Assault rifle?

C

Cowman

New member
I'm confused. I thought an assault rifle was a full-automatic gun designed for clearing trenches and such in combat.

But I hear people refering to semi-auto rifles such as the SKS for one as an assault rifle. I've even heard the M1 Garand called an assault rifle.

Some of the assault weapons bans like the one they keep trying to pass in my state talk about things like bayonet mounts, bipods, and folding stocks.

So what exactly IS an assault rifle?
 
Most of the folks calling a firearm that is not an assault weapon, anassault weapon, usually have as much knoledge of firearms as Boulder Dam does.
 
An "Assault Rifle" is a select fire (ie machinegun) rifle that fires an intermediate sized cartridge (ie larger than a pistol bullet and smaller than a rifle bullet). An M16 meets this definition. An AR-15 does not.

ALL of the "assault weapon" bans you hear about ban weapons based on cosmetic features. They claim that a bayonet lug, flash suppressor and/or pistol grip make the gun "more dangerous" than a rifle firing the same caliber without those features. They try to get people to think these are machineguns, but they are just generic semi-automatic rifles.

Under the recently deceased 1994 Federal Assualt Weapon Ban, this rifle is considered an assault weapon:
bcwa3f16.jpg


And this weapon is NOT considered an assault weapon:
pcwa2x16sl.jpg


The difference? The top weapon has a flash suppressor, bayonet lug and the stock collapses. Otherwise they are identical. One is banned, one isn't.
 
The first assault weapon was made in WWII by Germany. It was named "Strumgewer" (hope I got the spelling right) which translates to "assault rifle." It was a rifle that was capable of semi auto and full auto fire.

That is the defining feature of a true assault rifle: The capability of semi auto AND full auto fire.

Today, the news media and other antigun bigots call any rifle that feeds from a detachable "high capacity" magazine an "assault weapon." That is false. But then, antigun bigots do not worry about such trivial matters as the truth. They are also trying to paint Glock autopistols as "assault weapons."

Any rifle capable of semiauto and full auto fire is heavily regulated and administrated by the BATFE under terms of the NFA '34 law.

A person cannot walk in to a gun shop, buy a select fire rifle and walk out like they can with a semiauto only AR15, Bushmaster or M1A.

See my thread, "Honor, racism, service rifles and 'assault weapons.'"
 
Assault weapons are any weapons that are deemed either essential for military issue and extremely fun for civilians who can afford them :cool:
 
But I hear people refering to semi-auto rifles such as the SKS for one as an assault rifle. I've even heard the M1 Garand called an assault rifle.
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For the most part, you can thank the ignorant media. To a slightly smaller degree, politicians.

I had seen one news cast talking head (Tim Taylor at WEWS, IIRC, a long time ago) calling (while narrating a news conference video of a display from a recent bust) a scoped Steyr SSG69 bolt action (with 5 round mag as nothing was sticking down below the stock) an, "Austrian assault rifle".
 
Noun

assault rifle

1. Any of a group of military rifles that fires a shortened rifle caliber round from a high capacity magazine with the ability to fire in bursts or fully automatic.
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Or any gun that the goverment dosent like.
 
i agree an assault rifle is as said above but the term "assault rifle" or "assault weapon" was made up because you can assault ppl. with any firearm. assault is an action and a weapon is what is used in an assault

ok lets break it down

assault: A violent physical or verbal attack.

A military attack, such as one launched against a fortified area or place.
The concluding stage of an attack in which close combat occurs with the enemy.
Law.
An unlawful threat or attempt to do bodily injury to another.
The act or an instance of unlawfully threatening or attempting to injure another.

weapon: An instrument of attack or defense in combat, as a gun, missile, or sword.
Zoology. A part or organ, such as a claw or stinger, used by an animal in attack or defense.
A means used to defend against or defeat another

so tecnicaly if i used a baseball bat as a weapon to assult some one with it is then an "assault weapon"
 
Well there's a real problem with this.

When a law gets proposed how many people actually bother to sit down and read the bill to see what it's banning. With this ambiguity of the definition of an assault rifle a politician or "anti-gunner" can use the term to mean whatever he wants to. The attempted Illinois ban for example was targeting semi-automatics.

Joe Public doesn't know. They hear assault rilfe and they're thinking machine gun. They don't know that full-automatics are already banned. They arn't going to take the time to research it all, Joe public has a job and a family taking up his time. He's gonna support this bill thinking he's just banning machine guns and we'll be surrendering anything that holds more than 5 rounds!
 
Assault Weapon

As other posters have said, the correct definition of assault weapon is selective fire, intermediate cartridge rifle. Fielded by the Germans near the end of WW II. The Sturmgewehr.

Now the problem today is that back in the early 90s, there were some highly publicised shootings with Ak-47 type rifles. The guns were semi-automatic, just like anyother legal semiauto, but they looked just like the "assault rifle" AK-47, which is selective fire (semi and full auto at the flip of a switch)

So the move was on to ban what the anti-gunners and the media started calling "semi-automatic assault rifles". Meaning those rifles that looked like their military counterparts, but were semiauto.

Since "semi-automatic assault rifle" doesn't fit well in a soundbyte, it got shortened to "assault rifle". The resultant intentional misleading was gravy for the anti-gunners. The whole Assault Weapons Ban law of 94 did not ban a single assault weapon. Real assault rifles have been under Federal regulation since 1934, because they are legally machineguns.

