From what I'm reading on the Internet, if the trend continues, Dick's will be out of the gun sales business before long, even if they continue their FFL license, the list of products they will have to sell is getting shorter and shorter.
Mossberg just said no sale of their products to Dick's once current contracts run out (and we're looking at
those....)
Because they hired lobbyists to promote more gun control.
Dick's has been kicked out of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Things are a little cloudy with the smoke of burning bridges, but one thing seems clear, Dick's is doing what Dick's wants to do. Or at least what the people currently running Dick's want done.
Further, though people use the term all the time (mostly as a scare tactic) what actually is an "assault" rifle? -
What an "assault rifle" is, has become one of those things that are "it depends on who you talk to", despite there being an actual, historical definition that existed before the Internet. And there is a lot of mis-information on the Internet, as well.
And the matter is further complicated by the nuances of language, translation, deliberate confusion and mis-definition, over and above the unavoidable confusion when a technical subject is discussed by people who know little or nothing about the subject.
I'll try to keep this simple and general, you can look up the details on your own. First, some history of the actual "assault rifle"...(leaving out a lot of details, but including my snarky commentary!
)
Once Nazi Germany had overrun Europe, Hitler issued a directive suspending further research on new rifles. (we're winning! waste of resources!)
Some weapons engineers were working on a new concept rifle, and wanted to keep do so. They used bureaucratic subterfuge to do so. They renamed their rifle project "
Maschinen Pistole" (MP) which is the German term for what we call submachine guns. Research on new submachine guns was permitted.
Small numbers of the MP43, and then the MP 44, were sent to the Eastern Front for field testing. It was well received. A little later, at a conference
Hitler asked what the frontline officers he was meeting with wanted and needed, and they said "more of those new rifles!!!"
WHAT NEW RIFLES???!!!!!
When that was explained, Hitler was furious his order had been flouted!!!! (etc.) some quick thinking officers got some of the new "rifles" (MP44) and demonstrated them for Hiter, who became an instant convert.
"That's what I want! That's what I need! It will be the
Sturmgewehr!!"
Production was increased but despite battlefield effectiveness, it was too little, too late to change the outcome of the war.
Sturmgewehr is a German compound word,
Sturm (storm) and
Gewehr (rifle).
Stormrifle. Storm in the military context, as in "storming an objective" or "assaulting an objective". So
sturm is also translated into "assault" in English.
Hitler renamed the MP 44 into the
Sturmgewehr (Stg 44) and later the Stg 45
SO, that rifle is technically and correctly (as identified by the maker) the first "Assault Rifle".
In the years following, the defining features of the Stg44 became used to define the class of rifles identified as assault rifles. There are 3.
and all 3 need to be present to be an assault rifle.
Intemediate power cartridge. Defined using WWII rifle and pistol round standards. Intermediate cartridge meant less powerful than the standard infantry rifle round, but more powerful than the standard pistol round.
Detachable magazine fed.
Selective fire
(defined as the capability to fire either semi automatic or full automatic by changing control settings- move a lever, push a button, etc.)
Other features, such as straight line stock, pistol grip, etc., are common to many designs but are not the defining features that make something an assault rifle.
There are no "assault rifles" under US Federal Law. US Fed law does not use that term. The full auto capability of an assault rifle makes it a machine gun under US Federal law, and that's how they are referred to.
ASSAULT WEAPON is a term defined in the Federal 1994 law (which sunset in 2004). It does not cover machine guns, it only covers certain semiautomatic firearms, rifle, pistol and shotgun.
I believe the choice of "Assault Weapon" as a term can only have been deliberately done to enhance confusion.
People have a very strong tendency to reduce complex concepts down to simple sounding terms, but doing so often changes important meanings.
If its an "assault weapon" and its a rifle, then its an Assault Rifle, right???
no, not right. But explaining that to anyone other than the choir gets technical, and most just tune you out right away.
When incorrect use of terms goes on long enough, and widespread enough, it becomes "correct". Virtually every dictionary will tell you that they define words as "in common usage".
SO, what is an assault rifle?
There's the actual historical definition, the one used in firearms literature and histories.
There is the one in common use today that is "anything military looking, black and scary....etc."
And, there ever a few morons (with my apologies to actual morons...
)
that define assault rifle as any rifle you assault someone with....
Ok, to try and get this a little back on track...
Dick's NEVER had any real assault rifles to sell. Actual assault rifles are legally machine guns, and fall under all provisions of the 1934 NFA.
Dick's AR-15s MIGHT be assault weapons under specific STATE laws. The Federal law went away in 2004, the state laws did NOT, and have been added to, since.