a common pistol calibre is ".45 ACP". what does "ACP" stand for in this context, and what is the manner of operation of the firearm for which this calibre was designed? yes, this is a distinction; I am not sure it matters

But the name is Automatic Rifle 15

Armalite rifle, model 15

It was the 15th assault rifle Stoner built and so Assault Rifle 15

No.

I need more clips for my Assault Rifle 15 bullpup

that reminds me that the guys at Tula made a bullpup ak47 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKB-408

This is cursed

Korobov has made worse

we need to go deeper

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TKB-059 here's a triple barrel bullpup rifle

Why does it look like a Vorlon ship?

Oh my God

Clip discourse is very fun because it's a lot like Italian cuisine in that clip vs. magazine distinction is both obsessively enforced and also purely a product of the 1970s.

For most of the 20th century clip and magazine were considered perfectly interchangeable words.

It’s right there on the package.

Wait can you elaborate the Italian cuisine part?

pls it hurts

The “AR” stands for Assault Rifle.

Bullpup, of course, refers to any beer variety in which the flavor is "hops forward".

AR-15 stands for "Always Reloading" because it shoots 15 bullets with each pull of the trigger.

Autonomous Reloading actually

I like to take pictures with my barrel pointed skyward & my finger on the trigger

smart. safest direction to point. nothing up there

Distinction without a difference in this context, that only serves as a distraction.

So what you're saying is, we need to amend the National Firearms Act to reclassify ALL semi-automatic firearms under Title II and raise the stamp price to $1000.

i'm not opposed to that, although we may need some edge tweaks

Of course. Details matter. I just think Title-II already has the enforcement framework everyone's looking for and the best thing to do is just add semiautos. I think it should include handguns too, but we MIGHT make an exception for double action revolvers or smaller automatics (eg .22lr).

With a bump stock they effectively are, or in the hands of a good shooter w a spec Geissele trigger you can shoot more accurately and effectively as fast as full auto… but you know this, right? 😘… in any case completely unnecessary to have civilians be able to purchase them willy nilly.

The issue with the AR-15 platform isn't some semantic misunderstanding about the differece between full or semi-auto. It's that it's a high capacity gun that **destroys** human organs on impact, with 30 rounds per easily swapped magazine.

the issue is that it allows a relatively untrained, weak person to turn classrooms full of children into exploded meat. Happened 12 miles from my house. It has no place in civilian hands, it has no civilian use case. Killing wild pigs can be accomplished with other guns by better marksmanship.

There’s nothing particularly special about 5.56 ammo when it comes to damage. The main issue is, as you note, huge capacity and the ability to quickly reload, which allows for so many bullets to be fired in such a short amount of time.

that's just factually incorrect. A 9mm can often go cleanly through & through & be survivable. www.wired.com/2016/06/ar-1...

5.56x45mm is a better cartridge than 9mm for range, accuracy and penetration, so it might make a difference if you're trying to shelter behind a desk or a door or something. But if some douche walks into your office or classroom and lights you up, you won't care which calibre they're using.

Ugh. Making my point. Yes, a rifle bullet does more damage than a subsonic handgun round. That goes for every rifle round. That’s why you don’t hunt deer with a 9mm. And the 5.56 is actually fairly weak as far as rifle rounds which is why the military is moving to a more powerful round now.

it's the speed,yes. force equals MxA. It's the AR platform's muzzle velocity that makes the bullet explode the target.You're not making the point you think you're making. The gun is the thing that throws the bullet that fast. It turns 1st grader's insides into jelly & rips them apart.

There’s nothing special about the AR platforms muzzle velocity and that’s dependent on the round not the gun and a 5.56 particularly isn’t “exploding” anything. It has a tendency to tumble which can be destructive or do nearly nothing.

The reason militaries around the world are moving off it is because there’s been way too many instances of enemies getting lit up and running away or still fighting. Yes, it is devastating, like any rifle round, if it hits a vital organ or cavitates near one. It doesn’t “explode.”

Again, the issue with the platform has nothing to do with the round (hell, you can get 7.62 ARs).

