Tell me what is an Assault Weapon and what it would be used for?

[bleedingheart]

Okay...I will plead my ignorance on this topic. My dad owned hunting rifles and one pistol which were all distributed to others after he died.

I know what those weapons were used for but...what constitutes an assault weapon and what is it's purpose?

Please put it in laymen's terms as I am not that well versed in weapon-lingo...

Thanks...

Bleedingheart

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

1. Here's a few - you figure it out

18 year olds can buy them once the ban expires - THINK ABOUT THAT!

[Pert_UK]

3. I'm not an exPert on this topic, but so bloody what?

As countless people on here are about to point out, US citizens of legal age are able to purchase countless weapons which are equally or more deadly than the tiny number prescribed as "assault weapons".

Moreover, I bet at least one person will point out that the guns you've pictured aren't "assault weapons" in legal terms anyway...

I applaud the intentions of the AWB, but believe that it was put together so badly that it's effectively impotent. It outlawed a few very specific things, whilst allowing any Tom, Dick or (Dirty) Harry to continue purchasing absurdly powerful and destructive weaponry.

[skippythwndrdog]

19. Disengenuous, don't you think?

AW's are either full auto or select fire. The AWB did not address them in any way. The AWB addressed only semi-automatics and cosmetic features.

It's impossible (for me) to tell from your photo if those are, in fact AW's or semi-auto look alikes.

[FeebMaster]

22. That bottom one sure looks like a short barreled rifle

which would of course be regulated as heavily as a machine gun under the national firearms act.

[jtb33]

25. WRONG!

Sorry, but those are "Airsoft" guns which are toy BB guns that shoot little plastic round pellets! ROFLMAO!!

[Trashman]

29. 18 year olds

can buy them now. So what will change?

[billbuckhead]

2. It was developed by the Wermacht for covering fire

Assault rifles are a weapon of war.

[slackmaster]

8. billbuckhead is misinformed

Generally speaking, the firearms presently classified as "assault weapons" are semiautomatic versions of military automatic weapons. The originals are legally classified as "machineguns", which is defined in the United States Code as any firearm that discharges more than one round when the trigger is pulled.

The semiautomatic variants like the modern AR-15 were designed specifically for the civilian market. They appeal to people who like some of the features of the military firearms, e.g. ruggedness, reliability, ease of maintenance, and availability of inexpensive surplus ammunition; but who don't have the money to buy a highly regulated and scarce transferrable military weapon.

Here is the section of the United States Code that defines what the term "assault weapon" actually means. Please note that the definition of "machinegun" is covered by a separate statute. Expiration of the assault weapons ban will not make machineguns more readily available, despite what a lot of the propaganda is saying.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/921.html

BTW - No military force anywhere in the world issues semiautomatic assault weapons to its troops. Assault weapons are owned by target shooters, collectors, and hobbyists.

[Mr.Green93]

4. a tool

that can be used to "water the tree of liberty"

[UpsideDownFlag]

20. "water the tree of liberty?" wtf?

water it with a spray of lead?

[Mr.Green93]

21. Thomas Jefferson

said that ‘the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’

[UpsideDownFlag]

24. i'm not itching to water it with anyone's blood.

how about yourself?

[goju]

5. Here ya go

An "assault weapon" is a fabricated term put out by anti gun advocates. Its meant to bring to mind "assualt rifles" which are indeed weapons of war, fully automatic or select fire. That means, an assault rifle can fire on full automatic or semi automatic. What they call assault weapons are only semi automatic.

Full auto, continues to fire rounds as long as the trigger is depressed.

Semi auto, only fires one shot per trigger pull.

Assault weapons are not any more powerful than regular hunting rifles, in fact they are usually a smaller caliber, .223 where most hunting rifles for deer are .270 to 30.06, with exceptions of course.

The ban on assault weapons was worthless. It banned the new manufacture or import of 19 types of semi auto rifles and pistols plus proscribed certain cosmetic "scary" looking features like a folding stock or pistol grip. The AWB was ineffective.


Edit, the purpose of an "assault weapon" is the same for any other weapon. It can be used for hunting, but more powerful weapons are usually needed to take down deer, elk etc. It obviously can be used for defense. Quite a few store owners were pictured with them during the LA riots holding back looters. It could be used for home defense if needed but there are better weapons available. Mostly they are used for target shooting. They are a hell of alot of fun and you can buy surplus ammo much cheaper than most other calibers.

