WHO CARES WHAT THE LAW SAYS? A priceless quote in the New York Times:

Mr. Faraday was careful to say its copies of the M-16 were not assault weapons, since they do not have collapsible stocks, flash suppressers or a mounting to install a bayonet, some features that were ruled out by the 1994 ban. The magazine of the XM-15 also holds only 10 rounds, the permissible limit set by the 1994 ban.

In addition, the rifle is only a semiautomatic, requiring a trigger pull for each shot, not fully automatic as a military rifle, which allows multiple rounds to be fired with a single pull of the trigger.

But Kristen Rand, the legislative director for the Violence Policy Center in Washington, a gun control group, said that the XM-15 seized in Mr. Muhammad’s car still had features that mimic an assault weapon.

“It complies with the letter of the law, but it is still an assault rifle,” Ms. Rand said.

Hmm. It was the gun “fanatics” who said that the assault weapon ban was purely cosmetic. But now the VPC seems to agree.