The point isn’t the round but that AR frames allow for putting a ridiculous amount of bullets out quickly and accurately. It’s not the round that matters but the speed, ease, accuracy and volume that makes them something that shouldn’t be in civilians hands.

that's the cartridge, it has nothing to do with rate of fire a shot from an M1903 will do much worse to the human body, but it's bolt-action, so you're gonna have a lot more trouble doing a mass shooting with one than you would with the pistol caliber MP5

Then say that. Don't say it's an automatic. Words mean things.

jesus, dude. The dead kids of Sandy Hook MEAN something. Fuck off.

Let’s just agree to call them war machines and call it a day

As an Eagle Scout, progressives’ (mis)understanding of firearms is so frustrating Similarly, assault weapons and full autos are not nearly as big a problem as handguns and I wish people would take that into account! Tho mass shootings are a particular brand of awful and especially worth preventing

Actually, the AR stands for ephebophilia

i mean this is funny but if you're trying to pass a "ban pedophilia" bill you do start needing to care about the exact ages

There are times when exact distinctions between types of pedophile matter, but 95% percent of of the time it is brought up on the internet it seems to be about excusing peoples bad conduct

Underrated post.

true, but it was also a weapon designed for the military and to be used in war by people properly trained

The “weapon of war you need training for” thing has always struck me as a red herring because, like, it’s also true of the Winchester 1873 lever-action, colt 1892 revolver, m2 machine gun, etc - it has no bearing on the actual operations of the firearm or its capacity to do harm

if it was a weapon you "needed training for" then surely these obviously untrained mass shooters wouldn't keep killing kids quite so often

One issue, so to speak, is just how easy they are to handle relatively well with very little practice. It's a large part of why they're so popular.

one of the literal design criteria for an infantry rifle is that you can use it reasonably well with very little training

Right, like would the AR-15 be LESS of a mass shooting risk if it were EASIER to use?

I think “weapon of war” gets closer: modern assault rifles (whether or not full auto is available) are designed to be used to kill hundreds of humans at a range of 50 to 250 meters, which looks a lot like “war” or “spree murder” and very little like “self defense” or “hunting”

i can't source this but "using it the way the thompson was previously used as a trench broom and killing a lot of people in a small area" was i am pretty sure also a major motivation, and is part of why the gun is as light/maneuverable as it can be

like. uh. killing everyone in an elementary school looks basically the same as ventilating a bunker you've got a window to fire into, the difference is basically just context

yeah. and with the other technology that's applicable here, the fragmentation grenade, we very effectively bar private ownership and use

This is collapsed into coherency if you think of what mass shooters are doing as a kind of hybrid warfare against the idea of a society, they’re Ted K’s disciples without the ideology

it turns out the design process for the ms-16/ar-15 platform was, in fact, pretty good at making sure that an 18 year old with very little training can potentially kill dozens of people quickly in close quarters with a weapon that is easy to carry and can also be used to engage at distance

it is really bizarre to see pro-2a advocacy somehow reach the conclusion that the AR-15, which they very much want to own because it is very good, is not good at achieving its actual design goals

the gun being light actually makes it worse for this, and semi auto is significantly worse than automatic for this.

iirc from fallujah and similar, automatic sounds good but reviews are mixed, with people doing building sweeps often just not wanting to use it because they found it less controllable i think the lightness is 50/50 and could go either way, it basically depends on if you imagine you're doing this ..

from a fixed placement or if you're moving into position as you are firing

like. if i am peaking into a room to take the shot i want a lighter gun, if i am sweeping the room from a fixed spot i want a heavier and therefore less jumpy gun

also i haven't been able to find my notes in years but rate of fire in mass shootings prior to 2014 when i was doing this research was often weirdly low, like attainable with a bolt action low, regardless of weapon used.

oh i actually don't think this markedly changes the ground for mass shootings, paradoxically. a handgun is just fine for shooting people in close quarters and the lethality of those shootings mostly depends on things other than the weapon

my impression was the muzzle velocity of the black rifle meant that close-quarters shootings were unusually likely to be fatal or medically ruinous—is that not borne out?

