I have a large gun rack in my house, and in it are two bolt-action hunting rifles, one shotgun, and three assault rifles. Once I get my CETME rifle there will be four, and if I can ever talk my wife into letting me spring for an M-1A I'll have five. Out of the three assault rifles that I now have, I have only fired one of them, and that was just to run about 20 rounds through it after I bought it (it's an L1A1/FN-FAL.) I also have a couple of pistols that I bought and have never fired. So I guess it's ok to say that I am more of a collector than a shooter.
Is there a legitimate need for assault weapons? Yes, I like them, I like to collect them, and I like how they look in my gun rack. That's all the legitimare need that I need. As for those of you who don't have an interest in them, let me ask you this... aside from the sticks in Montana, you can't legally go more than 70 MPH on any road, so should all cars capable of exceeding 70 MPH be banned? After all, there's no legal way for anyone but cops, the military, and postal trucks to exceed the speed limit, so there's no legitimite need for cars that can exceed 70 MPH is there? There are several thousand Americans killed by speeding vehicles for each person killed by an assault weapon, so just think of what banning cars that can exceed a speed limit would do to save lives!
Boats? How many people need a boat to live? How many people with speed boats ever water ski? What's the legitimate need for water skis? More people get hurt each year by water skis than have ever been hurt by assault weapons, so we should ban these shouldn't we? Oh yeah... decorator plates! What practical use is a plate that you buy and hang on a wall, and often have toxic finishes that will harm you if you mistakenly use the plate to eat off of. Antique furniture... there's another hazard. How many people are injured or killed each year because of antique furniture failing and collapsing? I guarantee you these items claim more lives each year than assault weapons do! Let's ban those too and save some folks.
Or how about hunting knives? What's the legitimite use for a long-bladed hunting knife? A 4-inch blade is all that's needed to handle 99% of the occasions that require one to use a knife, so why not ban all knife blades over four inches long and say screw the last 1% of users. There are thousands of things in the consumer world that have no legitimate use. If you think it's ok to ban assault weapons because YOU don't see any use for them, you better look forward to seeing someone else pushing to ban something that YOU like.
Lastly, the vaunted assault weapons ban has resulted in more assault weapons being on the market than there has ever been! Because of the way the law was written, gun makers in the US were allowed to import disassembled assault rifles from overseas militaries, that had the receivers removed; manufacture new receivers here in the US; rebuild the rifles; and sell them legally here in the US. I could have never affored an L1A1 or CETME rifle before the ban as they were about $1,500 a copy or outright unavailable. After the ban, I could get an L1A1, with a US-made receiver, for $400 and a CETME for $298. US-made rifles like the AR-15 were altered by removing a flash supressor (and replacing it with a muzzle break that does essentially the same thing... it just has a different name) and grinding off the bayonet lug (which was worthless to begin with) and voila! They're legal, and cost about the same as an AR-15 did before the ban. I paid about $520 for my AR-15A2 rifle, which is a far better rifle than the first AR-15 that I bought in 1983 for $475. So with the ban in effect, I got a better rifle for $45 more, and that's not factoring in inflation since 1983.
So, is the ban effective? No. Is it reasonable to start banning things because some people don't feel there's a legitimate need? I don't think so.
In fact, put one in the living room of every Democrat. 
Anti-gun nazi's 
) ? Why don't we just let the "anti's" justify their side in light of the 2nd amendment. Let's hear what we accomplish by all this "ban" stuff. How are we better off and what proof is there that we are ? I offer the current situations in England and Washington DC as examples of bans not working.