Obama’s gun control steps useful, but Congress needs to act

[petronius]

5. The re-import ban is pure theater, and will have no effect at all on

crime and public safety. The rifles in question are no different from many models that can be purchased today, are still sold directly to civilians through the CMP, are rarely if ever used in crime, and are largely of interest to collectors with a historical bent as well as target shooters. No useful purpose whatsoever is served by banning their re-importation.

I would suggest that "military" and "military-style" are among the most misused and misleading buzzwords in the gun control discussion. It seems that gun control advocates want to conjure up an image of a modern battlefield - with machine guns, heavy weapons, RPGs, and all that carnage - but the rifles in question have nothing to do with that anymore. If a rifle is functionally equivalent to to a bunch of other typical civilian rifles, what is the relevance of whether or not it's military surplus?