You and I have been debated the assault weapons ban in the past, and you persuaded me that it wasn't the best legislation ever. I still think it did some significant good, especially the restrictions on magazine capacity. It's pretty clear to me that there would be fewer dead in Arizona had Jared Loughner had to reload after a ten rounds instead of squeezing off thirty-three of them, for instance. But, you have a point that there are parts of the law that make no sense, as there are with any number of other laws that you and I would agree on.

I think what you have to understand, though, is that the AWB is what happens when you try to craft legislation that can get around an NRA veto. The Brady Campaign and the NRA fought for years on a compromise, and the ban that became law on a 216-214 vote would have been squashed like a bug by the NRA if it had any real teeth to it. With Waco and Ruby Ridge fading from peoples' minds, there wasn't going to be a better time to pass a gun control bill, yet it still passed by the slimmest margin possible. In other words, it was the AWB or nothing. You would have chosen nothing, I would have chosen the AWB we ended up with.