Statistics from closer to Columbine were skewed towards a slow rate of fire, the shooters fired 188 rounds over the course of 50 minutes. As a result of the unacceptable law enforcement performance, training changed. Shooters have adapted to new tactics and are engaged in a grotesque competition

but I also think a lot of this debate is fighting the last war (hah). midcentury NRA relied on a lot of "we're protecting hunters", to which one could fairly reply, "buy a bolt-action, asshole, you don't have a license to mow down deer by the dozen."

and late century gun debates were about the personal handgun for protection against personal crime, to which one could fairly reply "you don't need a fucking long gun then"

but we live in the black rifle era, and Team Gun is not really pretending that they're doing it for hunting or for crime any more.

Literally true when you consider its designer, what the design was for, and who bought it! 1981 article that predates modern gun issues: columbine nor ruby ridge had happened yet. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Rather famously, it’s rather unclear if Eugene Stoner, the designer, ever owned the AR-15 he designed. Why would he? It was a warmaking tool designed for professional use.

Right, this. The issue isn't so much that it's a good murder weapon; all guns are good murder weapons under the right circumstances. The issue is it's bad at pretty much all the broadly justifiable civilian uses of firearms. As a tool rather than a toy it would basically never be your first choice.

Also useful to keep two separate ideas in our heads as best we're able: 1. An AR-15 is a borderline maliciously dumb thing for a civilian to own, let alone carry in public. 2. The vast majority of gun deaths involve cheap, low caliber gray market handguns. Long guns are a rounding error.

amusingly i am just feeling pedantic and i simply do not think gun ownership is important either way

in total mortality guns are not THAT big of a deal. they primarily create a large spectacle that causes extreme reactions. but i also think this about, like, post 9/11 terrorism, since 9/11 style attacks were not even still viable an hour after the second plane hit

i also think that failing to mitigate indicates sort of a broken society since it's not, actually, an extremely difficult thing to do

I do think that it's rational not to just look at gun death numbers and seek the public health equilibrium, because there is something about threat as well.

I mostly agree, but kind of from the opposite side. Ostentatious gun ownership fetishizes cathartic violence as a concept in ways that I think are generally corrosive to the social fabric despite rarely being literally enacted, but so does Call of Duty.

There are different kinds of gun crime, though, with different risk modalities. For example, a large percentage of handgun homicides are suicides, which are opt-in.

Valid point, although describing suicidal ideation as opt-in is more than a little fraught.

Owning a firearm is opting in to increased suicide risk, though

If you look at a relatively small percentage of firearm homicides - spree killers shooting up schools, places of worship, etc. - long guns become much more prominent.

And because those crimes are pretty much memetic - vicious losers get the idea to do them from media coverage - I think access to long guns that look cool and precious spree killers have used *is* important to incident rate.

Finland has the category ”specially dangerous firearms” for these, which afaik is where the ar-15 falls. Also licensing for pistols was made stricter after the 2007 and 2008 school shootings. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm...

And yet people routinely use them for self defense and hunting to great effect. People memed on the "30-50 feral hogs" guy but he was 100% correct about that.

He was 100% wrong. A gun like that, assuming it doesn’t jam, would only injure a hog, not kill it. Now he has 1 injured feral hog and 29-49 stampeding hogs. His hypothetical was stupid, cruel, and dangerous. He should’ve used a hypothetical crossbow or elephant gun instead. And built a brick wall.

That depends heavily on the actual cartridge and bullet, of which "a gun like that" can support a variety.

From time to time I remind people that during WWI the Germans complained about the Winchester 1897 shotgun as being too brutal to be used under the law of war. Which is a fact that can be looked at several ways, admittedly.

(The 1897 is a pretty bog-standard 5+1 round pump action shotgun, for those who don't know.)

There are a few unfortunate facts people elide over in this conversation, such as: "Arms" would never have considered much of the things people talk about, private citizens weren't going around acquiring cannon, they were godawful expensive.

Many of the nations first gun laws were written contemporaneously to the Constitution and nobody thought "banning carrying guns in town" was a violation.

