It's not an obsession at all, maybe just call it a tick? For me, using the term in this kind of a conversation is an indication of a certain brand of disingenuousness. It shows me that the person who used it in earnest has been duped by the propagandaist, because the distinction and even the term is designed to frighten, intimidate, and coerce.
So maybe it's like using the idea of "Black profiling comes from high Black crime rates" (without acknowledging the racial aspects) or using the term "illegal immigrant" (without acknowledging what makes a human 'illegal').
> I'm guessing that most people use it to describe a weapon that's more
> military than something that would normally be used for hunting -
> i.e., something designed to kill people in some quantity, though not
> as many as a machine gun.
I guess since there's no clear definition, you're free to ascribe anything to it, and if you're comfortable with it, hey: whatever. But there's no such distinction in the real world other than by some politician looking to score scare points with voters and contribution points from manufacturers.
That is: there is no technical difference between the most popular (on TV and in people's lockers) "assault rifle" (the AR-15) and the most popular "ranching" rifle (the Mini-14 -- a direct design descendent of the M-14 main battle rifle and favorite of modern snipers everywhere, as "military" as "military" itself). Same rate of fire; same basic shape, size, weight; same cartridge size; same "killing power" if you must. Identical in nearly every way, except perception. Oh, and political contributions.
And of course for the rest of the hunting world, bigger is better: larger cartridges, more "killing power" etc., and yet: somehow not as scary, yes?
Also: if they are "designed to kill people in quantity" then the vast majority of them are clearly defective. Quick, call Ralph Nader!
> Wikipedia has no prob with what appears to be a rigorous definition -
> could you tell us what's wrong with this?
That article appears to be written from the standpoint of gun owners and collectors, useful in a kind of way that you might tell the difference between the Topps brand of baseball cards and the other manufacturer, Upper Deck (yes, I used The Google to find that one, I'm not a "card nut" either). We're not talking about the Wikipedia definition, we're talking about the one that politicians and legislators have invented.
Instead of using a "rigorous" definition which seems to pass your sniff test, the State of California provides a list. It's now 96 pages long because it has to list every exception to someone like me saying "Yeah, but ..." ...
http://ag.ca.gov/firearms/forms/pdf/awguide.pdf
For what it's worth, here's the first line of your cite:
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle>
>
> An assault rifle is a selective fire rifle or carbine firing ...
"Selective fire" (you're not expected to know this, but you asked) means that you can, uh, _select_ between semi-automatic (one trigger pull = one shot) and automatic (in burst or full modes, one trigger pull = several shots or continuous while the trigger remains pulled) modes. Select-fire firearms are controlled the way medical cocaine is; this is clearly not the kind of distinction I'm talking about.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_fire ]
To its credit, down at the bottom it says this:
> There are commentators who use the expression "assault rifle" more
> loosely to include other types of arms, particularly arms that fall
> under a strict definition of the battle rifle, or civilian semi-
> automatic off-shoots of military rifles for commercial or political
> reasons.
So, if you're comfortable with that, by all means go ahead on using the term. It's funny, though, to anyone who knows you're being duped. So pardon me while I laugh?
/jordan