With the president's gun policy ideas slowly morphing into concrete political aims for his supporters, even the most ardent gun-control advocates appear to be conceding that, no matter what other victories President Obama may score in coming months, the assault weapons he wants to ban are almost certain to remain legal.

Here's what politics correspondent Sam Stein writes at Huffington Post: 

Progressive groups and gun control activists are deeply committed to enacting reforms that are as extensive as possible. But their emotional investment in some of the more controversial legislative items has been tempered. In particular, few if any advocates are using the passage of a proposed assault weapons ban as a benchmark of success, even if virtually all of them are calling for its enactment.

Lawmakers and aides, who have tried to keep political sparks at a minimum, have welcomed the subdued approach. But it has also contributed to the conventional wisdom that the assault weapons ban will be axed from the final package. As it stands now, the measure of success is not whether the ban passes, but whether it gets a vote at all.

Personally, I hope the ban idea fails.

blog about the gun control debate, author and magazine journalist Sam Harris explains part of the issue that makes handguns and even basic hunting rifles more useful than assault rifle to those intent on wrongfully hurting others:

The problem, therefore, is that with respect to either factor that makes a gun suitable for mass murder -- ease of concealment (a handgun) or range (a rifle) -- the most common and least stigmatized weapons are among the most dangerous. Gun control advocates seem perversely unaware of this. As a consequence, we routinely hear the terms “semiautomatic” and “assault weapon” intoned with misplaced outrage and awe. It is true that a semiautomatic pistol allows a person to shoot and reload slightly more efficiently than a revolver does. But a revolver can be reloaded surprisingly quickly with a device known as a speed loader.

To his point about handguns being the least stigmatized weapons, I get the sense that much of the angst around assault rifles goes to cosmetics. News report after news report goes on about the many "military-style" accessories that are used to market the guns to enthusiasts and that, presumably, make these guns more dangerous.

But the truth is, even those advocating stricter gun laws disagree widely on which features truly enhance how lethal assault weapons are.

Forgive my barbarism, but I fail to see the downside of having guns that're at least as deadly as anything that would likely come into my home  to threaten me or my family. If the the first rationale for gun ownership is self-defense, then why wouldn't someone trying to protect his or her home want to be able to meet heavy fire with that of his/her own?

If it's dangerous folly to bring a knife to a gunfight then how reasonable is it to expect your .22-caliber to effectively meet someone who kicks in your back door toting an AK-47? (I'm from the east side of Detroit. Trust me: This scenario is based on more than one true story.)

And no, that's not to say you couldn't neutralize a threat with a handgun. But why should law-abiding citizens be unreasonably limited in how they choose to defend their property and person?

I get that armed robbers aren't carrying RPGs. They aren't breaking into homes bearing daisy cutters and nuclear warheads. So no, I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that nobody outside of the Armed Forces should ever be allowed to get their hands on such weapons.

But semiautomatic rifles are on the streets in vast numbers. Even the president's proposed ban wouldn't get rid of the ones that are already in circulation. Yes, in the hands of a criminal or lunatic, they will absolutely wreak terrifying amounts of havoc.

But for law-abiding citizens, they are not an outrageous preference for personal defense. And they don't need to be banned for the nation to get a firmer grip on the outlandish American gun violence hurting and threatening us all.

(P.S. -- Before anybody complains about me spreading "liberal media propaganda" by using the term "assault rifle" interchangeably with "semiautomatic rifle," just thank gun manufacturers for popularizing the term in the first place.)