A Motion - re: The Term "Assault Rifle"

[coalman]

My AR is not a military long arm.

Of course, before I say that we must agree on the definition of the term "military long arm".

The way I see it my M1 Garand is (or at least used to be) a military long arm. My AR is not and never was.

Long Gun: "The term long gun is used to describe classes of firearm and cannon with longer barrels than other classes. In small arms, a long gun is designed to be fired braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun...".

Small Arms: "Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light machine guns (i.e. M60), and sometimes hand grenades. Shotguns, general-purpose machine guns, medium machine guns, and grenade launchers may be considered small arms or as support weapons, depending on the particular armed forces."

AR15: "The select-fire AR-15 entered the US military system as the M16 rifle. Colt then marketed the Colt AR-15 as a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle for civilian sales in 1963."

Again, how are we really having this converstation over such a basic definition? And, how can we ever have a more serious one if so? Heck, we can barely have this convesation within the pro-gun camp of this forum/thread.

Utility or Sporting Rifle is fine by me. However, it's semantics IMO. For the anti-gun camp it will mean the same thing.

 

[Warp]

Long Gun: "The term long gun is used to describe classes of firearm and cannon with longer barrels than other classes. In small arms, a long gun is designed to be fired braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun...".

Small Arms: "Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light machine guns (i.e. M60), and sometimes hand grenades. Shotguns, general-purpose machine guns, medium machine guns, and grenade launchers may be considered small arms or as support weapons, depending on the particular armed forces."

AR15: "The select-fire AR-15 entered the US military system as the M16 rifle. Colt then marketed the Colt AR-15 as a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle for civilian sales in 1963."

Again, how are we really having this converstation over such a basic definition? And, how can we ever have a more serious one if so? Heck, we can barely have this convesation within the pro-gun camp of this forum/thread.

Utility or Sporting Rifle is fine by me. However, it's semantics IMO. For the anti-gun camp it will mean the same thing.

I cannot help but notice that the word "assault" appears nowhere in this post.

I also cannot help but notice that the term "select fire" is used when describing what the US military used/uses.

 

[HoosierQ]

Oh no. I don't refer to my AR-15 as an assault rifle either. I'm not sure we have for the past, say, 10 years. All I am saying is that back in, what, 1980-something, these things started to get popular and we called them assault rifles to distinguish them (as if needed) from whatever semi-autos were previously available.

It is indeed semantics...pure semantics. Frankly if we here in America refered to them as Strumgewer you gotta wonder if anybody would have caught on.

Purely semantics indeed. I like utility rifle...plain, simple, covers all the basis and is in fact what we use them for...everything, everyday type tasks...having fun at the range one day, controling predators or feral hogs the next...and when dire straights arise, defense of home and self.

 

[happygeek]

Are you both really saying the AK- and AR-based platforms are not military long arms?

Yes, I'm saying that. I own an AR with a 22LR upper, I also own 4 real, honest to God, as issued, probably used in a real live shooting war, military long arms.

Do you consider the Remington 700 a military arm? How about the Winchester Model 70? According to the anti-gunners, such 'weapons of war' are 'sniper rifles' and should be treated as NFA items (http://www.vpc.org/graphics/snipcov2.pdf).

 

[Warp]

Yes, I'm saying that. I own an AR with a 22LR upper, I also own 4 real, honest to God, as issued, probably used in a real live shooting war, military long arms.

Do you consider the Remington 700 a military arm? How about the Winchester Model 70? According to the anti-gunners, such 'weapons of war' are 'sniper rifles' and should be treated as NFA items (http://www.vpc.org/graphics/snipcov2.pdf).

Come to think of it, so do I. Well, they may not have been used in a real live shooting war, but they are honest to God military long arms. And none are anything like an AR, nor would most people look at them and call them an assault rifle. Hell, two are bolt action, all have wood stocks, none have protruding pistol grips and none have removable magazines. But military long arms, they are. My AR...not so much.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Come to think of it, so do I. Well, they may not have been used in a real live shooting war, but they are honest to God military long arms. And none are anything like an AR, nor would most people look at them and call them an assault rifle. Hell, two are bolt action, all have wood stocks, none have protruding pistol grips and none have removable magazines. But military long arms, they are. My AR...not so much.

