Echo chambers, purity tests, tribalism, and perceived moral superiority. Sounds bad.

Well, if they are hanging out in subs and manually banning people, that's probably the saddest thing I've heard all year. People who do that can't be happy.

More likely they have a bot which checks to see which subreddits you post in, and autobans you if you're naughty. Easily the most fragile and weak way to deal with opposing thought, but more efficient then manually combing through subreddits.

"Assault Rifle" has a technical definition found in US small arms identification guides, like DST-1110H-394-76 (1983), in which the following quote appears on page 105. > Assault rifles are short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges. Assault rifles have mild recoil characteristics and, because of this, are capable of delivering effective full automatic fire at ranges up to 300 meters. - https://www.bulletpicker.com/defense-intelligence-agency.html Other guides use the term "assault rifle" to describe a classification of rifles. - https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/AD1008964 It's a well defined term with both technical and historical roots. Assault *Weapon* is a non-technical term which has a variety of definitions, because it is assigned meaning by whoever is using it. For example, the state of Washington has a legal definition passed in [HB 1240 (2023-2024)](https://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=1240&Year=2023) which includes most semi auto rifles, some semi auto pistols, and some semi auto shotguns. Other states also have legal definitions for "Assault Weapon", but differ from the definitions created by Washington and other states. Finally, the anti gun movement realized this could work in their favor, and Josh Sugarmann of the VPC said as much. This was written in 1988, and Sugarmann pretty much called it. Bold is my emphasis. > Assault weapons are increasingly being perceived by legislators, police organizations, handgun restriction advocates, and the press as a public health threat. As these weapons come to be associated with drug traffickers, paramilitary extremists, and survivalists, their television and movie glamour is losing its lustre to a violent reality. > - *It will be a new topic in what has become to the press and public an "old" debate.* > Although handguns claim more than 20,000 lives a year, the issue of handgun restriction consistently remains a non-issue with the vast majority of legislators, the press, and public. The reasons for this vary: the power of the gun lobby; the tendency of both sides of the issue to resort to sloganeering and pre-packaged arguments when discussing the issue; the fact that until an individual is affected by handgun violence he or she is unlikely to work for handgun restrictions; the view that handgun violence is an "unsolvable" problem; the inability of the handgun restriction movement to organize itself into an effective electoral threat; and the fact that until someone famous is shot, or something truly horrible happens, handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. **Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.** - https://www.vpc.org/studies/awaconc.htm