It speaks to the fact that there are a lot of young men in the U.S. who will never be in the military but feel that male compulsion to warriorhood. O… - Tom Diaz

It's an assault pistol. It was designed and basically advertised and used for exactly the kind of thing that was done in Littleton: It's to spray a lot of bullets over a wide area very quickly.

It's clear that the militarized stuff is the stuff that sells and is defining the industry.

This gun is designed and built to smash things up and to set things on fire. It`s a battlefield weapon, and yet it is sold as freely on the American civilian market as a .22 bolt action rifle...I think it`s a great thing on the battlefield. I just think that there are certain occasions when we say in our society, this product is such a threat to our health and safety, and in this case, our national security, we will not allow it...it is a gun that is unparalleled by any other small arm available to civilians. We control every other kind of weapon of war you can think of -- machine guns, plastic explosives, rockets. This thing has flown under the radar for about 20 years...If you go through virtually any industrial state, you`ll see right off the highways all kinds of highly-toxic and/or flammable materials stored in big tanks. These are ideal targets...The point is that you can plan your attack from a longer distance. It`s the combination of range and power.