I’m a retired both military/civilian police firearms instructor and annually qualify/certify retired officers under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, and urge you to write, call, email, tweet, text your elected officials  not to support AG Bob Ferguson’s SB 5050 or HB 1134 Bill and attempt to ban so-called “Assault Weapons.” Fact: Nationally, “assault weapons” were used in 1.4% of crimes involving firearms and 0.25% of all violent crime before the enactment of any national or state “assault weapons” ban. “Assault weapon” is an invented term. In the firearm lexicon, there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.” The closest relative is the “assault rifle,” which is a machine gun or “select fire” rifle that shoots rifle cartridges. In most cases, “assault weapons” are functionally identical though less powerful than hunting rifles, but they are cosmetically similar to military guns. Congressional Research Svc and FBI database reports “assault weapons” are very rarely used by criminals. “Assault weapons” is a made-up term, used to scare citizens into thinking that military weapons were commonly being sold and used on the streets of the United States. Thanks to a dishonest and incompetent media, millions of Americans think that machine guns can simply be purchased at the local gun store. The reality that the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act outlawed the manufacture of automatic weapons for the civilian market in 1986, this is always hushed up. It’s been 30 years since a single machine gun was manufactured for the American public. There are no assault rifles being sold in the United States. There are only firearms that look like weapons of war, but which lack their ability to fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger. A simple Ruger 10-22 rifle can be made to look like a so-called “assault weapon.” These firearms—AR-15s, AKMs and similar rifles—while incredibly popular with America’s law-abiding gun culture, simply aren’t used in many crimes. This should be surprising, since they are now among the most popular firearms sold in the United States in the past decade. The AR-15, in particular, is the most popular rifle sold in the United States year after year, and there are ten times as many in civilian hands as there are visually similar M4/M16 assault rifles in the entire U.S military. But career criminals don’t want long guns, but firearms that are compact and easily concealed. Better wake up and get involved before more of your Constitutional Rights are taken away by self-serving politicians!