Nearly all assault weapons bans define assault weapons in terms of being semiautomatic. The proposed 2019 ban is no exception. It defines “assault weapon” like so:
The term `semiautomatic assault weapon’ means any of the
following, regardless of country of manufacture or caliber of
ammunition accepted:
“(A) A semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept
a detachable magazine and any 1 of the following”
There is a huge hole that can be exploited.
The term “semiautomatic rifle” means any repeating rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge. (emphasis added)
The weakness here is obvious. All you need to do is have something other than the energy of a firing cartridge eject and load the next, and the weapon is no longer subject to the AWB. It seems like Franklin Armory is trying to do just that.