A hundred and twelve years ago, in 1907...our great grandparents were first able to buy the rifle pictured. The semi-auto Winchester Model 1907.

This is a gun they could buy from a Sears catalogue and have delivered via US Post. It was/ is a semi-automatic, high powered centerfire rifle, with detachable, high capacity magazine.

About 400,000 of these were produced before WW2. Civilians had hundreds of thousands of these semi-auto rifles for 40 years, while US soldiers were still being issued old fashioned bolt action rifles.

The 1907 fired just as fast as an AR15 or AK47 and the bullet (.351 Winchester) was actually larger than those fired by the more modern looking weapons..

The ONLY functional difference between the 1907 and a controversial and much feared AR15 is the modern black plastic stock.

To summarize:

The semi auto, so-called "assault rifle" is 110 years old. It isnt new in any way.

The semi auto rifle was not a weapon of war. The government MADE IT a weapon of war 40 years after civilians had them.

The semi-auto can be safely owned by civilians. The proof is that literally 3 generations of adults owned and used them responsibly and no one ever even noticed.

Want to fix the horror of mass shootings? Fix the things that have changed for the worse in the last 50 years.

Cause the rifle technology in question was here long before this insanity.