(MiniRant) I don't care which side of the Gun Debate you're on...

[seawasp]

... but will people stop saying "semi-automatic" in a context that shows that they think it means "shoots like a machine gun"???? and misusing the term "ASSAULT WEAPON". Real assault weapons are NOT semi-auto.

A semi-automatic weapon is not a machine gun. It is not "made to kill a lot of people quickly", as one spam I got today says.

Most pistols are semi-automatic. You pull the trigger, it shoots, and a mechanism in the gun brings the next cartridge up so you can PULL THE TRIGGER AGAIN, having spat out the now-expended first cartridge's remains (the "brass").

Revolvers do the same thing through a different mechanism, but unlike a semi-automatic pistol, they don't eject the cartridges themselves, so you have to open the revolver up and clean it out and reload after 6 shots pretty much by hand, while you can eject a magazine from your semi-auto and keep shooting -- one shot at a time.

FULL AUTO weapons are the ones that shoot lots of bullets much faster than you can pull a trigger (well, faster than MOST people can pull a trigger; some of the stunt shooters can manage an impressive rate of fire for a short time). Real assault weapons are full-auto (many can SWITCH to burst and/or semiauto, but what makes them good military weapons is that they are in fact capable of fully automatic fire.

Semi-automatic covers most handguns and a fair number of rifles and some shotguns.

Fully-automatic weapons have been illegal in most states for YEARS, and generally HAVEN'T been used in the killings people get up in arms over.

Comments

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

The term "assault weapon" is essentially meaningless in the US, muddied by the political climate. I would argue, myself, that a semi-automatic rifle could indeed qualify as an assault weapon if it were designed for close-quarters combat; as the AR-15 is a close relative to the military M-16, with the primary difference being a modification (apparently easily undone) to prevent fully-automatic fire, I'd feel comfortable labeling it as an assault weapon. Heck, I'd say the Ruger Mini-14 is effectively an assault weapon even though it was semi-auto and didn't look like one of Rambo's fashion accessories.

I would say one key defining element is the use of large-capacity magazines; there's zero hunting utlility in a 30-round banana-mag, it's there for spray-and-pray shooting whether the weapon's fully auto or not. I would argue that a large ammunition capacity would indeed indicate that a weapon was "made to kill a lot of people quickly."

Canada prohibits magazines of greater capacity than 5, IIRC, except for those designed for .22LR ammunition; those get a 10-round capacity ceiling. As a sports-shooter I never felt the lack. (Heck, most of my shooting was done with single-shot accurized sport rifles firing .22LR; then again, it was shooting for the Rifle team so it was more Olympic style stuff than casual plinking.)

-- Steve certainly agrees with you that there is a lot of sloppy (and magical) thinking about firearms going around in the press and social media.

[nuranar.livejournal.com]

Ugh, THIS.

[elainegrey.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Specifically, legally owned fully automatic weapons have been used in two murders since the US started regulating them; at least one was owned by a police officer. So by numbers, full-auto weapons are safer than cars, knives, baseball bats, belts, or beer. (It's also true that full-auto hobbyists are fairly rare, and the ones who jump through enough hoops to own their toys at all are pretty responsible.) The press seems willfully ignorant about terminology.

The magazine thing is pretty clearly a tactic to limit something about guns and take something away from gun owners; since removing the weapons themselves is legally tricky, it's more practical to attack the ammunition containers that have no particular protection.

[remus-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is that most normal people don't see a difference between fully automatic and semi-automatic, especially in the case of psychopathic killing sprees. Whether you take 2 or 3 seconds to empty your clip doesn't matter much if you're shooting at unarmed civilians.

Getting the terminology right is something that the media should strive toward, but it doesn't affect the gun debate one bit. Both firing styles are equally effective at mass murder.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the military rarely uses full-auto mode on their rifles. You burn through ammo too fast -- you use up a standard clip in something like three or four seconds of full-auto firing. Burst firing or semi-automatic firing is usually more effective.

Note that this says nothing about belt-fed machine guns, which are a whole different beast.

Of course, there's also this. It gives you pretty much the firing rate of a full-auto weapon, but it technically not full-auto, and is perfectly legal.

[kengr]

Yeah, and I've seen posts about the semi-auto weapons used in one of the shootings in the last few months that claimed a "rate of fire" of 700-900 rounds per minute.

No, dear, that's the *cyclic rate*. Which is how fast the action can cycle . (ie how long it takes from the point a round is fired to the point a where another round is chambered and ready to fire).

For fully automatic weapons the rate of fire *approaches* the cyclic rate. For semi auto, the rate of fire is more a matter of how fast you can pull the trigger. Which isn't anywhere *near* the cyclic rate.

Note, the same post also mentioned that there was a grenade launcher available for said rifle. Without mentioning that grenades and launchers are classified as "destructive devices" by the ATF and require all sort of checking and lots of money to get. Just like machine guns.

Which brings us to "assault weapons". That's a made up term to let anti-gun folks confuse the public. It sounds like "assault rifle".

Assault rifles are selective fire (usually, full auto, 3-round burst and single shot) military weapons that require going thru a lengthy process with the ATF and then paying a large transfer tax to get. And they have all sorts of restrictions on where you can have them, and how you can store or transport them.

"Assault weapons" are rifles that essentially "look military" or "look scary". The expired ban that they want to revive classified a gun as an "assault weapon if it had 2 of the following features:
bayonet mount
pistol grip
folding stock
(there's a fourth one I can't recall at the moment)

The bayonet mount is a joke. So is the "pistol grip". trying to shoot a rifle that has a pistol grip (which is always in addition to the part that goes against your shoulder) one handed means you'll be lucky to hit anything.

The folding stock makes the gun somewhat concealable. But even with a carbine, you are left with two or more *feet* of rifle to hide.

Hmmm. I think the fourth criteria may have been capable of taking magazines holding more than 10 rounds. So that might have *some* slight justification.

Oh yeah, the folding stocks and stocks with a pistol grip? They are available as after market add-ons. And under the "ban" you could quite legally *add* them to the rifle after purchase. Because the ban was a ban on *importing* the guns.

It resembles the "Saturday night special" laws that way. A measure to keep cheap guns out of the hands of the public by making them *sound* like a major danger.