All the AWB did was ban certain semi auto rifles that looked like military rifles (but couldn't shoot like them), and magazines holding more than 10 rounds made after 1994.

because of over a DECADE of intentional misrepresentation of the term "assault weapon", some ignorant people are calling every semiauto rifle an assault weapon. They don't know the difference, and they don't care.
 
cowman:

The TECHNICALLY CORRECT definition for assault weapon is as follows. Assault Weapon: Selective fire weapon, usually of rifle configuration, chambered for an intermediate power cartridge. This definition appears in reference texts that deal with small arms.

There are/were others, dreamed up by media and political types, who usually don't know much about what they address, the semi-automatic assault rifle or weapon being an example. The defining characteristic is SELECTIVE FIRE CAPABILITY.

By the way, machine guns/fully automatic firearms are not BANNED except in some states, I believe Illinois to be one such. They are however heavily regulated under federal law, see National Firearms Act of 1934.
 
Assualt rifle

These folks covered it pretty well
Only thing I would add is
Its a political rifle or something.
Here is a link I have kept on this
http://www.gunowners.org/fs9403.htm
There may be something in the library here on this.
Definatly political.
I truly understand why They want the firearms.
 
Online dictionary

I looked at the links you provided Cowman, and it was worse than I expected. I guess I should have expected it, as general dictionaries define words as popularly used, and online dictionaries would have only the most current popular definations.

Only one source had the correct definition. Many specifically listed semiautomatic military rifles, and that is completely incorrect.

When dealing with technical terms, industry terms, or other language specific to a particular discipline, the most correct definition is that used by the practitioners of the discipline.
 
When dealing with technical terms, industry terms, or other language specific to a particular discipline, the most correct definition is that used by the practitioners of the discipline.
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Which is exactly why the news media and politicians call a doctor when they have a medical question, a lawyer when they have a legal question, a historian when dealing with the past, a meteorologist when discussing hurricanes, a zoologist when the alligators eat too many tourists and Sarah Brady with anything to do with guns.
 
Hey Cowman, in our state, an assualt weapon is one that Mayor Daly or Gov. Blowguyavich thinks is scary looking. If you think I'm kidding listen to the next joint press conference between these two brainchildren. I've heard these two use phrases like "fashioned to intimidate" and "used to instill fear".
Hey yeah, if it's loaded and pointing at me, I'm in fear!!!!!
unless the sheep in Illinois wake up and stop these two we'll eventually have an assualt weapons ban.
 
From Wikpedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle

The assault rifle is a term describing a type of automatic rifle generally defined as a selective fire rifle or carbine, chambering intermediate-powered ammunition. They are categorized between the larger and heavier light machine gun, which is intended more for sustained automatic fire in a support role, and the smaller submachine gun, which fires a handgun cartridge rather than a rifle cartridge. Assault rifles are the standard small arms in most modern armies, having largely replaced or supplemented larger, more powerful rifles ('battle rifles') such as the WWII-era M1 Garand and Tokarev SVT. Examples of assault rifles include the AR-15 and its military incarnation, the M16 rifle, the ubiquitous AK-47 genus, and the bullpup FAMAS. More exotic examples include the exquisite LR 300 By Z-M Weapons and the HK G36, which makes extensive use of modern polymers and space-age engineering.

The name is a translation of the German word Sturmgewehr coined by Adolf Hitler to describe the Sturmgewehr 44, the firearm generally considered the first true assault rifle and effective progenitor of the concept. It gradually became the common (if not technically accurate) term for the sub-family of similar firearms, and also has been used retroactively with earlier weapons possessing such traits. While it is not a completely accepted or technically correct label, it is widely used to differentiate current small-caliber weapons such as the AR-15 and AK-74 from earlier semi-automatic or select-fire rifles that fired larger cartridges, such as the M1 Garand, M14, HK G3, CETME, and FN FAL, which are sometimes referred to as 'battle rifles'. Technically, all are 'rifles' of different caliber, with some being semi-automatic or having select-fire capability, thus being either 'semi-automatic rifles' or 'automatic rifles'. Since the smaller-caliber weapons tend to be distinct in construction and modern use from their counterparts, the term 'assault rifle' has proven useful and popular for referring to them specifically.

...some history of the various assault rifles followed by the US use.

"Assault weapons" vs. Automatic weapons

Primarily in the United States, the term assault weapon is an arbitrary (and politicized) phrase generally used to describe a variety of semi-automatic firearms that have certain, mostly cosmetic features associated with military/police use. The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban in specific, which was largely responsible for forming the American public perception of what assault rifles were, dictated that such features as a folding stock, flash suppressor, bayonet lug, pistol grip, night sights, muzzle grenade launcher, or the ability to accept a detachable magazine of a capacity larger than ten rounds constituted a firearm being an assault weapon. While that law, the sometimes-called "Clinton gun ban" or "1994 crime bill" expired in 2004, some states such as California and New York adopted similar bans, and frequent unclear representation, misrepresentation, or misunderstanding of what exactly was banned and what an 'assault rifle' is have continued to influence the American public perception of assault weapons. A common misconception persists that the assault weapons ban restricted weapons capable of fully-automatic fire, such as assault rifles and machine guns. Fully-automatic weapons were unaffected by the ban; they have been heavily regulated since the National Firearms Act of 1934. Subsequent laws such as the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 also affect the importation and civilian ownership of fully-automatic firearms.

The term 'assault weapon' is frequently used erroneously to describe machine guns. Many states and localities still use the term assault weapon with a handful of variations following the California model loosely. The term "spray" of bullets is a good example of that mischaracterization. Semi-automatic, so called "assualt weapons" fire no faster than their semi-automatic shotgun and deer rifle cousins. See separate article on assault weapons for further information.
 
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