But beyond these errors in public debate, I’ve just found something similar in an actual statute — Washington, D.C. code section 7-2501.01(10), which defines “machine gun” as:
“Machine gun” means any firearm which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily converted or restored to shoot:
(A) Automatically, more than 1 shot by a single function of the trigger;
(B) Semiautomatically, more than 12 shots without manual reloading.
So already the law explicitly departs from the standard definition of machine gun, to include semiautomatic guns — again, guns that fire just one round per trigger pull — with a capacity of 13 rounds or more.
But beyond this, remember that for most semiautomatic handguns and rifles, the gun’s capacity is a function not of the gun but of the magazine that the shooter inserts into the gun. Glock handguns, for instance, are generally sold with 10-round magazines, since 10 years ago federal law largely banned larger magazines (except for those that were manufactured before the law’s effective date). But any such handgun can easily “shoot[]” “more than 12 shots without manual reloading” if you simply insert a larger magazine into the gun.
The bottom line, then, is that tens of millions of semiautomatic handguns and rifles — perhaps most such semiautomatic guns — will qualify as “machine guns” for purposes of this law. And that’s so even if the gun came with a 6- or 10-round magazine, so long as the gun is capable of handling a larger magazine (something that guns normally do unless the designers take special steps to avoid this).
Now I can understand why some people might want to ban all guns, or even all guns that are capable of using large magazines; I would oppose such a proposal, but I can see the policy arguments in favor of it. But the standard arguments for banning machine guns or assault weapons have generally not been “Yes, we want to ban tens of millions of guns, including ordinary guns that ordinary home defenders or sportsmen routinely use.” Rather, they are “Don’t worry if you’re a normal gun owner — we’re only going after a few of the really nasty awful guns, and there’s no slippery slope that will lead to you.”
Laws like this one show that many would-be “machine gun” or “assault weapons” banners are indeed after perfectly ordinary guns of the sort that millions of ordinary gun owners have. And to the extent they use redefinition of normal English terms (yes, something that the law sometimes does, but that doesn’t make it right), they are misleading and potentially deceptive both to the regulated parties and to voters who are hearing arguments that are based on these terms.
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