Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't known as the most brilliant member of Congress by any metric you care to name. Some folks have referred to her as "Occasional Cortex" as a result. Endless memes mocking her intelligence have been trotted out and they're hilarious.

Of course, she's anti-gun and has been her entire time in Congress. She doesn't support the right to keep and bear arms in any way, shape, or form.

Oh, she's one of those who might pay a little lip service to the idea of gun rights, but she really thinks they should be privileges.

Despite all that, a recent comment from AOC is a nice little gift for those of us on this side of the fence.

When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Heller decision in 2008, the court stated that entire classes of commonly owned firearms cannot be banned from legal sale and possession by law-abiding citizens. In the 5-4 decision, the court held that “private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia.”

“Commonly owned,” “typically possessed,” and “ordinary” are keywords here. Gun control activists love to claim MSRs are “weapons of war.” “No one needs an AR-15 to hunt deer,” President Joe Biden loves to claim. But NSSF industry reporting shows law-abiding Americans continue to ignore the hyperbole, opting instead to purchase MSRs in record numbers, especially over the past four years. Today, more than 28.1 million of these rifles are in circulation. They are the most popular selling centerfire rifle in America and more common than Ford F-150s on the road today (the most popular selling pickup truck in America). The idea of banning these semi-automatic rifles doesn’t pass the sniff test, much less constitutional muster. But AOC hasn’t read that memo.

In a U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing about the attempted assassination attempt on former President and current Republican nominee Donald Trump, AOC an made a significant stumble in her attempts to call for more gun control. Questioning former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned the day after the hearing, Ocasio-Cortez admitted something, in the Congressional Record, that she might wish she had phrased differently.

“The individual used an AR-15 in order to act out his assassination attempt. An AR-15 has a range of about four-to-six hundred yards,” Ocasio-Cortez began. “My question is why does the Secret Service perimeter — why is the Secret Service protective perimeter — shorter than one of the most popular semi-automatic weapons in the United States?”

Now, I don't accept the idea that only "commonly owned" firearms are worthy of protection, especially since many weapons have been effectively banned for long enough that it's not legally possible for them to be commonly owned, creating something of a paradox.

Yet the courts have held that and many anti-gunners have even tried to approach the AR-15 as being a particularly unusual weapon. Despite it being the most popular model of rifle in the United States, some have even tried to argue that it's not commonly owned.

AOC, however, in acknowledging that these are one of the most popular semi-automatic weapons in the nation, is also acknowledging that they are, in fact, commonly owned.

Whether you think "commonly owned" should matter or not, the reality is that many people do accept that as the standard, and for AR-15s, that hurdle has been cleared. If there should be a hurdle or not is a different topic entirely.

Now, when AOC starts talking about an assault weapon ban--and we all know that she will--we can just trot out that soundbite for everyone's amusement.

It doesn't make all that much difference here and now, particularly because AOC is mostly just loud. She holds little real power in the House. However, it amusing the snot out of me, and sometimes, that's enough.