What makes a firearm an assault rifle

[Moby]

Funny, I took the rifle in the top picture and purchased the exact stock, the Archangel, in the bottom picture. AND I STILL DO NOT WANT TO SHOOT ANYONE!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/16/gun-debate-what-makes-gun-assault-rifle/

 

[2ndsojourn]

What's sad is both rifles pictured in that link are illegal here in New Jersey.

 

[BPowderkeg]

here is a better pic.

"What makes a firearm an assault rifle"

it is that little lever that can be selected to the FA position !!

any rifle without that FA position is NOT an assault weapon !!

simple, plain and clear.., at least for those intelligent enough to understand terminology !!

 

[Rifleman1776]

Your premise is correct. There is no definition for "assualt gun".
The Federal definition for "assualt rifle" has several points but the main one is it must be full auto.
The media automatically classifies all firearms as "weapons". Guns that look like ARs are classed (by them) as 'assualt rifles or guns' incorrectly.

 

[SoCalNoMore]

If we can change the term we use, I think it would be helpful. I know many that are calling AR style rifles "sport rifles" or "defense rifles".

The laziness of the media to properly call a duck a duck is killing us.

 

[RC20]

You are not going to change the term. G&A and the firearm industry have tried to change it to MSR (Modern Sporting Rifle) for years. Ok, if you are going to do it, get something catchy. Assault Weapon like it or not has that for the press, MSR doe snot.

At some point, you have to accept you are spitting in the wind and while you do not have to use the term, you have to argue on the basis of others using and accepting the term (and not just the opposition, the large group in the middle that is trying to make sens of all this)

So, first

ITS THE SECOND AMENDMENT! Its not the third, 4th or tenth. The though it was that damned important. Inherent in the 2nd is both gun ownership and civic duty.

Second (pun): The gun available and used by the armed forces in those days was the musket. Regardless of how you feel, the modern equivalent of the musket is the AR (frankly I think the ergonomics suck, but it is what they equipped the US forces with)

By default, if the civic duty and requirement (gun ownership right aside) is to be honored, you should have an AR.

Last: Read the book and encouraging other to, Living With Guns. You may not like all that is in there and you likely will see some technical items wrong as I did, but its a basis for discussion.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Once you call a gun a modern sporting rifle - you are trying to pretend that it is not a dangerous weapon useful for the defense against tyranny.

It's for hunting. So what.

Ok - let's ban armor piercing bullets. Are most center rifle rounds able to penetrate body armor without ceramic plates?

Bye, bye - bambi killer sporting rifles.

 

[Ed4032]

If it is black then it must be an EBR. All EBR's are assault weapons. Or so I am told by the media.

 

[KMAX]

I have decided to try to misname objects when I talk to people that insist on being ignorant. Wheels will become rollers. Computers will become adding machines or just contraptions. When questioned about, I am simply going to say "Whatever. You know what I mean." Ignorance seems to be fashionable these days. I give up on trying to educate anyone, they win. Rant over.

 

[doofus47]

perception.
When I was 5, I made "assault weapons" out of legos and/or sticks from our back woods. They all came with built in silencers.

Probably I should have had a license of some sort....

 

[Beagle45ACP]

I have decided to try to misname objects when I talk to people that insist on being ignorant. Wheels will become rollers. Computers will become adding machines or just contraptions. When questioned about, I am simply going to say "Whatever. You know what I mean." Ignorance seems to be fashionable these days. I give up on trying to educate anyone, they win. Rant over

+1
My buddy and I have been doing this for a while now, especially around our anti-gun friends who think that he and I are at all times only a few seconds away from becoming the next mass-shooting. Sadly, they haven't caught on to the fact that we're satirically poking fun at their ignorance. Instead, they just think we're dumber, and therefore, more dangerous.

 

[hardworker]

We can squabble all we want about definitions in an attempt to outsmart the anti's on trivia, or we can call a spade a spade and defend it. An AR is a rifle born and bred for fighting. Hunting with one is akin to using a flathead screwdriver to turn a phillips head screw. It can be done, but there are better tools.

The more we pretend that ARs are no more useful in combat than a lever action rifle, the more we look like nut-jobs with our heads in the sand. Eventually, we'll drive away any logically minded gun owners who are afraid of getting lumped in with the whackos.

 

[radom]

I tend not to agree with the above idea at all.

 

[SPEMack618]

I can't think of a better rifle for hunting coyotes than a Remington R-15.

And my ideal rifle for hogs would be an AR- variant in 6.8 SPC.

And for the record, if I was to deploy to Afghanistan again, I think I would want either an M-16A4 or an M-21.

 

[Shane Tuttle]

We can squabble all we want about definitions in an attempt to outsmart the anti's on trivia, or we can call a spade a spade and defend it. An AR is a rifle born and bred for fighting. Hunting with one is akin to using a flathead screwdriver to turn a phillips head screw. It can be done, but there are better tools.

An AR may not be a master of any, but it sure as heck is a Jack of All Trades. And with someone that can't afford a gun for every task, the AR can default to being the best tool for that person.

 

[Tidewater_Kid]

I like this....

http://www.assaultweapon.info/

TK

 

[BGutzman]

Its the dangerous looking plastic and the pistol handle because anything with a pistol handle is obviously a weapon of mass destruction and death ray like...

No insult to anyone but I wouldn't use 5.56 for anything larger than small game like ground hogs and maybe a fox or something.. Certainly not my choice for big game.. (Again, I am not discrediting how others feel about it) but hey in the mass media, its better than everything else.. Even Fox News calls them Heavy Duty weapons, which is truly about the last thing on earth they are... They are weapons for certain but generally on the much lower end of the rifle power scale. (exceptions for 308 and the like)

 

[SPEMack618]

I recently re-read "Point of Impact" by Stephen Hunter, which the film "Shooter" was loosely based off of.

In the novel, a highly decorated Marine is set up as the fall guy for an attempted assasination of the President. In the course of the novel, Mr. Hunter, who is a great friend to the first two amendments to the Constitutions, a fictional editorial from the Washington Post decryiing the supposed weapons used by the protagonist.

What rifle is that?

A pre'-64 Winchester Model 70 in .308, but decried by the fictional editorial as a high-powered sniper rifle.

That gives me pause sometimes when I think of how worked up the MSM gets over what Col. Cooper called a "poodle shooter" and I once or twice angrily referred to as my "mall ninja male enhancement tool", what would they say of just about every scope equipped deer rifle in this country?

That's to say nothing of big game rifles or some of the magnum caliber rifles out there.

 

[alan]

Try this for size re the original question:

1. Media Hype.

2. The ever present element of public ignorance, stoked by item 1.

3. The passing winds of political fancy.

4. The constant barrage of flat out lies from The Anti Gun Lobby.

The foregoing are a few things that come immediately to mind.

 

[wogpotter]

As yhoghurt says:
"Moichandising, moichandising" (spoken tongue-in-cheek)