I go deer and elk hunting every year, duck and goose hunting as well, own 5 guns, but see no place for massive assault weapons in the hands of ordinary, untrained citizens, including myself.
I must admit I own an SKS Russian semi automatic, it’s fun to shoot, but I’m pretty sure it’s not on any banned list.
That's a nice sound byte, but the fact is that "assault weapon" has been defined as any pistol with a magazine capacity of more than 8 or sometimes 10 rounds. Your Russian SKS is functionally almost identical to the rifles that are defined as "massive assault weapons" by those who want to ban "assault weapons." By some people's definition, if you put a synthetic stock on your SKS, it's now an "assault weapon." Are you wrong because you own and enjoy shooting that SKS? Should you be forced to give up that pleasure or go to jail? According to the supporters of these bans, you are wrong to enjoy shooting that gun and you should either give up that weapon or go to jail.
If you are incompetent to handle an AK-47, what makes you competent to handle an SKS? The principles are the same. Don't put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot. Don't point the gun at anything that you don't intend to shoot. Unless you have some reason to keep the gun loaded, keep it unloaded until you are ready to start shooting. If you don't understand something, don't do anything until you've had a chance to ask someone who knows. I'm sure that you know all of these things. There's no reason that you couldn't safely handle anything that people define as an "assault weapon," and if you had a problem, you'd likely have the judgment to solve the problem without hurting yourself or anyone else.
Our society's problem is that too many people just don't have good judgment, and bad judgment makes them dangerous whether they have an AK-47 or an electric toothbrush. Passing assault weapons bans doesn't give them good judgment. The assault weapons ban simply means that good folks have their choices limited once again and the fools are just breaking one more law when they do something stupid.
Bill