The Guns of the Brothers Tsarnaev

[alcibiades_mystery]

65. As I understand it, there are no fully automatic M4s

M4s as designed have semi-automatic and three round burst capabilities. M4a1's have semi and fully automatic capabilities.

The military did use M4s with three-round burst (i.e., not fully automatic) up until the last few years, when the Pentagon began transitioning to M4a1's for the fully automatic capabilities. In this sense, the question about whether the M4 was fully automatic because I used the term "military" was itself ignorant, as the M4 isn't fully automatic by design, and many military units used non-fully automatic M4's up until the phase in of the M4a1 began in 2010. Indeed, it may be that some military units still have non-fully automatic M4's, as the replacement was designed as a five year phase in beginning in 2010. The M4 can thus be like those used in the military (at least until the recent phase in ) without being fully automatic. At the same time, the claim that the "modern standard for military use" is fully automatic is strictly speaking correct, just with the M4a1, and not the M4.

As to your implied question, I decided to stop answering because this point was entirely irrelevant to the thread.