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I know you have had 26 other replies to your interrogative, but I thought I might respond anyway. I note that you are new here, and that your posts to this point indicate that, while you may not be a troll, you are at the least confused as to what constitutes an individual's rights and responsibilities in a free republic.

The firearms limited by the AWB are functionally identical to other guns not touched on by the ban. They shoot the same bullets out of the same barrels at the same speeds and at the same rate of fire. The differences are cosmetic. Many of the guns not touched by the AWB are great hunting guns. Concordantly, many of the weapons banned by the AWB are great hunting guns, though they may have more black plastic parts attached.

But this ban is not about hunting. Nor is the intention of the AWB is not to make the streets safer, because anyone with any access to actual facts can see that "Assault Weapons" are not used in any other than a fractional percentage of crimes. Most are owned by guys like me, and other law-abiding citizens, who have, from a very young age been brought up to be responsible with firearms, and have had that safety-conscious approach drilled as an absolute.

The goal of the AWB was to get the camel's nose under the tent, or more accuratly, the entire camel into the tent. Look into the history of gun control in Britain and Australia and the stats for the current rates of crime in those countries for an eye-opening experience. England has very strict gun control now, and not coincidently, the most crime in western Eurpope. Other responses to your post have pointed out the history of taking firearms away from citizens/subjects ... no example in history of such a dynamic has ended happily.

Many here will say that the freedom to own these guns is essential to the responsibilities that free men have to not allow tyranny in any form, and I agree with that completely. This is not a question of an individual citizen being able to own nuclear weapons (or tanks, as you put it.) It is about our responsibility to "live free or die". Firearms, and an individuals right to self defense (in whatever form that takes) are at the crux of this issue. The freedoms that we have in this country cannot survive if individuals give up their responsibilities associated with those freedoms. Those freedoms (and the associated responsibilities) are being whittled away one piece of legislation at a time.

This 'ban' is where the whittling away stops. It sunsets, or we are well on the way to the next major internal conflict in this country.