National Shooting Sports Foundation, Newtown Gun Lobby, Keeps Military-Style Guns Legal – The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2012/12/22/national-shooting-sports-foundation-newtown_n_2348465.html

In order for gun manufacturers to keep growing, Sugarmann said, “they’ve got to do two things. First, find new markets, which is what they’re doing with their womens’ and childrens’ programs. The other option is to find something new to sell the guys who already have guns. The answer for that is increasingly militarized weapons.”

The simple fact of the matter is that these assault weapons are made for one thing…killing lots of humans quickly. That’s the long and short of the issue, in my mind. For others it is more complicated, especially those in the linked story, whose livelihood, in you will, depends of selling more and more deadly (and expensive) weapons to folks who’s paranoia knows no bounds.