"Assault weapons," a term often used by journalists, are semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns that share some characteristics with military firearms but lack their defining feature, the ability to fire multiple bullets with a single pull of the trigger. Contrary to media portrayals, these semi-automatic weapons are commonly used for hunting and home defense. However, a leading gun control advocate tagged them with the name "assault weapons" in 1988 and wrote: "The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons--anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun--can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."