Assault rifles are by definition rifles capable of full auto fire (among other features). Those have been banned since 1977. O'Toole isn't touching that ban. He's just undoing Trudeau's 2020 "Guns I personally find scary looking" ban. Assault rifles aren't on the table.
The problem here is dummies thinking "assault rifle" means "a rifle meant to shoot humans". That's not what "assault" means in this context. "Assault" in military vernacular means to close with and occupy the enemy's ground. You assault places, not people. You assault trenches, you assault buildings etc etc. Think of "assault" as being synonymous with "storm". Like "to storm a building". That's why when the Germans invented the assault rifle in WW2, they called it the "Sturmgewehr". Literal translation: Assault rifle.
An assault rifle is therefore a class of rifle devised to be useful in close-quarters battle (i.e. on the assault) as well as still being adequate in the medium/long range role. It was designed to bridge the gab between high-powered, long range, bolt-action infantry rifles and short-range, high-volume, rapid firing pistol-caliber submachineguns. The "assault rifle "class is delineated by a set of features: Select fire (i.e. can switch between full auto or semi-auto), intermediate calibre (i.e. somewhere between a pistol cartridge and a full-powered rifle cartridge) and fires from a detachable magazine. If a rifle lacks one of these defining features, it is by definition not an assault rifle.
All this confusion is based on a contextual misunderstanding of the defintion of the word "assault". Assault rifles are named using the military definition (to storm enemy occupied ground). But everyone's applying the plain english version (to intentionally hurt someone).
I bet over 90% of Canadians would say that any semi-automatic rifle which resembles an assault rifle (military definition) is an assault rifle. For the normal Canadian it doesn't matter if it's a semi-automatic AR15 or a full auto M16. For them both fall under the assault rifle definition. If they look the same, they are the same.
Assault rifles are by definition rifles capable of full auto fire (among other features). Those have been banned since 1977. O'Toole isn't touching that ban. He's just undoing Trudeau's 2020 "Guns I personally find scary looking" ban. Assault rifles aren't on the table.
The problem here is dummies thinking "assault rifle" means "a rifle meant to shoot humans". That's not what "assault" means in this context. "Assault" in military vernacular means to close with and occupy the enemy's ground. You assault places, not people. You assault trenches, you assault buildings etc etc. Think of "assault" as being synonymous with "storm". Like "to storm a building". That's why when the Germans invented the assault rifle in WW2, they called it the "Sturmgewehr". Literal translation: Assault rifle.
An assault rifle is therefore a class of rifle devised to be useful in close-quarters battle (i.e. on the assault) as well as still being adequate in the medium/long range role. It was designed to bridge the gab between high-powered, long range, bolt-action infantry rifles and short-range, high-volume, rapid firing pistol-caliber submachineguns. The "assault rifle "class is delineated by a set of features: Select fire (i.e. can switch between full auto or semi-auto), intermediate calibre (i.e. somewhere between a pistol cartridge and a full-powered rifle cartridge) and fires from a detachable magazine. If a rifle lacks one of these defining features, it is by definition not an assault rifle.
All this confusion is based on a contextual misunderstanding of the defintion of the word "assault". Assault rifles are named using the military definition (to storm enemy occupied ground). But everyone's applying the plain english version (to intentionally hurt someone).
I bet over 90% of Canadians would say that any semi-automatic rifle which resembles an assault rifle (military definition) is an assault rifle. For the normal Canadian it doesn't matter if it's a semi-automatic AR15 or a full auto M16. For them both fall under the assault rifle definition. If they look the same, they are the same.