Whatever the original intention was, the idea that private gun ownership is going to prevent tyranny in any meaningful way has been fucking ridiculous since about 1920. If you are fighting a tyrannical US government and you are using small arms you are getting your ass stomped.

The whole point of the military is getting the dumbest common denominator that can be drafted able to use things that kill people, even back when we were using spears.

Yeah, if we're going to get pedantic, you need training for a pocket knife too, and a bow and arrow, and basically anything that can be used to harm yourself or others. That's not the standard we should set for whether something should be available to the general public or not.

yea I’m pretty sure there’s a huge difference between pocket knives (you know knives are regulated by size, right?) and a bow and arrow and to an AR-15 with the capability of firing a 100 rounds in seconds

You're really just telling me you don't know anything about bows and arrows, and not anything else.

a person shot well over 500 people from a hotel room into a crowd, how many bow and arrows would’ve hit a person from that distance ?

how many arrows can a person shoot in 60 seconds ?

the ar-15 fire rate is about 100/minute

yes, in 60 seconds there’s almost 2 rounds per second

yes having training for firearms designed for war is a good thing

I think honestly by a plain reading of the second amendment, American citizens -ought- to be able to manage their own nuclear program, provided it is well organized. I wonder what the world would look like if we took the idea of state militias seriously.

i mean, thomas jefferson did the 1790 version of that (private citizens should be able to own a navy if they wanted), these guys were a bit cranky

Plus, there are plenty of people with proper training who go on to commit murders and mass murders with that proper training. The American Sniper dipshit was gunned down with his own gun. He and the shooter bith had military training.

I'm a gun guy. Used to think focusing on semi auto's was kind of dumb, because I can shoot a lever action pretty quick compared to a semi auto at the range. But then I'm aiming between shots at 50-100 m, and semi auto mags here are pinned to 5 cartridges.

But then I accidentally saw about 10 seconds of the Buffalo shooting on X. Saw maybe 6 people die before I realized what I was watching. I couldn't do that with a lever action. The mag size is the real issue, but it's tough to effectively legislate mag size because the mag is so easily modifiable.

That's all guns though

the relevant amendment was also intended for properly trained members of a militia as well but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it also took like a minute to load the firearm each round lol

That's why they were called minutemen! /s

(The difference is far more minor than everyone pretends it is)

It's a really crucial difference! But drum magazines can be remarkably unreliable and reloading is pretty fast, so.... eh

Not if it means you campaign for the wrong thing.

The difference is literally a felony gun charge.

Yes, every AR-15s and every machine guns were very different until the 1994 assault weapons ban started. After that, every single one in existence became very similar. Then, in 2004, they suddenly became very different again, because apparently US licensing policy is what dictates object similarity.

The assault weapons ban was a stupid law that didn't do what it claimed and was written by people who don't understand guns. You had functionally identical rifles with one being legal and the other illegal based on appearance and random "military" features.

Sounds like a difference of "literally a felony gun charge" is totally compatible with gun differences being "far more minor than everyone pretends"

The difference between semi and full auto?

how easy is it to install forced reset triggers on them

anyway I would favor limits on the number of guns you can keep in your home, provide enforceable standards for secure home storage, require additional arms beyond ~1 for self-defense be kept at a regulated storage facility/arsenal,

and require periodic training in the national guard if you opt to store the extra weapons at the arsenal.

Do global militaries typically use their AR-15 platform rifles on semi-auto and generally refrain from full or burst? To answer my own question yes.

That's what I don't get about this dorkass pedantry. Basically every military's infantry doctrine uses semi-auto fire the vast majority of time in combat, so it's a moot point.

the AR platform is for people who fantasize about defensive gun use

These days it mostly seems to be for young guys who like building clones of guns from video games.

No. The AR platform is for people who fantasize about being away with mass murdering.

