With regard to your gun control points, there is a bit of nuance you missed that people (like me, if I wasn’t trying to help you steelman your argument) will criticize.
Specifically, there are already heavy restrictions on automatic weapons, which are basically never used in criminal acts. Every automatically gun in the US has to be registered with the federal government for $200 and a lot of paperwork. In effect it means if you’re wealthy you can own automatic guns, which is a violation of the 2nd in a lot of people’s opinion.
What I think you meant when you said automatic is “assault “, which is what most of the gun debate is currently center on, so called “assault rifles”. The issue is that the term is not clearly defined, and under most proposed bans would include many rifles which were traditionally considered hunting tools. Even that is a bit of moot point, because the 2nd was not written with hunting in mind.
Another hot point recently is “ghost guns”, which like “assault rifle”, sounds scary enough on the evening news to grab eyeballs. “Ghost guns” are being used to justify government overreach by banning the sharing of gun plans for DIY construction. The issue is that again, almost no DIY guns are used in crimes. What are used are stolen handguns that have had the serial number scratched off. The stolen guns are grouped in with DIY guns as “ghost guns”.
Automatic weapons were only ever rich people toys. Unless you've got a squad of buddies and one of them is laying down covering fire they're not very useful and they convert money into noise real fast.
"Assault rifle" has a very specific meaning: an intermediate-caliber, magazine-fed military rifle capable of both semi-automatic and automatic fire. That common meaning has been more or less fixed since WWII when it was adopted from the German word Sturmgewehr.
"Assault weapon" is a legal term that is defined by law (e.g., California's assault weapons ban or the failed federal Assault Weapons Ban of 2019 that you cited). "Assault weapon" includes not only semi-automatic rifles, but also shotguns and pistols that have certain characteristics. The definitions are long and complicated because they attempt to ban only weapons having the visual and ergonomic features of military weapons, while ignoring weapons of similar caliber that do not have those features.
Many people in the US cannot afford that. It’s an arbitrary 33% increase on an already expensive purchase. That’s a pretty strong disincentive for a lot of people. Not to mention people who would prefer to engage with the federal government as little as possible, for a wide variety of reasons.
As for the definition, if you read the definitions of the prohibited components, they are broad enough to ban essentially all rifles, which is likely the goal. For instance, “pistol grip” seems like a well defined thing at a glance, but it is later defined as “ 45) The term ‘pistol grip’ means a grip, a thumbhole stock or Thordsen-type grip or stock, or any other characteristic that can function as a grip.”
That last clause especially is extremely broad. Define functioning as a grip. Is that any piece that enables holding the rifle?
One of the many things you're ignoring is that $200 was originally over $4,000 in today's dollars. And had quite the chilling effect, even if at the last minute handguns were removed from the remit of the NFA of 1934, that's why it has the bizarre "Any Other Weapon" category, it was intended to effectively ban for almost all citizens in the middle of the Great Depression all concealable weapons, as well as full auto.
And you don't get to decide if $200 today plus a very intrusive application process infringes on our rights.
>> As the legislative history of the law discloses, its underlying purpose was to curtail, if not prohibit, transactions in NFA firearms. Congress found these firearms to pose a significant crime problem because of their frequent use in crime, particularly the gangland crimes of that era such as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
>> United States v. Freed, 401 U.S. 601 (1971), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held the National Firearms Act's registration requirements do not violate the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Try putting a pre-emptive background check, $200 fee, and 10-12 month waiting period for approval on any other constitutional right, whether that right be explicitly stated, or implicitly "discovered".
Just to clarify, fully automatic rifles ("machine guns") in the U.S. cost tens of thousands of dollars (and have, thanks to gun control legislation, been an absolutely amazing investment). For instance, an M-16 would cost you maybe $30-35k plus the regulatory hoops.
Specifically, there are already heavy restrictions on automatic weapons, which are basically never used in criminal acts. Every automatically gun in the US has to be registered with the federal government for $200 and a lot of paperwork. In effect it means if you’re wealthy you can own automatic guns, which is a violation of the 2nd in a lot of people’s opinion.
What I think you meant when you said automatic is “assault “, which is what most of the gun debate is currently center on, so called “assault rifles”. The issue is that the term is not clearly defined, and under most proposed bans would include many rifles which were traditionally considered hunting tools. Even that is a bit of moot point, because the 2nd was not written with hunting in mind.
Another hot point recently is “ghost guns”, which like “assault rifle”, sounds scary enough on the evening news to grab eyeballs. “Ghost guns” are being used to justify government overreach by banning the sharing of gun plans for DIY construction. The issue is that again, almost no DIY guns are used in crimes. What are used are stolen handguns that have had the serial number scratched off. The stolen guns are grouped in with DIY guns as “ghost guns”.