Banning Based On Looks

In a letter circulating on Capitol Hill, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is demanding a ban on imported semi-automatic weapons because, in her words, they are “modeled closely after military firearms,” the Daily Caller reported Thursday.

“Many semiautomatic firearms on the market today do not have a military origin but are modeled closely after military firearms,” she wrote, citing the Gun Control Act of 1968. “These military-style firearms are not prohibited under the current import ban, even though they are functionally equivalent to prohibited rifles with a military origin.”
Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/feinstein-ban-semi-automatic-weapons-because-they-look-like-military-firearms

The full text of Feinstein’s letter can be seen at The Daily Caller
Source: http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/20/dianne-feinstein-pushes-for-semi-automatic-rifle-import-ban-based-on-45-year-old-law/

I’m sorry, but the original intent of the 2nd Amendment was to enable citizens to own weapons equivalent to those that the military possessed — to be used in the event that the government needed to be overthrown. Not weapons that merely looked like the ones in use by the military, but the exact same weapons. In fact, the United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) explicitly mentions Letters of Marque and Reprisal. There were privately owned warships with cannon in use during the Revolutionary War.
Source: http://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm#a1_sec8