This is just a basic gun fact that absolutely no one with a microphone, tv camera or print column seems to have access to, but is not all that esoteric.

"Semiautomatic" means a gun shoots one bullet at a time.

I know this because I speak English, not because I work with a lot of gun nuts and hunters, nor because I read a lot of military history. It's just what the word means when applies to guns. That is every gun you have ever seen someone in the movies fire which did not have things moving outside the gun or was not shooting bullets like water from a hose. The latter is known as an automatic weapon, hence SEMIautomatic denoted a reduced function. Yet, judging by the way the term is repeatedly used, you'd think "semi" is some sort of superlative prefix, and semiautomatic weapons were just about the scariest things ever. By contrast, those huge rifles that look like hammerhead sharks and can explode your head a mile away are usually bolt action (you have to move a lever around before pulling a trigger, like the old cowboy guns, but more complex ), and the most powerful handgun on Earth, that can blow your head off, so do you feel lucky punk, is an old-fashioned revolver.

Semiautomatics are like the Apple of gun types - they do things themselves, for idiots, so they lack the power or capability of similar devices whose operator must do more of the work himself. And that might actually be a point against their use, or whatever, so it is hardly the sort of fact the more partisan vultures making a living talking about disasters might want to conceal. There is no rational motive for either side to want to hush up this tidbit, but they insist on using the term like it's the be-all and the end-all of dangerous objects.

Also, things I have learned from being a history/military buff.
- An AR-15 shoots a rather smaller bullet than most rifles, including deer rifles (and might be, IDK, knowing nothing about hunting and not owning or having ever fired any actual guns, too small to kill deer very effectively, them being so much bigger than people). It is the lame prototype version of the rifle most carried by US military forces, only theirs are made all military-sexy and ramped up. Yet, in the book Blackhawk Down, the soldiers were complaining that they were having problems with their beefed-up AR-15s (M-16 & M-4) because the bullets were going right through the drugged-up Somalis and doing little damage, so unless they hit a vital organ, they couldn't drop their attackers. The Delta Force soldiers (in the movie, those were William Fichtner's & Eric Bana's characters with the little hockey/bike helmets) were frustrated too, because they were having to use ordinary weapons, when as the US Army's premier elite soldiers, they had access to, and preferred, more powerful rifles that would actually put down their enemies.

- There is technically no such thing as an assault rifle: it is a casual use term, first coined by Adolf Hitler to describe a rather new type of weapon, that had DECREASED range and SMALLER bullets than the standard issue German rifles.

The Sturmgewehr 44, was so named, because it was intended for close-quarters fighting that had begun to characterize warfare in the 20th century. Prior to WW1, armies massed their soldiers and shot at one another in pitched battles, so range and power of the weapon and ammunition was a priority. When the 20th century rolled around and machine guns and really effective artillery made soldiers look into the ideas like "hiding" or "building a fort" you could no longer stand up and blast away from across an open field, and now you had to sneak up close and fight them at much shorter ranges, either to get around or past the things they built to keep away bullets, or else simply to be able to hit the much-reduced parts of their bodies that were exposed.

These new necessities required innovative tactics, called in German "Sturm" and in English "Assault". In other words, the big old guns were fine for standing on the defensive, or other purposes, but when you wanted to assault a position or a fortification, you were getting in close and didn't need the higher standards of range, stopping power or accuracy that had all been the goals of rifle development in previous eras. The troops the Germans trained to specifically carry out missions of this nature were named "Sturmtruppen" or stormtroopers. They were used to "storm" the enemy's trenches or bunkers or forts, and the implication of the term is speed and not a lot of concern for niceties like precision or finesse. There were mobile artillery guns in the second World War, meant to help soldiers with such tasks, known as Sturmgeschutz or Sturmhaubitze. They were not very useful in the standard role of artillery, since the armored vehicles had the guns pointed straight forward, rather than up in the air for a longer range. The trade-off was made so it could move safely and quickly to keep up with the foot soldiers and tanks. The sturmgewehr was so named, because it continued in the pattern of mobility and close combat specialties implied in other uses of the word.

It is largely a coincidence that the English equivalent term, "Assault" has an alternate meaning that refers to a crime of violence. In civilian life, assault weapons, in keeping with the military useage, would be superior for personal defense, due to the ease of use in close, emergent situations. No one keeps a high-powered sniper rifle or massive machine gun for self-defense, those being the weapons of someone engaging in premeditated mischief. The person who is not a highly-trained or dedicated marksman, also typically needs more bullets to thwart an attacker than the professional or psychotic with the time to build up a "one-shot, one-kill" level of proficiency, so the caterwauling about Jared Loughner's extended magazines was equally off-target.

Regardless of the sides or stances one takes on an issue, intelligent debate and policy cannot be formulated when no one has any idea what they are talking about. A frequently stated opinion by a lot of people is that while explicitly people-killing guns should be banned or restricted, hunting weapons are okay. I just want to throttle such people, because aside from the legal objections they don't seem to realize Deer and bears are bigger and tougher than human beings!. A weapon that will be effective against THEM will be equally effective against human beings, if not more so. Look at the aftermath of a car that rammed into a deer, versus one that only hit a person, and tell me that the devices built expressly to kill those animals are as safe as the compromising nitwits seem to think they are. If we don't know what we are talking about, people will nod along in approval as a ban is passed on weapons using terminology that strictly speaking, refers to the tradeoff of range and power in favor of the small size and easy portability and they'll smile with relief as weapons whose specific criterion is "overkill as relating to people" are exempted and protected.

The people who oppose firearms but are willing to make exceptions for hunting weapons are just as ignorantly mistaken as the people who are in favor of being able to buy just about any time of gun you want at the supermarket, but think "assault" weapons are a little over the top. Either way, attempts to base legislation on such ignorance is going to result in laws that completely miss the point.