It’s apparently controversial on this cursed website to believe that laws must be specific and tailored to actually accomplish their stated goals, and other people in favor of them should have just the most basic understanding of what they want Look at my left dawg I’m gonna live under fascism, etc

something something rent control

If you’re proposing anything more detailed than dragging the ‘gun control’ slider to the most restrictive level you’re an NRA shill

going to regret this, but i don’t think average normal americans who want school shootings to stop should be held to the standards of policy experts when they say [gun type/model] should be banned, even if i understand why people who *write* those laws need to be

yeah, with gun policy as with all policy there's a tension between "normie voters should be able to demand solutions to their problems without being experts" and "without expertise, sometimes proposed solutions are meaningless, incoherent, or counterproductive"

it gets particularly nasty when experts are or are thought to be enthusiasts, and so normies get suspicious that experts are leveraging their expertise to (rhetorically) sabotage the normie demand.

it’s also an enormous industry which has treated every attempt to regulate it with such profound contempt and bad faith that i don’t blame anyone who decides “guns bad” is good enough

yeah my take on guns is more or less "the correct position is to copy the gun laws of basically anywhere else, we're not getting that without [mumble mumble], in the meantime I'm not going to complain about anything that annoys gun people"

will say that I am aware that AR stands for Armalite Rifle, and Armalite stands for Assault Rifle Manufacturers And Literally I Tdon't Ecare

Gang of Four brought me here.

i think the problem here is if you propose something less than 100% out of recognition of technical, mechanical, and functional constraints, you're accused of being an NRA shill.

I find that particularly frustrating because I used to be one of the people clamoring for getting rid of all guns and actually understanding anything about how they work, the differences between types of firearm, etc. seemed like pointless nonsense that gun nuts used to maintain the status quo.

But then I decided it’s better to have some familiarity and experience with different firearms so I got some familiarity and experience and listened to people who know what they’re talking about and who I know aren’t just obfuscating the issue.

which, like, yeah there's some people who are actually doing that, and that's a problem, but also there's a reason why the AWB didn't actually really do much.

Right. And even on days when I still think we should just ban all firearms altogether, I at least have an understanding of the basics so I don’t sound like some dipshit talking about Assault Rifle 15s.

And I actually like guns, I enjoy shooting all different kinds and I’m a decent shot. I think they’re pretty cool but our society is far too irresponsible handle their prevalence.

It's a shibboleth that makes a certain kind of guy absolutely write you off if you get wrong, which is actually pretty bad for politics.

getting it right is also a shibboleth for another type of guy and that makes the conversation online rapidly untenable

Weird vintage anime gun dork accounts are the worst

I think a lot of this also ties into one of the biggest overarching problems we have in our society: extremely low trust. Like I know there are responsible gun owners out there who absolutely despise the loot crated up fetishists who would otherwise be recognizable as high-functioning addicts.

which is, itself, i think, a response that’s borne out of decades of arguing about gun control on the internet, where gunsplaining is a very regular tactic to subvert a discussion

(it’s why i basically don’t do it anymore)

i hate it because sometimes someone will in good faith ask "well what about power limits/caliber limits" and the process of actually explaining in good faith why that's hard/difficult attracts angry people

also frustrating because "i am willing to give up some things here but not everything" makes you The Enemy

tbh there is no other issue on which i am more nihilistically blackpilled than gun control and it makes me incapable of having a productive conversation about it, which is why i usually don’t

but in this case i was just saying that people don’t need to be experts to have a general opinion, but lawmakers and policymakers should

like, I've seen a couple people today propose fixing the SBR rules and suppressor legislation in trade for other restrictions, which is at minimum an attempt to figure out good policy and compromise. they are getting shouted down as if they proposed shoving a gun vending machine in every school

you can't compromise if the only position your faction is willing to countenance is waving the "guns all disappear" wand!

I mean a lot of it is the internet tendency to believe a factual/descriptive statement is also a statement of approval so saying "X won't work because of Y loophole" people assume you're approving of the status quo or the existence of that loophole

Lotta difficulty with is/ought in this website in a variety of frustrating contexts.