[Ready4Change]

6. Laymans terms

I'll try, which may be good because my knowledge of EXACTLY what has been banned isn't exact. :)

WHAT IT IS:

A firearm meant to hold a clip with a large number of rounds, with a pistol style grip as well as a shoulder stock, a barrel less than a specific length (20 inches?) and a flash suppressor, capable of being fired semi-automatically (one round per pull of the trigger with no additional action required.) The result is a relatively short firearm that can still put out a lot of bullets.

(ON EDIT: the picture posted above is excellent.)

WHAT IT IS NOT:

These are not machine guns, which fire on full automatic, ie: as long as the trigger is held down the firearm will keep firing until it runs out of ammo. Full automatic firearms are covered under other regulations.

WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR:

Their ammo tends to make them poorly suited for what most people think of as home defense. I think they are mostly for people who enjoy shooting firearms that are similar to military gear at shooting ranges.

MY COMMENT ON THE BAN:

There are a large number of firearms that get around the current ban by being JUST outside of it's specific definition. So in the end the ban has really had very little effect regarding public safety.

What the ban HAS done is give some anti-gun people a false sense of security, at the same time it gives pro-gun people coniptions about their rights being abridged.

[Columbia]

7. The worst thing of all

Is that it costs Democrats votes while doing no public good whatsoever.

[mosin]

9. I'll not nit-pick...

the other details, but barrel length is irrelevant to whether something is a so-called "assault weapon."

[Romulus]

10. good, but "close"

an "assault weapon" was any semi-automatic firearm (rifle, shotgun, handgun) that:

accepted a detachable ammo magazine and
has two or more of the following features:
- pistol grip that sticks out from the firearm
- a bayonet attachment point
- a folding or collapsing shoulder stock
- a "flash suppressor" at the end of the muzzle where the bullet comes out
- a "barrel shroud" that covered the barrel and acts as a handhold
- any other pistol-type handgrip in addition to the primary handgrip

"Assault weapon" included semi-auto shotguns with at least one of the above parts, but without a detachable magazine, and that held more than 5(?) shotgun shells.


In the meantime, the pre-existing BATFE regs state that any firearm other than a handgun had to meet minimum length standards for the barrel and for the overall length. For rifles, this is 16" for the barrels and 28" overall. For shotguns, this is 18" for the barrel and something like 36" overall. These standards are not affected by the expiration of the AWB. And they must be met, even with a folded up stock.

As an aside, the three firearms in post# 1 look like they will still be banned: The first two appear to be full-auto, and the third fails the minimum length test.

If I am wrong, and the first two are NOT full auto, then they seem to be legal even with the ban because they don't appear to have flash suppressors or bayonet lugs.

[Ready4Change]

11. Thanks for the corrections

I thought they needed all those things to be banned, not just 2 or more.

[Romulus]

13. sure thing

I edited that post's title; didn't sound friendly enough :hi:

[bleedingheart]

16. this was what I was looking for...(I came up with a rudimentary analogy)

as I stated below...however without trying to "dumb" down the differences what I am getting from all of this is ...

I liken this to the differences in my kids water guns....

My son has this new shield blaster...(reminds me of the old mobster tommy guns)...as long as you are rotating the handle...the water comes out continuously until you run out of water....(this would be the equivalent of an automatic weapon..)

The water pistols...well you have to pull the trigger constantly to get the water to come out..I guess it would be semi-automatic since other than pulling the trigger you don't have much else to do

...versus the intermediate pump action water guns which you have to pump in order to get the stream to come out...kind of like a shot gun..(I think..) but they are around as powerful as the shield blaster in that they have a nice stream of water to soak the target...but there is a bit more work to it...


Okay...I know I probably have it all wrong but this is the analogy I came up with to help me understand the "crucial" differences...

[Ready4Change]

17. If I may utilize your analogy...

Your analogy is more applied to the differences between semi-auto and full-auto weapons.

Old style water pistols would like revolvers or automatic pistols. One trigger pull = 1 water squirt.

Put the exact same squirt mechanism into a gun shaped like a rifle and it's called a SEMI-automatic rifle. (The terms change between rifles and pistols.) Again, 1 trigger pull = 1 water squirt.

Full automatic rifles are like water guns that need to be pumped repeatedly to develop pressure to fire. Once prepped it will shoot a stream of water squirts as long as the trigger is held down and pressure and water holds up.

The banned assault weapons are like one of the above pressure powered guns, only with the trigger modified so that it can only release one water squirt per trigger pull. (Semi-automatic fire only.)

Your kids sheild blasters sound more like an old gatling gun, which was one of the first effective machine guns. As long as you manually crank a handle, it fires water squirts.

[bleedingheart]

18. as dumb as it sounds your clarification helps me to understand

this all much better.

