growing 'underclass', with an assault weapon in one hand and a welfare cheque in the other. The fact that right-wing Republicans can now be called upon to support gun control also reflects the demise of Cold War politics.