Heh.

I have exactly one real, issued, honest-to-Pete military rifle: the M1 Carbine. Nowadays the M1 Carbine is considered underpowered and pretty tame. Heck, in some places you can't even hunt deer with it. (A bit of trivia: it is my understanding that the M1 Carbine is the only for-real military rifle ever designed expressly for defensive deployment. It was meant to be used in defense of rear echelon positions. Pretty much the opposite of "assault." )

I have two that "resemble" military arms (they're black and angular and shoot the 5.56 NATO round), but they have plastic receivers, and I'm pretty sure the military would never deploy a rifle like that.

I have another one that "looks" military, but is entirely designed for home defense. It's a carbine, made of plastic, with a plastic receiver, and chambered in a pistol caliber.

And, finally, I have a rifle which, when it was designed in 1894 was pretty much cutting edge technology for its day -- every bit capable of military service -- but regarded today as a "hunting classic" design.

If you go by appearances, you can certainly be misled.

 

[Warp]

Heh.

I have exactly one real, issued, honest-to-Pete military rifle: the M1 Carbine. Nowadays the M1 Carbine is considered underpowered and pretty tame. Heck, in some places you can't even hunt deer with it. (A bit of trivia: it is my understanding that the M1 Carbine is the only for-real military rifle ever designed expressly for defensive deployment. It was meant to be used in defense of rear echelon positions. Pretty much the opposite of "assault." )

I have two that "resemble" military arms (they're black and angular and shoot the 5.56 NATO round), but they have plastic receivers, and I'm pretty sure the military would never deploy a rifle like that.

I have another one that "looks" military, but is entirely designed for home defense. It's a carbine, made of plastic, with a plastic receiver, and chambered in a pistol caliber.

And, finally, I have a rifle which, when it was designed in 1894 was pretty much cutting edge technology for its day -- every bit capable of military service -- but regarded today as a "hunting classic" design.

If you go by appearances, you can certainly be misled.

It seems that appearances are a main method of differentiation among the antis and in their legislation.

 

[Noah]

I use the term "Assault Rifle" in my own home, but I try to avoid it in public. Think about it: The last thing any of us are going to be doing is "assaulting" anything- these are defensive and sporting arms. We don't want the media associating "assault" with gun owners at all. We like to say "carbine", because it sounds rather innocent, but we know it means a 16ish" barrel full capacity semi auto defensive gun.

Homeland Security Rifle?
Defensive Carbine? My brother and I use this one a lot.

Me personally, I love "EBR/Evil Black Rifle", that will soon be said in my house, but maybe not in public...

 

[danez71]

Originally Posted by coalman
Long Gun: "The term long gun is used to describe classes of firearm and cannon with longer barrels than other classes. In small arms, a long gun is designed to be fired braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun...".

Small Arms: "Small arms is a term of art used by armed forces to denote infantry weapons an individual soldier may carry. The description is usually limited to revolvers, pistols, submachine guns, carbines, assault rifles, battle rifles, multiple barrel firearms, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, light machine guns (i.e. M60), and sometimes hand grenades. Shotguns, general-purpose machine guns, medium machine guns, and grenade launchers may be considered small arms or as support weapons, depending on the particular armed forces."

AR15: "The select-fire AR-15 entered the US military system as the M16 rifle. Colt then marketed the Colt AR-15 as a semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle for civilian sales in 1963."

Again, how are we really having this converstation over such a basic definition? And, how can we ever have a more serious one if so? Heck, we can barely have this convesation within the pro-gun camp of this forum/thread.

Utility or Sporting Rifle is fine by me. However, it's semantics IMO. For the anti-gun camp it will mean the same thing.

