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It may seem like a minor detail but there's a very substantial functional difference between "rifles" and "assault rifles": assault rifles can fire as fully-aut

It may seem like a minor detail but there's a very substantial functional difference between "rifles" and "assault rifles": assault rifles can fire as fully-automatic "machine guns". There is no such thing as "recreational assault rifle ownership". I posted in detail about this in another comment [1], but "assault rifles" are machine guns and are highly regulated in the United States. You can't buy or own one without a special federal permit from the ATF which has a high bar to get. You also can't buy any gun under normal circumstances without an FBI background check. What everybody is talking about when they say "assault rifle" are actually just "rifles", which function the same way as other hunting rifles and handguns, merely having a different form-factor. AR-15s (ArmaLite Rifles) for example are just normal rifles, not assault rifles. There are many variants, but plenty of AR-15s will fire the same 9mm ammunition that handguns fire. (Caliber has nothing to do with the classification; that's just an example.) I'm not even sure that individual people can legally possess machine guns in the US. From what I recall you essentially need to form a corporation and apply for it to become a firearms dealer, and get approved; and then the corporation may buy and possess them. The ATF probably tracks every legally sold and owned machine gun in the US. There is very limited "recreational" use of machine guns: you can go to Las Vegas and pay to fire a machine gun that's mounted to the ground, and whose firing angle is limited. That's about the extent to which any normal person (civilian) will ever legally interact with a machine gun or assault rifle in the USA. For those who want to use informed language to have a precise discussion, please use the term "rifle" if that's what you mean, and avoid using the FUD term "assault rifle" (unless that's what you mean), usage of which has been polluted by poor journalists and opinion-providers that use sloppy language (and an expired law that skissane points out below). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826847 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826847

skissane 6y ago
When people say "assault rifle" in the US context, they often mean rifles to which the former "Federal Assault Weapons Ban" applied [0]. That is a semiautomatic rifle having certain features–which is not what is called an "assault rifle" in military or policing contexts (the later are automatic weapons). You can disagree with calling semi-automatic rifles "assault rifles", but they are rifles that fall under the legal definition of "assault weapon" that existed in the US from 1994 to 2004 (and which some US politicians would like to reinstate), so calling them "assault rifles" does have a legitimate basis. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban
- jcrites 6y ago
  That is a good point that I had forgotten about, the law that briefly classified certain semi-automatic rifles as assault rifles. But that law is expired, as you note, and semi-automatic rifles are no longer legally or by militaries to be considered assault rifles. Selective fire is the supposed to be the distinguishing feature of that term and concept. That was an unfortunate way to name the law, messing up technical language. Should have just called it the "Excessively Dangerous Firearms" ban or something. I'm surprised the law withstood constitutional scrutiny. Any idea if any challenges of it went to SCOTUS?
  - skissane 6y ago
    Well, 10 years is not exactly "briefly". And Biden has announced he wants to bring the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB) back–although I doubt he'd get it through Congress–red state Democrats like Senator Manchin are unlikely to vote for it, and the Democrats only have a bare majority in the Senate. Still, maybe some future election will deliver a Democratic President with a bigger majority in the Senate and House, and then a FAWB comeback might actually happen. FAWB challenges never went to SCOTUS, as far as they got was Circuit Court of Appeals where they failed. Note the ban expired before DC v Heller, when SCOTUS switched from treating the 2nd Amendment as essentially a dead letter to treating it as a live provision; so it is not very clear how current jurisprudence would treat it. I think some conservatives on SCOTUS would want to overturn a renewed FAWB, but they'll struggle to come up with logic to allow them to do that without threatening the federal (near-)ban on automatic weapons, which is something they probably don't want to overturn. I think in the end they'd uphold Congress and the States banning particular categories of weapons, so long as the categories are not so broad as to constitute an effective ban on owning weapons for self-defence.
    - jcrites 6y ago
      True, 10 years isn't a short time in a human life, and probably reprogrammed a lot of people's thinking during that time. It depends what timescale you consider. It's arguably brief on the scale of the lifespan of the US Constitution. There is apparently debate about the etymology of the term. In English it may be fairly recent; others attribute the concept to the German military in World War 2. From the Wikipedia page on Assault Rifle: > Conservative writer Rich Lowry said that assault weapon is a "manufactured term". Joseph P. Tartaro of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote in 1994: "One of the key elements of the anti-gun strategy to gull the public into supporting bans on the so-called 'assault weapons' is to foster confusion. As stated previously, the public does not know the difference between a full automatic and a semi-automatic firearm." > Two scholars have written: "One problem inherent in the study of [assault weapons (AW)] is that the classifications of AW are based on cosmetic features of firearms... For instance, the Colt AR-15 series of semi-automatic rifles—the civilian version of the fully automatic M-16 rifle issued to U.S. soldiers—was subject to the 1994 AW restrictions, but the Ruger Mini-14 rifle was not banned. Yet, the Mini-14 is the same caliber, has a similar barrel length, the same semi-automatic action, and can use magazines that hold 30 rounds of ammunition. The only real meaningful difference between the two firearms is cosmetic: The AR-15 rifle looks more dangerous." (citations omitted) I'm fairly sure such a ban would not survive a challenge with the current SCOTUS, but I'm curious whether any cases made it to SCOTUS challenging the ban while it was active, with the court as it was then. (Any constitutional lawyers on the thread want to pop in?)

