Humpty Dumpty Journalism

Words mean what they want them to.  Take a look at these choice phrases:

arms dealer
gun lobby’s agenda
military rifles
civilian market for military-style weapons
import of military-surplus weapons
more powerful class of firearms more readily available to civilian gun owners 
arms deal
gun merchants
semiautomatic assault rifles
military weapons marketed to the civilian population
surplus U.S. military weapons

Now while most of these words are technically true, what they're discussing is the import of M-1 Garands, firearms that are 70 yrs old and in no way fit ANY definition of 'Assault Weapon' except as invented in the mind of Josh Sugarmann and other anti-gun fanatics, which it pretty much is to begin w/.  Basically any gun they don't like.

"But Josh Sugarmann of the Washington-based Violence Policy Center says the 200,000 rifles imported by Blue Sky were “basically the first of the military weapons marketed to the civilian population. If you were going to draw an ‘assault weapons timeline,’ it would start with the M-1 and eventually end up where we are today.”

Never mind the fact that CMP has been selling surplus rifles for decades. There's a much simpler explanation for the exponential increase in semi-auto sporters.  The gov't and anti's said they didn't want us having them.  They are the ones that created what was once a niche market into the booming industry of today. 

But no, there's no agenda. None at all.

H/T to 45Superman