Adam Schiff: “I have, however, never seen an issue in which there was so much misinformation being cast about. I think there are two…”

“I have, however, never seen an issue in which there was so much misinformation being cast about. I think there are two serious areas of information about the kinds of weapons we are talking about here. To begin with, Mr. Speaker, they are not assault weapons. Assault weapons are automatic weapons; that means a machinegun or submachinegun; pull the trigger, and the gun continues to fire for as long as it has bullets. Indeed, I have seen national news programs where they are talking about this bill, and they are showing the public fully automatic weapons. Not one of the weapons we are talking about in this bill is an assault weapon. Not one of the weapons we are talking about in this bill is an automatic weapon. They are not AK-47's and Uzis of the automatic type. But that is what the public has been told over and over again, and would like to believe. The fact is that each of these firearms shoots one bullet with one pull of the trigger. There is no functional difference between any of the firearms that are mistakenly, I think deliberately, mistakenly called assault weapons in this bill, and weapons which are not called assault weapons.”