woof said:
But let me tell a story, two stories:
You're talking about _people_, not guns. And it's stupid to judge people by their guns. Period.
I mean, we can all tell anecdotes about scary individuals with guns. I've been in the woods (with my "A-team fantasy" folding stock Mini-14) and come across some unpleasant "gentlemen" armed with lever action .30-30s. I mean, does the phrase "squeal like a pig" mean anything to you? Scary hunters come in all sorts.
I own two firearms you'd seem to approve of "in the woods", and both are military -- an '03A3 (and, no by G-d, I would never "sporterize" it -- want an ugly opinion? to me sporterize is a code word for "it's icky to carry a heavy rifle") and an Israeli K98. These aren't only "military inspired" like a lot of guys bolt actions, these are honest to G-d, been in a war, maybe killed folks, military issue guns.
What I don't understand is your insistence that "real" assault rifles are full-auto, while folks have given you a number of examples of "self loading" military rifles that are semi only. (All front-line rifles are "assault" rifles in the military role.) M1 carbine, M1 Garand, SKS, SVT-40, heck, the IDF issued semi auto only FALs, because the FAL is just barely more controllable than an M-14 in FA. Add on top of that the fact that
most 'professional' military operations today insist that the rifleman use semi fire only seems to destroy this premise of "they only want M-16s but can't have 'em so they build toy replicas". It is my understanding that currently the IDF mandates all rifle engagements be in semi, and I believe some US units have similar viewpoints. Full auto is for machine guns (which are not rifles by definition, if you think the "assault rifle" fills the role of even a light machine gun you have a gross misunderstanding of infantry engagements) and subguns. You are free to your opinion about who owns what guns, but your premise of "
real assault rifles
have to be full auto" is blatantly wrong.
Now for your opinion as to who owns what -- how do you explain folks like me that have owned both semi and full auto variants
of the same type of firearm at the same time?