I cannot help but notice that the word "assault" appears nowhere in this post.

I also cannot help but notice that the term "select fire" is used when describing what the US military used/uses.

Take a look again. I made it red and bold for you.


However, it does say the M16 came 1st and then "marketed the AR 15 for civilian sales" which is totally wrong.

http://www.coltsmfg.com/Catalog/ColtRifles.aspx

They know that the story of today’s Colt commercial and sporting rifles began with the Stoner AR-15® design that Colt transformed into a military-grade rifle -- the Colt M16 automatic rifle.

 

[Warp]

Take a look again. I made it red and bold for you.


However, it does say the M16 came 1st and then "marketed the AR 15 for civilian sales" which is totally wrong.

http://www.coltsmfg.com/Catalog/ColtRifles.aspx

Okay.

I still do not see a definition for the term "military long arm" anywhere.

I see (wikipedia) definitions for small arms and for long guns. Where do they define the term "military long arm"?

I believe the claim made was that an AR15 is a "military long arm", but we have yet to even define that term.


*I had a Freudian slip, I guess, previously. The term "military long arm" is what I couldn't help but notice was completely missing from the Wikipedia pages that were linked.

 

[Axel Larson]

How about carbine for those running intermediate cartridges and battle rifles for those running, full power rifle rounds. I do not see how something being semi auto should necessarily play into what we call it. If we accepted all the media terms like high power assault rifle, we would have to make a select fire rifle in 7mm ultra mag with a 16 inch barrel and pistol grip that can accept 30 round magazines. It would be interesting but....

 

[JustinJ]

How about "the guns formerly known as assault rifles".

How about in the sake of preventing thread drift people stop making it an issue when the term is used. Arguments of semantics are silly, pointless and diversionary.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

After thinking it over, I'm thinking that we could use an intentionally media-friendly term . . .

fully-automatic high-capacity glock revolver high-powered assault sniper rifle​

. . . which I think pretty much covers all the bases.

 

[GEM]

fully-automatic high-capacity glock revolver high-powered assault sniper rifle

change it to

fully-automatic high-capacity Taurus/Rossi revolver high-powered assault sniper rifle

and you can find one at your sporting goods store.

Please don't confiscate my modern sporting rifle that looks like a military version because it's not full auto and I have to pull the trigger each time when I go crazy. Please, please, leave me alone with this nice gun.

Wrong tactic for the RKBA - but I said that before.

BTW, why do we keep arguing for the NFA to go away so we can get the dangerous, not nice, assault rifles? I don't understand - aren't they bad guns, unlike the modern sporting rifle?

 

[happygeek]

BTW, why do we keep arguing for the NFA to go away so we can get the dangerous, not nice, assault rifles? I don't understand - aren't they bad guns, unlike the modern sporting rifle?

I don't consider automatic small arms to be bad guns. IMHO there's a lot of misunderstanding out there when it comes to select fire rifles since most people have never even seen one, let alone used one.

I'd love to legally own a M4A1 lower for my 22LR upper without paying over $10,000 due to an artificially created scarcity.

I own a couple real, as issued military rifles and one or two scary black rifles, but honestly looking at FBI homicide stats I'd have to say the firearm that I own that'd be most likely to be used in a homicide is my M1895 Nagant revolver that I paid $120 for. I have yet to see the anti-gun groups make a case for banning "assault rifles" or "sniper rifles" based on actual homicide stats, and looking at the FBI numbers you can see why (http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/uc.../crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/tables/10shrtbl08.xls).

 

[blarby]

No.


You could always call it a Rifle, which it is.

I think just repeatedly calling them "Rifles" is the best route- but we'll never change the name the sheeple gave them.

 

[Sam1911]

I think that's GEM's point.

