There have always been people in the US who are afraid of normal folks having guns.  These people believe that only the military, cops, and themselves (or for the wealthier, their bodyguards) should have guns.  They believe that normal folks can't be trusted with them.  Of course, the vast majority of gun-involved crimes are committed by criminals with prior violent histories, but the anti-gun-right crowd ignores that reality.  They well understand that it is much easier to get the guns away from people who want to remain law-abiding than those willing to be criminals.

Anyway, in 1994, both houses of Congress and the President were Democrats, our socialist political party.  They took the opportunity to pass a law that did a number of things, but of primary interest to us, it established severe restrictions on what the law called "assault weapons" and standard-capacity magazines.  The law went into effect on September 13, 1994.  While the law "grandfathered" existing "assault weapons" and standard magazines, only police and government agencies could buy new ones.

The law affects some guns by name, and guns with those names are considered "assault weapons" no matter what configuration they are in.  Semi-automatic guns that aren't on that list are restricted based on their features.  Understand that the purpose wasn't to ban the *features*; it was to ban entirely the GUNS that normally had those features.  In other words, their intent was to ban all new AR15s, FALs, HK91s, AKs, etc.  What they didn't count on was manufacturers removing enough of the "evil features" from these guns and continuing to sell them.  Unfortunately, most American gun owners falsely believe that it was those features that the anti-gunners didn't like, and they miss the fact that it was the GUNS THEMSELVES that they were after.

When they were making their list of "evil assault weapons", they did so by opening a book with gun pictures on it and pointed to the guns that "looked scary".  They understand so little about guns that they banned some guns based on their "military appearance" while allowing other guns that operate almost identically, and would certainly be just as deadly.  The reason this whole process was difficult for them is because they are afraid to ban rifles that are used by hunters.  While they know that most hunters are too short-sighted to defend the right to own military-style guns, they also know that if they threaten guns that hunters consider to be "hunting guns", that the uproar will be HUGE (as England is learning right now, ironically).

In any event, the law was written poorly in their effort to ban military-style guns while leaving the hunting guns alone.  This allows us to continue to buy new military-style guns; we just can't have many of the "evil features" that these guns normally have.  And, in order to get the law passed, they had to include an expiration date in the law, in this case, 10 years from the date of enactment.  So, unless a new law is passed, or the existing law is modified, the current "assault weapon" ban will expire ("sunset") on 9/13/2004.  Of course, that is just 6 weeks before our next presidential elections, so it is likely to be a big issue during the campaign on both sides.

-Troy

Forest has it right: for pistol-gripped rifles like the AR, AK, M96, AR180, AR10, and so on, a flash suppressor is the next most important item on the banned list, absolutely, no question.

While sound suppressors would be great, even if they were legal on a post-ban pistol-gripped rifle, we'd still have to deal with the whole NFA process.  Blah.

Of course, all of these laws are unConstitutional, and the SCOTUS knows it.  They're just afraid to say so, and EVERYONE knows it.

-Troy

We have an election at the beginning of THIS November that will decide the makeup of Congress during the period preceeding the expiration of the ban.  Until the election, there's no way to know what's going to happen...

-Troy