[happyslug]

12. Defines terms and some history

An Assault Rifle is a rifle firing an "Immediate" power cartridge (about the power of a 30-30 or less). The two most common Assault rifle rounds are the AK-47's 7.62 x 39mm Round and the M-16s 5.56x45mm Round.

The chief reason the military went to these rounds from their previous more powerful rounds (for example 7.62x51mm NATO Round, 30'06 7.62x63mm Round, 7.62x54R Round, 7.92 Mauser Rounds) was to increase fire power. The AK-47 and the M-16 do not have the range or power of the bolt action rifles they replace but can fire more bullets (Thus increase firepower). Please note while both the M-16 and AK-47 can fire in the Automatic Mode, their are much more effective in the Semi-automatic Mode. The real reason for their adoption was for the increase fire power in the Semi-automatic mode NOT the fire rate in Automatic mode. The reason for this is any automatic will shoot each additional bullet up and to the right (if you are right handed) thus after about two shots the fire provided by an automatic weapon is ineffective. In the Semi-automatic fire mode each bullet will be fired in the direction the weapon is aimed. Thus any automatic weapon is more effective in the Semi-automatic mode than in the Automatic mode (Except in real close quarters where the up and to the right phenomenon is a minor concern).

Now under Federal law since 1934 any weapon capable of Automatic fire has to be registered with the Federal Government. This includes all Assault Rifles. Since 1986 it has been illegal to own an Automatic Weapon (Through any Automatic Weapon registered prior to 1986 was grandfathered into the law as a legal weapon, thus it is legal to own an automatic weapon provided it was registered before 1986).

Now to get around the restriction of the 1934 ban, various makers of weapons made semi-automatic only versions of otherwise automatic weapons. In addition various gun makers made semi-automatic rifles and shotguns, often using the same basic operating system as used in Automatic weapons. An additional problems was most makers of "Pump-Action" rifles and shotguns use the same mechanism of automatics except the "gas" or "Recoil" based automatic system is replaced by a under barrel pump that provides the power to operate the mechanism.

In 1994 Congress decided that to many of the semi-automatic only versions of Assault rifles were being purchased in the US (You could get a Chinese SKS for $120 at the time, a semi-automatic AK for about $200). Congress than decided to abolish such "Assault Weapons" (A term invented at that time to distinguish these semi-automatic versions of true Assault Rifles from such True Assault Rifles).

Thus an "Assault Weapon" is a semi-automatic only .version of a "Assault Rifle".

Now Congress wanted to ban "Assault Weapons" but did not want to ban pump action rifles or Semi-automatic rifles that have been used for hunting since about 1900. Now many states, including Pennsylvania, bans the use of such semi-automatics for hunting. This is the result of the ineffectiveness of the early semi-automatics more than any fear on the increased fire power of such semi-automatics. There were Semi-automatics Rifles in the market as early as the 1890s but truly effective semi-automatics were not in the market till the 1950s when, like many other improvements in firearms, the Military developed reliable and effective semi-automatics.

Thus while Congress wanted to ban "Assault Weapons" it did not want to ban "Hunting Semi-automatic Rifles". The problem was the basic mechanism was the same in both types of weapons and even the Civilian market has been following the Military trend to full-detachable magazines in rifles (as opposed to the fixed or semi-detachable magazines of the Bolt action Rifles and early semi-automatics like the M1 rife and the SKS).

Thus when Congress passed the Assault Weapon ban in 1994 it could not ban such weapons on their mode of operation (Automatics were already illegal) nor by banning detachable magazines (Even bolt action rifles were starting to have them for as a perceived safety feature in that the magazine and its ammo could be quickly removed from the weapon). The operating system could not be banned for most semi-automatics used some sort of variation of the operating system used in Assault Rifles).

Thus the "Test" developed by Congress in 1994. Does it have a Bayonet lug?. Does it have "Night Sites". Does it have a detachable magazine? Does it have a pistol grip? Does it have a Folding stock? Worse, the Chinese SKS (One of the Weapon Congress wanted to ban) was made with a non-removable magazines, no pistol grip, and no night sights (and it did not have a bayonet lug for it came equipped with a build in bayonet).

Thus the "assault Weapon" Ban was expanded to include the SKS if it had a bayonet (but the bayonet was easy to remove and cheap to purchased after market), or had been converted to use a drop in folding stock (An American company was making such a stock for the SKS in the early 1990s as a "drop in" after market product, something you just removed the old stock and put the SKS into the new stock took about 2 minutes to do) or had a detachable Magazines attached to the Rifles (The SKS had what is called Semi-fixed magazines, you could removed it with some difficulty, but this feature permitted another after market maker to design a removable magazine for the SKS, to use the magazines you had to remove the old non-detachable magazine, but once you did that the new detachable magazine would fit right in, not as nice a fit as in a M16 but workable).