I don't think that is an internet tendency i think it's a human tendency

Silencers are another one. They don't work like in the movies. If someone shoots a gun with a silencer you're absolutely going to hear it, it just takes the volume level down to the point where the person shooting the gun won't get hearing damage if they're not wearing hearing protection.

eh you'll get less hearing damage. it's still the safe zone!!!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Depends on the cartridge, the weapon, the silencer, ambient noise, and what's between you and the gun. It's very possible that suppressed sub sonic gunshots will not be identified as gunshots by those nearby. So, "youre absolutely going to hear it," is a total bullshit statement

Suppressors have become such a weird shibboleth for both pro- and anti-gun advocates, I’ve long advocated that if anti-gun advocates can get anything in a trade for legalizing suppressors they should take it in a heartbeat. They’re more likely to impede mass shootings than contribute to them.

Impede how? Do they affect accuracy or something?

No, and mass shooters aren’t typically that concerned with accuracy. But adding a suppressor does mess with the gas blowback on a firearm, and if you don’t tweak it properly it won’t cycle properly and jam. Look at Luigi Mangione, his gun jammed after every shot because of the suppressor.

I don’t want to pretend like suppressors are a method of gun control, just that they don’t really meaningfully contribute to gun violence.

maybe that's 'cause they're subject to such rigorous government control? What, and this is crazy, if we regulated all guns in a meaningful way, instead of trying to ban a few of them?

It's not even that particularly rigorous. It's essentially a normal background check (NCIS), you have to submit fingerprints, a photo, and pay a $200 tax. The fingerprint and photo do very little to actually increase the likelihood that the background check catches something.

The fact is, suppressors do very little to actually "silence" a firearm in 90% of cases, which makes their utility in most common types of gun violence minimal. Many EU countries - like Germany, Finland, and Czechia allow unregulated sales of suppressors for a reason.

Whatever dude. Crooks and crazies don't do the process. Dudes who do, make sure the suppressor isn't stolen Machine guns are similar, and they're easier to cover.

If you’re proposing a gun registry for all firearms similar to how the ATF manages suppressors and fully automatic firearms, I already support that. But the registry for suppressors is not what’s preventing them from making mass shootings more dangerous.

I just said, "meaningful regulation," A national database is a hard sell.

You said we should regulate all firearms as we regulate suppressors. It’s a hard sell but I don’t think one that’s inherently harder of a sell than any other gun regulation. It’s really just centralizing the records we’re ahead have, that are falsely obfuscated by legislation.

Nah, the wait and extra expense is typically what makes them rare, with a variety of pleasant consequences, like they are rarely used in crimes.

Agree on the first part, but they just don’t do anything that enhances lethality in crimes. There’s no reason for mass shooters to use them.

Unless you're proposing just banning or otherwise placing the same restrictions on all firearms from black powder muzzle loaders to compact pisols to automatic rifles, we're going to need to properly define and articulate those regulations.

And all of that is precluded by the fact there are legitimate uses for firearms unrelated to hurting humans. Farmers/ranchers use them for pest control, some people do hunt for food and not just sport, etc.

Sure man. There's lots of room for details. Unfortunately, one side makes proposals, arguments, and brings in real world problems that beg for solutions. The other side quotes bumper stickers and yells "no" a lot. Then wonders why they don't have a hand in crafting good gun laws.

I work in housing advocacy, which is sort of technical but not insanely so; and the number of full time policy professionals who advocate against our bills without ever reading them or understanding what they actually do is really remarkable.

I used to do a lot of financial services policy analysis and my God, bank regulation in this country is a disaster zone in no small part because of the same phenomenon

Oh boy I was in Boston when a certain current Senator was first elected and man did we get a lot of that first-hand...

Thank god Gork is gonna tell our gubmint who's really pulling the strings in finance now.

To say nothing of the omnicause phenomenon of organizations signing onto each others' position letters without even reading a summary of the bill.

1. This is not really the point you think it is, and is mostly pedantry. People don't even know what "semi-auto" means for the most part, and it doesn't really change the points they're making. Guns kill, that's what matters. 2. The difference between a semi and auto ar-15 is just a lower receiver

3. There's things like bump stocks and so on. So to say "An ar-15 is not automatic" is stupid and not the whole story. The AR15 platform absolutely is capable of being a fully automatic rifle. As sold to civilians it is not configured that way, but can be modified to be one with relative simplicity

He's regurgitating NRA horseshit

It's not pedantry. Saying an AR-15 is basically an automatic is like saying a function is the same as a program. No, it really isn't. Not without substantial modification.