I said something to the same point in a recent thread:

Let me counter a big part of your argument here by restating the following:

The more frustrating thing is that the difference is so completely irrelevant. Many perfectly law-abiding citizens own real M-16 assault rifles and know that they are hardly more or less lethal than the neutered AR-15 semi-auto everyone else owns. And many competition shooters know that with a plain jane AR-15 and a bit of skill a shooter could, were he so sick and deranged, kill just as many (if not more!) people just as fast with rapid aimed fire than could someone burning through a mag with an M-16.

The tools DON'T matter, and aren't the problem. We've used the "they aren't really 'assault rifles' dodge for decades. It doesn't matter to the anits and probably hurts us more than it helps.

We divide and conquer ourselves when we play the "oh, that wasn't MY kind of gun" card.

 

[danoam]

I just call mine a rifle, that's what it is.

 

[barnbwt]

"Semi-Assault Rifle?" I mean, we call them semi-automatics already, they are equally semi-assault rifles by the same logic

"Utility Rifle" is equally valid, since "Utility Vehicle" describes an automobile which is capable of many things (but usually not used for anything but groceries.) Likewise, most semi-auto EBR's are used for punching/plinking, but also occaisional hunting.

TCB

 

[doc2rn]

I use EBR alot, but modern sporting rifle is gonna be used alot more!

 

[Millwright]

The term, "assault rifle", was coined by Josh Sugarman in order to demonize any/all self-loading long guns, (which, by his plan would be extend to shotguns as well.) Mr. Sugarman has long been a major player in the "anti-gun" movement as head of the VPC for one. He's admitted his term, "assault rifle" is a fabrication deliberately crafted to arouse the empathy and a non-logical response among the "gun ignorant".

I've long used the term "military-pattern rifles" because it encompasses a extensive list of arms used by our military with a long history of legal ownership that bypasses any/all artificial "criterium" of accessories the "antis"/government has used to define an "assault weapon" ! IOW this term has as much basis in "fact" as the BATF's "Sporting Use" criterium.

I see no logical reason for gun owners to support a bogus definition already demonized in the eye of the general public. >MW

 

[ArfinGreebly]

The term, "assault rifle", was coined by Josh Sugarman in order to demonize any/all self-loading long guns, (which, by his plan would be extend to shotguns as well.) Mr. Sugarman has long been a major player in the "anti-gun" movement as head of the VPC for one. He's admitted his term, "assault rifle" is a fabrication deliberately crafted to arouse the empathy and a non-logical response among the "gun ignorant".

Uh, no. The term he coined was "assault weapon," not rifle.

The term "assault rifle" has existed since WWII. It's a technical term, a specific term of art; it has an actual definition and function.

 

[SFsc616171]

I'm a Viet vet, but have no hankering to own any mil-design repeater rifles. The closest I had, was a Lee Enfield mkI bolt-action rifle. It was a sweet 200-yarder with open sights. I enjoy another of America's best rifle designs, the lever-action rifle. There's nothing 'assault rifle' about that. It works for me. It worked for many a person, in many of the Western States, and was part of a sheriff's armory, for many years after. I might not spit lead at Superman's speed, but I know where it's going, and what it can do, when it gets there!
Someone said, "I'd rather fire six a little slower, fer sure, than fifteen at warp speed, maybe!" I ditto that.
M16? BTDT. AK-47? BT, got it from the dead SOB, DT. Like them? Let them both lie in the historical battefields of the mind's memories, alongside the combatants that become faded with age, graciously. They were the designs of the times, for the needs of the times, neither dictated nor engineered by folks like me.
Again, the rifle that even TV enamored for many of a generation, the lever action, depicts home. Not some 'banana clipped' semi-automatic jihadist's night-time dream, and surely not toy-sprung, carbon plastic manufactured thing from Colt.
Not for me, anyway.

 

[Zoogster]

The term 'assault weapon' was designed to ban items.

The term 'assault rifle' already existed, describing intermediate rifles that had selective fire from WW2 onwards. That is rifles with less powerful rounds than was previously standard, but higher capacity and selective fire capability. That selective fire was a key aspect, because the whole point when the term was coined was to replace submachineguns that were always used in full auto but had limited range and power with rifles that fired calibers that could still be easily controlled in full auto because they were weaker than typical rifle rounds.
Today they are retained and used for totally different reasons.

