I had to appear on prime-time TV to defend the right of shooters to own semi-automatic firearms. I took along an early Browning semi-auto shotgun of 1900's vintage and a Winchester .401 just like this. The point I made is that they've been around for more than a century. They were, as you say, effectively "assault rifles" and readily available but were never a problem until now. So what's changed? For instance, the idea that crazy people are better left in the community unsupervised and poorly medicated to save money.

It must have gone down OK because I never heard anyone who didn't think the shooter's argument was well made. Even the show's host, who was rabidly anti-gun just a few years before, was clearly on our side that night, (OK, I had to do some fast talking to him in the adverts to win him over, but he'd wised up!).

I liked the way the .401 could easily be stripped down. It's only draw back that stopped more development like it, was that it was a blow back design. It was certainly well engineered in days when quality mattered. When you look at Ruger's .44 mag semi-auto rifle of c. 30 years ago, it's pretty much the same thing.