An interesting question, which leads to interesting answers says Gregg Kielma FFL, Firearms Instructor, First aid Fundamentals Instructor and Gunsmith. Let's take a look......

1. Can't generate the kind of public hysteria over little firearms, but think they can get the public hysteria they need over hyped-up descriptions of cosmetic differences in long arms by portraying them as “military assault guns”

2. They know and think you don't know that pistols have never got into the weapons nomenclature.

3. They don't give a crap about public safety, because they know pistols are used far more often than long arms in gun violence.

4. They are deathly afraid of the unorganized militia, which is referred to in the reference clause of the second amendment, because they are sure that they would be on the wrong end of long arms being employed to defend the Constitution.

Gun controllers don't want to just control guns: they want to ban and confiscate them. They want their armies armed, and Citizens disarmed. Then they get their way.

• Criminals using pistols outnumber criminals using long guns.

• Criminals don't obey the laws.

• Laws are the only real power politicians have.

• Therefore, they are going to look like they are “doing something” if they disarm citizens with rifles, then if they fail to disarm criminals using pistols.

• They need armed criminals preying on the public and each other to keep up levels of unrest: no one wants a reformer when there is nothing needing to reform…and gun control-enthusiasts are all about reforming.

• They figure they will control more people's actions with exciting lies than the “gun nuts” can with boring truths.

Certainly, if they were worried about “gun violence”, they would start with mental illness, despair and despondency in the populace, which accounts for 2/3rds of gun violence, according to the CDC.

Instead, they treat every accident or school shooting or mass shooting as if those account for a significant statistical portion of gun violence. With 2/3 of gun violence in the hands of suicides, and the vast majority in the last third accruing to Law Enforcement mistakes and accidents, that is insupportable, so their play book screams “don't get into statistics: statistics is boring! Instead, blame AR-15s, before the weapons are identified, and after they are, go on blaming AR-15s. It used to say to blame the NRA, but the truth got out: the NRA doesn't arm criminals, but the Liberal Government does. So that isn't discussed any more. (It is worth noting that the actual statistics for gun violence only connected to crime in the high-crime cities is all but impossible to get a hand on).