The anorexic Romney-lover is again wrong on the details, and those details matter. A semi-automatic, or self-loading, firearm is a weapon that performs all steps necessary to prepare the weapon to fire again after firing—assuming cartridges remain in the weapon's feed device or magazine. Typically, this includes extracting and ejecting the spent cartridge case from the weapon's firing chamber, re-cocking the firing mechanism, and loading a new cartridge into the firing chamber. Although automatic weapons and selective fire firearms do the same tasks, semi-automatic firearms do not automatically fire an additional round until the trigger is released and re-pressed by the person firing the weapon.
It is not to our advantage as free Americans to blur the definition of the constitutionally-protected semi-automatic weapons that America's enemies are attacking in the public airways. On the contrary, we need to keep the definition in mind as we prepare for a possible temporary defeat. While any gun ban or gun grab would be unconstitutional, we cannot afford for decent Americans to be even "temporarily" disarmed in this political climate, not during the time it would take for such a ban to reach Sotomayor, Kagan, and the newly open-minded Justice Roberts.
The 67 million (mostly semi-automatic) new firearms sold since Obama took power are not nearly enough. We need to buy more revolvers, lever action, pump action, and bolt action weapons. They are not for punching holes in targets or for hunting, and during times like these when freedom is under direct assault, we have an even greater need than normal for weapons that will, at least in the first phase of any attack on our freedom, remain legal.