Have I confused you yet? If I have you are not alone. By the time Congress had a bill in front of them it had been so massaged by everyone that it had become almost useless. The Folding Drop-in stock for the SKS was banned (But would be made and sold for another 5-6 years as a "light weight" stock when the maker just removed the spring operating the folding mechanism and put a pin in it to hold the stock rigid, a stock convertible to a folding form with the use of a commercial spring and a pair of pliers). The SKS was no longer sold with its Bayonet (But the Bayonet could be purchased separately). The AK-47 clones where modified to fire a magazine different from the magazines used in any other AK-47 made in the world, and the removal of the bayonet lug (and still being sold today in this configuration). The AR-15 (The Semi-automatic version of the M16) was sold with no bayonet lug, a ten round magazine and a letter that it was illegal to put a 20 or 30 round magazine in such a weapon if it was made after the passage of the Assault weapon ban).

As a whole the Assault weapon ban was a complete bust (Except for its restriction of all magazines to less than ten rounds which seems to be effective).

I regret having to go into the whole history of the above but you can not really understand what an "Assault Weapon" is without understanding how the term came about and what Congress wanted it to mean and not mean.

[mosin]

14. There is just so much wrong in that story.

I'll just pick a few.

1. Night sights are not a relevant feature to whether something is an "assault weapon."
2. Unless an SKS has been converted to accept a detachable magazine, it is not an "assault weapon," regardless of whether it has a collapsible stock or bayonet.
3. The only AK-47 clones converted to accept 10-rd magazines were imported ones. This was done to avoid the import ban, not the "assault weapons" ban. Non-converted imported AK-47 clones have continued to be available in the U.S., with importers swapping out enough foreign parts for U.S. made parts to have them considered U.S. made rifles.
4. It is perfectly legal to put a 20 or 30 (or 75) round magazine in any US-made post-ban military-style semi-automatic rifle.
5. The magazine ban was a complete bust as well, since like new 30 rd AK-47 magazines are still available for under $10. I have a lot of them. It did make certain handgun magazines hard to come by, but it had little effect on the market for AK-47 or AR-15 magazines.

[bleedingheart]

15. Thanks to everyone for the information...

I am still confused...so I am going to have to reread everything again until I fully understand the differences..

[FeebMaster]

23. Here's a link to the US code where

assault weapon is defined

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/921.html

The definition is down by the (30) or just search for 'assault weapon' although technically the full term is 'semiautomatic assault weapon'. The really important parts are the (B) (C) and (D) where they list the required features for rifles, pistols, and shotguns.

[Retired AF Dem]

26. I only own one "assault rifle"

A Colt Ar15A2 I bought back in 84 when they first came out on the market. The reason I bought it is because I was in the military and the military does not give enough training on small arms and having the Colt I was able to to practice much more on my own.

[jack99]

27. In 2 days the term

Assault weapon will not exsist.

The term will be nothing more than a bad memory.
Jack

[Spider Jerusalem]

28. What is an assault weapon?

An assault weapon is, techically (and never mind the meaningless political language of meaningless laws passed by Congress to mollify ignorant paranoids), a fully-automatic military weapon with a barrel length of 18"-22", designed to fire a cartridge of medium power. The term is actually "assault rifle", and it comes from the German "Sturmgewehr".
The Sturmgewehr, or MP-44, was a weapon used by the German Wehrmacht in the closing days of WWII, designed to fit midway between a submachine gun and a full-length rifle, that fired 7.92mm "Kurz" (short) ammunition. MP44's were captured by the Russians, and the design was used by Mikhail Kalashnikov as a starting point for the AK47. The name is really meaningless, being chosen by the Wehrmacht to make the weapon more appealing to Hitler (who felt that the Wehrmacht needed long-range weapons), but it stuck, and all similar subsequent weapons have been known as "assault rifles".

(And here's a picture of the MP44...)

[daemon734]

30. OH NO!!!!

18 YEAR 0LDS WILL BE ABLE TO PURCHASE ASSAULT WEAPONS AFTER THE 14TH?

Good God!

nevermind the fact that they have been able to purchase any semi automatic long arm they wanted (including called "assault rifles")for the past 50 years.

the only difference now is that they will be able to purchase semi-auto rifles with bayonet lugs and flash hiders now, instead of the SAME EXACT rifles without the ability to have both of these "evil" features.


CHAVEZSPEAKSHALFTRUTHS, you should probably read up more on the topics you blather about.

THINK ABOUT THAT!