I mean, yes, the difference between a military grade M4 and a civilian AR-15 is a little machining of the lower receiver and an auto sear that allows for full auto fire. However, I would argue it is just as lethal in semi auto. Every infantryman I’ve ever known fired controlled pairs, not auto spray

It is very different, and in fact one could argue it is an easier style of weapon for an inexperienced shooter to use because they probably would be less accurate with an automatic weapon. Not sure this bolsters any points.

🤓 well originally...

I agree with the general sentiment, but this kind of gun pedantry is almost always used for bad faith gatekeeping or misdirection.

bsky.app/profile/sky....

My point is that these technical distinctions are often irrelevant and raised in bad faith, not that you specifically are doing that. But, if you want to make it clear that you’re not a bad faith actor, it would be good to identify why these technical distinctions actually matter.

Vaguely complaining about libs being dumb about guns is different than using your knowledge to offer constructive and relevant input.

well, for starters, civilian purchase of new manufactured automatic weapons has been illegal since 1986

Ok, so this helps explain why people are preoccupied with the AR-15, a semiautomatic weapon.

the AR-15 has also become a bit of a totem to ascribe all of america's gun ills on (it is far from the that)

That’s probably true, but this isn’t an issue stemming from a lack of knowledge. It’s just become a cultural flashpoint. People on the left realize AR-15 bans wont solve gun violence, but they’ve fixated on it because they’re desperate for *some* kind of win.

The original field test select versions were still under the nomenclature of AR-15 I believe. This was under original combat testing in Vietnam when the M-14 was still the standard rifle

Yeah, the ArmaLite AR-15 is originally fully automatic, then Colt used the name for its “semi-auto only” civilian version(s) after rebranding the fully automatic version that became the M16. It’s so modular and branding centric, it’s like FIA homologated cars. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArmaLit...

I used to have a download of the Army report on initial combat use of the rifle and the anecdotes were just fucking insane. Arms blown off, buttocks shot away etc. I think this with a looser rifling twist and the rounds were tumbling. The wound descriptions were just horrific.

🤢

It's fascinating as a forensic document but yeah, it's pretty grim stuff. I can't find the download anymore

It is also a very fun gun to shoot at the range. Not much recoil. Easy to handle. Ammo has a reasonable price.

And what's (arguably) the most practical and safest home defense weapon? An SBR with a suppressor. What are the most difficult things to buy (at least until recently) with federal gun laws? SBRs and suppressors.

This assumes a single family residence. Not the same ballistic profile between braced external walls and shared apartment spaces. Not disagreeing, but would you want your neighbor firing if there’s just tissue paper between the two of you when a 150-250gr 38/45 SJHP would result in less penetration?

Correct. Which is why my proposed legislation would be to ban any firearm that chambers a round by anything other than manual action. Also magazine caps. Reduce the cycle time and increase reload frequency and you reduce mass violence casualty counts without impacting things like hunting or rights.

Can one kill school kids better than the other? Why are either in teens' hands?

Dead kids will argue that point.

So, un, it certainly can be automatic.

It's usually not a fully automatic weapon. An M16 is a fully automatic AR-15. It's only legal for civilians to own semi-automatic AR-15s, but modifications can be made.

Most M16s aren't even fully automatic

Yeah. I think they might function better as a semi-automatic. A military guy explained it to me but he used lots of words.

Those modifications are illegal

Yes and no. Machine guns are incredibly illegal. However, bump stocks are legal in most states.

The differences between the two of them aren't very important; neither should be broadly legal.

Automatic weapons fire 5-10x faster than semi auto ones and purchases of new production automatic weapons have been illegal for civilians in the us since 1986. So yes, there is an important difference: one is already illegal.

No it isn't. It's just heavily regulated, and the regulations are so restrictive you basically have to be Nick Fury to qualify. The the only difference between automatic and semi-automatic rifle, legally, is the former is classified under Title-II and the latter isn't. Seems like an easy fix.

