What's Your Favorite Firearm Myth?
- Thread starter Bart B.
- Start date
If the parts had been IN an M16 (and there's no way to prove that, unless you maintain chain of custody from the time the parts were removed, there is no way to prove they were in an M16), then you have a point.
If they had been in Govt parts stock, (not physically in a rifle) they could well have been sold as surplus, or as scrap, and be legal to own, with a few exceptions.
Certain "M16 only" parts are regulated as machine gun parts in some places.
reynolds357
New member
The only Sarco parts kits I know of came from 1980s production. No early parts there.
These claim to be Vietnam era, who knows?
https://www.centerfiresystems.com/p...-223-m16a1-parts-kit-vietnam-era-grade-b.aspx
https://www.centerfiresystems.com/p...-223-m16a1-parts-kit-vietnam-era-grade-b.aspx
Double Naught Spy
New member
As can any caliber.
I actually shot out a Colt barrel such that it would no longer stabilize 5.56 ammo reliably. I was getting 1 foot groups at 50 yards, mostly keyholed shots.
I suspect this one started when someone was sloppy when they restated a manufacturer claim.
It is true that fluted barrels are stiffer than unfluted barrels that weigh the same. That is, take two barrels in the same caliber, length and weight and made of the same material. The fluted one will be stiffer.
But of course, it's a lot easier to just state that the barrel is fluted so that it's stiffer. Which is wrong. It's fluted so that it's lighter, but still maintains more stiffness than it would if it were merely turned down to a smaller diameter, though not as much as it would if it were simply left unfluted.
Correct. In spite of the longevity and ubiquity of the claim, no verifiable evidence has ever been presented that Mattel was ever involved in any way in making any firearm parts. Nor has anyone ever been able to locate or present any Mattel stamped firearm parts, or any verifiable photos of any such parts. It is possible some were stamped as a joke, but not even any of those have ever been found/presented for examination/confirmation.
reynolds357
New member
Yep. Maybe 1 in 1000 might just happen to be the same.
Kreyzhorse
New member
The assault weapon myth is the one that really gets me. It's widely spread, totally inaccurate and is a great example of how propaganda works.
Totally correct, except for the "totally inaccurate" part.
The term "assault weapon" is completely "accurate" in what it defines, but it is intentionally MISLEADING.
Coined in the early 90s by gun control advocates, and defined in law in the (now sunset) 1994 AWB. An "assault weapon" is a SEMI AUTOMATIC firearm, NOT a select fire or full auto only weapon. It was based entirely on the visual (cosmetic) appearance of the gun, originally defining "assault weapon" as a semi auto (rifle, pistol or shotgun) that had certain features.
It came about because accurately describing and referring to certain firearms was not "scary enough".
Adolph Hitler coined the name "Sturmgewehr" (Sturm = storm, gewehr = rifle) to describe a new class of rifle fielded by the Germans . Sturm means "storm" and used in a military context, it means "storming" or "Assaulting" an objective. SO Assault Rifle is a valid translation.
The defining features of the rifle so named became the standard definition of Assult Rifle from WWII on, used in military, and firearms terminology.
Magazine fed, SELECTIVE FIRE, and firing a cartridge of "intermediate" power (which meant more powerful than a pistol round but less powerful than the standard infantry rifle round of the WWII era).
There were some very high profile mass murders done in the later 80s and early 90s where a SEMI AUTO rifle was used. The rifles were semi auto (ONLY) variants of the AK-47.
The press reported that the killers used "assault rifles". The shooting community answered back with the truth, that they were NOT assault rifles, neither functionally nor legally. They were just semiauto rifles.
The press sort of corrected themselves, for a short time, by referring to the rifles as "semiautomatic assault rifles". This proved to be too cumbersome a phrase for a good "sound byte". Then someone came up with the term "assault WEAPON", and they created a definition for it, which I have described previously. Essentially, any semi auto that LOOKED like a military weapon got put in that class.
The term was deliberately crafted to exploit the general public's lack of understanding the difference between "assault rifles" (which can fire full auto) and regular semi auto guns which cannot.
As an example, the GI M16 is an assault rifle, the AR15 is NOT. However, the AR15 is an "assault weapon" because the definition of assault weapon was specifically crafted to include the semi auto AR15 and all semi autos like it.
In that regard (and ONLY in that regard) is the term "assault weapon" accurate.
Under US law, there is no such thing as an "Assault Rifle", the select fire assault rifles are legally machine guns. The Fed 94 AWB sunset in 2004, but various state laws essentially copying that Fed law, did NOT. And, since then, some of the state laws have been further expanded.
In 2019, EVERY SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLE in Washington state legally became a "semiautomatic assault rifle", due to the definition used in the new law. No longer did it require a combination of "evil" features, just being semi auto and a rifle was enough.
When they make up the names, words mean whatever they say they mean, and what we think they mean and the way we've been using them for generations no longer matters.
its not right, far from it, but its the way things have been working for far, far too long....
2wheelwander
New member
Glad I'm not the only one who saw one.
They're not!
They won't do that!!! What they will do is SEND armed men, paid professionals in some police or military uniform to do it. And there are people who will do it, IF they believe it is the law, and they are enforcing it.
It's been done in other countries around the globe. It's been done certain times and places in the US.
The MYTH is thinking "it can't happen here!" it has, and it can, again.