While reading the Wikipedia page on “assault weapons”, I came across this quote:

In March 2004, Kristen Rand, the legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, criticized the soon-to-expire ban by stating, “The 1994 law in theory banned AK-47s, MAC-10s, UZIs, AR-15s and other assault weapons. Yet the gun industry easily found ways around the law and most of these weapons are now sold in post-ban models virtually identical to the guns Congress sought to ban in 1994.”

I’ve heard that phrase used before. In a case right here in Georgia, a man was found to be in possession of an AK-47-style rifle receiver that had been converted into a pistol by removing the shoulder stock and shortening the barrel. Because of the weirdness of the laws, rifle-receivers that have been converted into pistols are legal, but short-barreled rifles (with barrels less than 16″) are illegal. The primary difference between the two is the presence or absence of a shoulder stock.

The prosecutor argued that the man was attempting to circumvent the law. The defense attorney stated, quite rightly, that the man was attempting to comply with the law (and was, in fact, in compliance with the law). Jury found for the defense.

When the Assault Weapons Ban made rifles fitting certain descriptions illegal and manufacturers modified their rifles to omit those features, they were attempting to comply with the law, not circumvent it. If I take the shoulder stock off my AK-47-style rifle so as to allow me to legally cut the barrel down below 16″, I’m attempting to comply with the law, not circumvent it.

Watch for this shitty semantic trick. Law enforcement, legislators, and prosecutors do it very often. You made the laws, you assholes! Don’t blame us when we comply with them and you don’t get what you thought you were going to get!