Yeah, you get to wonder when did the ATF created another subsection of firearms. The did not, we are revisiting the 1990s

It seems that somebody at CBS News took the Media classes with Brady or Everytown and decided to come up with that terminology. The Evil Assault Pistol (Black, no less) found at the scene? Allegedly a TEC-9. (I could not get confirmation at the time of writing)

In July of 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri armed with a Chinese 1911 clone and two TEC-9s shot up a legal firm in San Francisco (yes, again the same city) killing 8 people. The TEC-9 became the Right Hand of Satan, the most hated gun in the Gun Control circles and an immediate favorite with Hollywood producers that still, to this day cannot make a California Gang movie without at least one TEC-9 redecoration some ghetto abode. You mention TEC-9 and the Old Gun Control freaks both salivate and feel tinges in their loins and will rise from their retirement homes to scream loudly about the killing machine. A lawsuit was brought against the company and even though they won, the legal expenses put them under which was the strategy which started to develop in that era against Gun Rights: Bankrupt the Gun Manufacturers.

The TEC-9 in my opinion was never that useful as a pistol and it only sold out because the Gun Control people made such a fuss about it.  What the MAC 10 was for the 80s and Miami Vice, the TEC-9 did it for the 90s and most of the Blood versus Crips Hollywood creations. And same as the latest Hollywood remakes of movies from that era, this new “paroxysm” will be short-sighted and short-lived.