True, 10 years isn't a short time in a human life, and probably reprogrammed a lot of people's thinking during that time. It depends what timescale you consider

True, 10 years isn't a short time in a human life, and probably reprogrammed a lot of people's thinking during that time. It depends what timescale you consider. It's arguably brief on the scale of the lifespan of the US Constitution. There is apparently debate about the etymology of the term. In English it may be fairly recent; others attribute the concept to the German military in World War 2. From the Wikipedia page on Assault Rifle: > Conservative writer Rich Lowry said that assault weapon is a "manufactured term". Joseph P. Tartaro of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote in 1994: "One of the key elements of the anti-gun strategy to gull the public into supporting bans on the so-called 'assault weapons' is to foster confusion. As stated previously, the public does not know the difference between a full automatic and a semi-automatic firearm." > Two scholars have written: "One problem inherent in the study of [assault weapons (AW)] is that the classifications of AW are based on cosmetic features of firearms... For instance, the Colt AR-15 series of semi-automatic rifles—the civilian version of the fully automatic M-16 rifle issued to U.S. soldiers—was subject to the 1994 AW restrictions, but the Ruger Mini-14 rifle was not banned. Yet, the Mini-14 is the same caliber, has a similar barrel length, the same semi-automatic action, and can use magazines that hold 30 rounds of ammunition. The only real meaningful difference between the two firearms is cosmetic: The AR-15 rifle looks more dangerous." (citations omitted) I'm fairly sure such a ban would not survive a challenge with the current SCOTUS, but I'm curious whether any cases made it to SCOTUS challenging the ban while it was active, with the court as it was then. (Any constitutional lawyers on the thread want to pop in?)