Calling semi-auto rifles assault rifles is incorrect. It might not have been a big deal, except the entire reason the anti's like the term has nothing to do with how factual it is or is not, but because they like 'assault' in the name of something they want to ban.

The word "assault" gives an offensive impression. It is also the term for some crimes, and conjures images of violence. That is why they like it, that is why they insist on using it.
That is also why they were not happy with just 'assault rifle' because they wanted to ban a lot more than rifles.
They also wanted to ban pistols, shotguns, and other firearms. So they needed 'assault weapon'.

"Assault weapon" is also a lie, because many people think they know what it is. Yet it is a legislative term coined by antis that changes to include more firearms as time goes on.
In California a typical pistol with a threaded barrel is an 'assault weapon'.
Or any pistol weighing over a certain amount at the expired federal level, and states that have continued it.
At the federal level some AWB renewal legislation has included a sentence that describes anything ever adopted by any military or federal law enforcement agency or similar design, unless exempted by the Attorney General.
So to ban something they would have just had to adopt it or have adopted it at some point, and many federal LEO agencies have adopted most firearms at some point, and Eric Holder would be determining if it was legal for you to own.

The term "assault weapon" changes, it grows, it is not a term that has real boundaries and can adjust to include anything else once they ban more immediate concerns. But the population is convinced they know what it means, so they think of AR-15 and AKs when they hear the term.
While the term 'assault rifle' is not adopted out of any correctness or because it is only somewhat incorrect, but because they like 'assault' in the name of things they want to ban as it helps to demonize the object.

Who here needs to assault someone? That is why the antis want 'assault' in the name.

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Cutural Bias

There was a time, back in the sixties (and even later according to some old print ads I've found), when "assault rifle" was cool.

Weapons in general had not been demonized, and Army surplus stores would advertise semi-auto versions of the AR-15 and AR-10 as "assault rifles" simply for the draw factor of "military chic."

Back then, the military was respected, and the idea that the military had adopted something -- or had adopted something almost like it -- made it attractive. Kids wanted to be soldiers. Soldiers were admired. Young men who were old enough to buy their own shootin' irons could be swayed by casting a rifle (or pistol) as "the same" as what the military used.

Assault rifles were cool, even though you mostly couldn't own one (without special paperwork), and back-page advertisers would (inaccurately) characterize their "military-looking" semi-auto rifles as "assault" rifles.

And nobody cared.

Oh, there was some good-natured ribbing about the cheesy nature of that promotion, "Say there, soldier boy, what you got there, a real live assault rifle? Har, har." But beyond matters of good taste and suitability for whatever the task was, nobody cared.

GCA 1968 put a real crimp in that, simply because it closed the door on the availability of new real assault rifles. The cost of those went up, and that prompted even more cheesy advertising.

Fast forward a few years.

What had been largely accepted as hyperbolic advertising for years suddenly became terminology to be avoided, because -- IRONY ALERT! -- some loser shot the president and his press secretary with A SMALL CALIBER REVOLVER.

Legislation that had been sitting around waiting for a "magical moment" was rushed through, and suddenly it was illegal to buy/sell/own a whole range of things THAT HAD NOTHING TO WITH THAT SHOOTING. Nobody bothered to notice that the weapon that was actually used in that assault was specifically exempted from the ban. Yes, revolvers were exempted.

And, magically, "assault weapons" became evil.

Suddenly the cheesy advertising was no longer viable.

The attraction of weaponry used by the heroes so long admired by our culture was severely blunted ('cuz anything military is scary, and anything scary is evil).


We had allowed the friends of tyranny to frame the debate, define the language of the argument, and demonize military artifacts -- and by inference, the militia concept -- all in the name of DO SOMETHING!


It has taken us years to regain that ground.

And we're not done.