You (and most other people, as is common with stories like this) are mixing up assault rifles with assault weapons. "Assault rifle" refers to a specific class of military weapon, characterized as being a select-fire rifle with a detachable magazine; it is incredibly difficult to get a license to own any assault rifle in the US. "Assault weapon" is a fairly broad category that refers to semi-automatic rifles that have certain cosmetic features (such as pistol grips and folding stocks); the classification has more to do with the guns looking scary than it does with how dangerous they are compared to other types of firearms.

We don't. A distrust of the government is pretty much a founding principle of the US, with much of our constitution consisting of restrictions on the government's power, along with checks and balances to allow citizens various means to reign in the government as necessary. And despite all of this our government continues to become more and more authoritarian, so I'd say the distrust of government is very well justified. Although how effective the ownership of small arms would be in reigning in the government in the current environment is an entirely different discussion.

Maybe they are not doing it anymore, but they used to. I remember reading about the Father of Modern Witchcraft( Wicca) Gerald B. Gardner told by John Parker, an journalist investigator how he sacrificed humans, old and frail to keep Hitler at bay from invading their country, and then there is the blood magic rituals practiced even now by some neopagans and pagans.

By the way, the virgin sacrifice was a trope joke for all the movies that used it.

This is so sad. What goes on in the mind of someone who does this? And ban assault rifles already, its clear that those that own them dont defend themselves with them but want to murder others. :(
Theyre not allowed to. Just got an update on Twitter on that. So its easier to get a gun than blood.

i have found that most people who aren't from the US don't understand this part of our heritage and how this is exactly why we will never allow the outright banning of guns. ever.

That ban was lifted, they are allowed to donate.

edit- I guess I might be wrong on that. :/

An assault rifle for "personal protection" does seem absurd. If you absolutely need to own a gun for protection, carry a regular pistol around, and maybe keep a shotgun at your home. If you need to consider automatic rifles or even explosives for your own personal protection, then there's something going seriously wrong in your area/country. It's almost like some sort of bizarre civilian arms race.

I disagree. A lot of people understand the distrust of authority and the need for protection from it. However, what used to be the case in the past is not the case now. What will you do, even with an assault rifle, against a state-of-the-art equipped, fully trained in warfare regiment of anything that the government can throw at you? It becomes logical that "owning a gun" simply won't do anymore, doesn't it?

Greek news report that ISIS claimed responsibility, but was mentioned in passing. Haven't verified that.

It's not the owning of guns that non-Americans find confusing but more why do you need so many each? Also why semi-automatic rifles and the like?

Thats not true.

Not quite, he just pledged himself to them over a 911 call: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-mateen-idUSKCN0YY0SY

maybe it's our wet blanket we can't get rid of? i'm well aware, but i'd rather than something than nothing.

But isn't a false sense of security worse than feeling insecure? :P

Semi-automatic means each press of the trigger fires a single bullet. Burst fire means each press of the trigger fires a set amount of bullets (2 to 5, weapon dependent). Automatic means the weapon keeps firing bullets while the trigger is pressed, until it runs out.
There's also bolt action which means you have to manually chamber the next round after each shot, like most (but not all) shotguns.
Additional information, they said something about a post from an ISIS affiliated site, not the 911 call that they had mentioned earlier. Again, no idea if the information about the post is verified or not.