I guess it's semantics about what counts as "important", but I'd say that for most people, who have no desire to own either of them, the difference is immaterial.

We’re talking about laws, not abstract concepts of desire ????

You're kinda proving his point. Saying "semi-auto guns shouldn't be legal" is like saying "guns shouldn't be legal" If that's what you want to say, say it, but that's silly to specify. (BEFORE YOU REACT, I BELIEVE GUN CONTROL WOULD BE GOOD AND AM FOR IT, but details matter)

I mean, I'm not an extremist--if a person wants to have a bolt-action rifle that needs to be manually reloaded after every shot, that seems like a fair compromise. Not all guns are semi-auto.

Automatic weapons are already illegal, so yes, the difference is important

In the US, automatic weapons are not illegal. There are restrictions such as when the gun was manufactured, the person buying, and the relevant state regulations. They just are harder to get than an AR-15 with a bump stock.

Right, I'm just saying that in an ideal world both would be banned so the difference would be unimportant.

Commercially available guns should be able to hold three shots and it should take 30 seconds to reload.

Or there just shouldn't be commercially available guns.

Yes, this is even better.

Hey I'm only being a pedant because the original post here is about bsky users talking about guns and not knowing what they're talking about: Automatic weapons aren't illegal, just heavily restricted, but newly made ones cannot be sold commercially. You can buy an already-registered one.

We're talking rate of fire. Whether its one trigger pull per shot or just hold the trigger down and it keeps firing? You still have the same size bullet (.223) come out and leave at the same velocity (roughly 3300 feet/sec) or 2-3 times the speed of sound per shot.

Where I'm going to come from is the kind of damage these weapons do. Theyre meant for a battlefield, they were designed for a battlefield. They do a very, VERY good job at doing what they were designed to do.

people love taking a hard stance and being extremely vocal about topics they know nothing about

As if a semi-automatic rifle doesn't fire only negligibly slower than an automatic one in a mass shooting incident. It's not like you have to pull the action back manually for every shot, trigger mods exist for a reason to make them nearly as fast firing as automatic any way. And just as fatal.

Ar-15 semi auto rate is like 100/min with a good shooter M16 full auto rate is 600/min So no, actually, a 6x increase isn’t a “negligible difference”

It is when you're talking about tenths of seconds

Yup. A completely irrelevant difference in the real world.

A binary or forced reset trigger would double that, so ~2-300 RPM person dependent but that's still a lot less than auto. I guess you could argue that auto is less useful due to inaccuracy but empirically a lot of militaries do like full auto capability.

fwiw, you can make an ar-15 full auto with a bit of coat hangar and about 10 minutes of work. or just buy the m16 fire control group and drill a hole with a 3d printed jig not that i’m defending the stupidity of people assuming ar-15’s are all automatic. it is pretty trivial to make them full auto.

I am aware that breaking federal firearms law is possible, yes

people do it constantly. i think the m-16 fcg is like 50 bucks or something.

AR means Automatic Rifle idiot

Armalite rifle, bruh.

No man that's just what the man wants you to think

No, all Armalite rifles had an AR designation. Even this dumb thing:

Look I don't make the rules, ar means assault rifle now and if you knew your history you'd know the ar 15 is the fifteenth one

Relatedly, the G36 and the AK-47 are also assault rifles and never classified as "AR" because Armalite doesn't make them. And the HK-416? It's literally just an AR-15 with a different brand name.

AK stands for Assault Rifle in Russian. The G means "Gruesome" as in what happens when you are Assaulted with a Rifle

It's not, though? Armalite didn't make 15 models or rifles and the model 15 was based on the model 10. More importantly, most of the AR series were not even assault rifles. The AR-5 was basically a bolt action pistol.

"If you know your history" is an odd thing to say in this context.

That rifle you listed sure like like you could mount an assault with it. It's what the AR-1? The first assault rifle? And the 1 also means only one bullet goes in the magazine. AR-15s have 15 bullet magazines. Keep up mate

Are you doing a bit?

No I would never lie on the internet