skissane 6y ago

When people say "assault rifle" in the US context, they often mean rifles to which the former "Federal Assault Weapons Ban" applied [0]. That is a semiautomatic rifle having certain features–which is not what is called an "assault rifle" in military or policing contexts (the later are automatic weapons). You can disagree with calling semi-automatic rifles "assault rifles", but they are rifles that fall under the legal definition of "assault weapon" that existed in the US from 1994 to 2004 (and which some US politicians would like to reinstate), so calling them "assault rifles" does have a legitimate basis. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

jcrites 6y ago
That is a good point that I had forgotten about, the law that briefly classified certain semi-automatic rifles as assault rifles. But that law is expired, as you note, and semi-automatic rifles are no longer legally or by militaries to be considered assault rifles. Selective fire is the supposed to be the distinguishing feature of that term and concept. That was an unfortunate way to name the law, messing up technical language. Should have just called it the "Excessively Dangerous Firearms" ban or something. I'm surprised the law withstood constitutional scrutiny. Any idea if any challenges of it went to SCOTUS?
- skissane 6y ago
  Well, 10 years is not exactly "briefly". And Biden has announced he wants to bring the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (FAWB) back–although I doubt he'd get it through Congress–red state Democrats like Senator Manchin are unlikely to vote for it, and the Democrats only have a bare majority in the Senate. Still, maybe some future election will deliver a Democratic President with a bigger majority in the Senate and House, and then a FAWB comeback might actually happen. FAWB challenges never went to SCOTUS, as far as they got was Circuit Court of Appeals where they failed. Note the ban expired before DC v Heller, when SCOTUS switched from treating the 2nd Amendment as essentially a dead letter to treating it as a live provision; so it is not very clear how current jurisprudence would treat it. I think some conservatives on SCOTUS would want to overturn a renewed FAWB, but they'll struggle to come up with logic to allow them to do that without threatening the federal (near-)ban on automatic weapons, which is something they probably don't want to overturn. I think in the end they'd uphold Congress and the States banning particular categories of weapons, so long as the categories are not so broad as to constitute an effective ban on owning weapons for self-defence.
  - jcrites 6y ago
    True, 10 years isn't a short time in a human life, and probably reprogrammed a lot of people's thinking during that time. It depends what timescale you consider. It's arguably brief on the scale of the lifespan of the US Constitution. There is apparently debate about the etymology of the term. In English it may be fairly recent; others attribute the concept to the German military in World War 2. From the Wikipedia page on Assault Rifle: > Conservative writer Rich Lowry said that assault weapon is a "manufactured term". Joseph P. Tartaro of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) wrote in 1994: "One of the key elements of the anti-gun strategy to gull the public into supporting bans on the so-called 'assault weapons' is to foster confusion. As stated previously, the public does not know the difference between a full automatic and a semi-automatic firearm." > Two scholars have written: "One problem inherent in the study of [assault weapons (AW)] is that the classifications of AW are based on cosmetic features of firearms... For instance, the Colt AR-15 series of semi-automatic rifles—the civilian version of the fully automatic M-16 rifle issued to U.S. soldiers—was subject to the 1994 AW restrictions, but the Ruger Mini-14 rifle was not banned. Yet, the Mini-14 is the same caliber, has a similar barrel length, the same semi-automatic action, and can use magazines that hold 30 rounds of ammunition. The only real meaningful difference between the two firearms is cosmetic: The AR-15 rifle looks more dangerous." (citations omitted) I'm fairly sure such a ban would not survive a challenge with the current SCOTUS, but I'm curious whether any cases made it to SCOTUS challenging the ban while it was active, with the court as it was then. (Any constitutional lawyers on the thread want to pop in?)