I was 19 the first time I held an assault rifle. It was on a concrete court inside a National Guard armory in Bloomington, Ind., where I’d gathered with fellow R.O.T.C. cadets for weapons training. A sergeant opened an olive-drab arms case and handed out M-16A2s. We each took one apart and reassembled it, learning the sequence, learning how to safely clear it, learning to check its functions. It has been years since I held one, but regardless of the model — an M-16, an M-4 or a civilian variant like the AR-15 or Sig Sauer MCX — I’m confident I could disassemble it blindfolded.

That sounds more impressive than it is. In truth, it’s simple. Ensure the selector lever is on “safe.” Drop the magazine. Clear the chamber. Find the takedown pin. Lift the upper receiver. The rest is just a series of pushes or pulls on particular parts: the charging handle, the buffer spring, the bolt carrier group, the retainer pin. My brain might forget the names of the pieces, but my hands remember. Even if I just pantomime the act of holding that rifle, my hands know where to rest: index finger over the trigger well — never inside it — thumb on the selector lever, ready to switch and fire.

The massacre in Orlando this week, in which the shooter used a Sig Sauer MCX, has renewed arguments for banning assault weapons, but even talking about these guns in America can become a game of semantics. People obsess over terminology like literary scholars. I’ve taught college English for almost two years now, and for all the fulminating against the culture of political correctness, I’ve never seen language scrutinized like the language of armaments and gun control. There is a mechanical difference between the M-4 I carried in Afghanistan and a civilian assault rifle, but given the way we trained and shot (using semiautomatic mode), there is almost no distinction. When I look at a photo of myself in Afghanistan — on a combat mission in July 2009 — I find myself examining the gun. I could buy that rifle online, including all the accessories, with minimal difficulty. I can’t go back to Afghanistan, at least not now. I can’t be 25 again. I can’t recapture the fear or the wonderment or the grief — for a recently deceased friend — that I felt in that instant. But the weapon I carried could be mine again, with only slight variations. I could once again own a little part of that regrettable era.