By Du definition, I guess I have an assault rifle.

[Lee-Lee]

64. Here is one answer

“I can't imagine that there is a lot of skill or sport involved in shooting it”

I guess for someone with no experience with guns or idea how they work, this question would make sense.

But in reality it takes just as much skill to be accurate with a semi-auto rifle as it does a bolt action or any other rifle.

You may be basing that question on the notion that people are just pulling the trigger as fast as they can or not aiming or some other impressions you have gotten from TV or how people describe guns on here. I am guess so from the nature of your question.

In reality the basics of shooting a rifle are the same no matter if we are taking a .22 like that, an AR-15, a WWII M-1 Carbine of a level action Winchester made in 1899. It is a skill one refines. You have to maintain correct sight alignment with the front and rear sight. As you focus and learn to be more and more accurate this requires an ever increasing amount of skill. Your breathing will cause the end of the barrel to move causing sight alignment to shift, so you have to learn to both control your breathing and to time your shots between breaths. You don’t hold your breath because that leads to becoming less stable later as your body tries to compensate.

When I shot .22 on the rifle team in college I was at the peak of my ability for precision rifle shooting, and I was to the point where I could actually see the movement of the sights from my pulse.

Olympic shooters are that good x100.

Then you have to master trigger pull. To be accurate you need a slow, steady squeeze so that you don’t shift the aim as you pull. Pulling with the meaty part of your fingertip, if you pull with the end it can shift one way and if you pull with the joint the opposite and shift your aim.

We were shooting at targets where the outside ring was the size of a quarter and to get a bulls-eye and 10 points the target was the size of period on a typical typed paper. You couldn’t see that period, of course, but you know it was in the center of that circle.

So it’s a relaxing sport. It demands the amount of relaxation and control of your body that people often seek in yoga. But at the same time it is one with measurable ways to compete against others or yourself. There is always the drive to be a little more accurate or be able to make that shot a little further away. It’s a sport or hobby you can never totally master and there is always room for improvement.

A typical .22 like that is an inexpensive, easy way to enjoy it on whatever level or whatever way you want to. When you get outside the urban and suburban areas in the USA the vast majority of homes in rural areas will have some sort of semi-auto .22 rifle used for recreational purposes and for pest control or hunting. It’s more common than pickup trucks.

I do applaud you for asking those kinds of questions, being willing to learn. Most here won’t do that on this subject nor admit they don’t have any experience with it.

I have a rifle much like that but made by Ruger. When I go squirrel hunting with my dad (more to just be with him than I enjoy hunting, but it is fun) I carry it. I shoot it a lot, because it’s cheap to shoot, not that loud, and lets me keep in practice. When I teach firearms safety courses to people with no experience with guns it is usually the first rifle I start then out on.

The one I have also has a 10rd detachable magazine and can take larger magazines. And it’s been in production and sold since 1964 and it looks like over 6 million have been made. I will bet almost all are still around. That’s about as many made as Honda Civics have been sold in the last 20 years and the cars typically end up off the road in 12-15 years, so as a frame of reference just that one kind of gun is more common in lawful use in American homes than Honda civics are, and think about how many of those you see a day.