Define "Assault Rifle" please

... get that asinine NRA talking point in there, buddy.

from the person that's upset with them.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm no gun expert but a weapon that can fire 100 rounds in a couple of minutes I would consider to be a very bad idea for the general public to purchase in your local shopping mall.

I think it's an issue of common sense not semantics!

... and...

Fuck the NRA.

Assault weapons were defined in the US by the federal assault weapons ban--the semiautomatic AR-15 meets those criteria because it is a semiautomatic rifle with a detachable magazine, a pistol grip and a shrouded barrel. Other criteria used in the legal description may include a folding or collapsible stock, a foward positioned grip and a barrel end threaded to be able to recieve a silencer. That definition is one of US law.

Assault rifles is a category used in describing military weapons. Assault rifles are considered to be selective-automatic fire capable, shoulder fired rifles that are more powerful than sub-machine guns (that fire pistol-like rounds), have detachable magazines (rather than belt-feed), and a range of 300 yards. The description of assault rifles is -not- a legal description but rather a description used by military scientists or military analysts for a class of infantry weapons intermediate between submachine guns and machine guns.

it's why I asked him for his definition of assault rifle.

I suppose an assault rifle is anything scary looking that has a shoulder thing that goes up.

but I'm getting sick of seeing it all over a supposedly progressive website. Perhaps you'd be more comfortable with other gun nuts on some other forum.

Unwilling to be forced to defend their opinions. I'm a liberal and believe in the free exchange of ideas. Why would you want to create a similar echo chamber for the left?

has managed to pull an entire country to the right, maybe it's time for the left to do the same. If you want free exchange of ideas, take it to facebook or AOL or Yahoo. DU is for the exchange of democratic ideas.

I'm a liberal and very pro gun along with many others on this site. The fact that, in your opinion, that view solely the purview of the right is as ridiculous as when religion is brought up as solely belonging to the right. So what should we pro gun liberals do when weapons threads come up? Sit on our hands because you don't want the validity of your opinion challenged?

You're in trouble, now!1!!

It specifies an identifiable Bogeyman, has a hint of hyperbole and a decent run-on sentence; but lacks profanity and creatively incorrect punctuation other than a few stray unneeded initial caps.

It needs to be a whole lot longer.

nt

Let it out! Tell people how you really feel.

But I'm not gonna do it. Nuh-uh.

and mean spirited.

I doubt you've even spared a thought for the victims.

I think it's perfectly responsible to respond as I did to a post that is a broad-brush attack against a group that I belong to.

but is back.

Google sharesunited and loudly. You guys started it.

Well, that just says it all. Doesn't it??

It's your choice to live in fear.

My rights don't infringe on yours.

women, etc.

The country has had lots of guns around for centuries. A mass killing problem has emerged in the last couple of decades. So the cause isn't guns. It's something else.

If you take away their guns, they'll use bombs or knives or anything else. But if you want to solve the problem, you'll study what's going on, and try to deter the people who are likely to do this sort of thing.

Could he have killed 15 and injured 50 with a knife? A bomb sure, but certainly not a knife. A knife, or a baseball bat, is up close and personal and cannot kill multiple people at once.

He couldn't have killed this many people with a regular handgun, either. It's because he had a semi-automatic rifle, a type of assault weapon. It has no other purpose than to kill multiple people. It's not for hunting or self-defense.

I'm in favor of an assault weapons ban.

Guns are way too convenient for the suicidal, the ultra-stressed, and the undiagnosed mentally ill. It's the convenience factor.

But I do believe that any weapon that is capable of shooting rapid fire has no place in civilian hands. The high capacity magazines
should be banned on all weapons for civilian use. Also on my list: any weapon (rifle, etc) that can be folded or diminished in size to escape detection; handles that make it easier to shoot from the hip or with one hand, silencers. I'm sure there's more...


Oh, but wait....then only the bad guys will have these weapons. Maybe...but we can still own handguns, firearms for sport and hunting....plenty of fire power (if a person knows how to use the weapons) to "fight back" those bad guys with the banned weapons if need be.
2nd amendments rights are protected.....we can buy weapons......but we shouldn't be able to buy military grade weapons or attachments for those weapons or anything that is specifically used for warfare by the military.

And, you know what.......generations down the road, people won't even care....because they will own their guns, if they want and they will understand that military style weapons in the hands of civilians is not part of our collective national identity.

Just my opinion....but a strong one.....

"that some unhinged, law biding, gun owner exercising his 2nd amendment right will walk into his local sportsman store, purchase the most high powered killing machine that he can buy with intent of going on a shooting spree and killing as many people as possible and kill someone I love just so he can could go down in the history books."

If this makes you live in fear, Guns aren't the problem.

"I care about my right as individual to live my life freely and not get blown away by some gun nut!"

What are the chances that you will be blown away by some "gun nut".

It amazes me how much fear some people live in. I can understand living in fear in some areas of the country. But most of the areas I would fear it is the illegal gun owners that I would fear.

Do you wear a helmet for your drive to work?

is that you don't have to care about them. They're there, and they're protected, as long as someone does care. Granted, gun ban supporters were pretty successful for about 60 years, but they got too greedy. Now the trend is going in the opposite direction, and I'm optimistic that, in time, we'll be able to repair more of the damage that was done over those 60 years.

Most gun-related crimes are committed by people who have a criminal record. Handguns are used in about 75% of all gun-related crimes. The majority of these handguns are not purchased legally; they are borrowed, stolen, or purchased on the street. Of the approximately 360,000 handgun-related crimes each year (which doesn't include aggravated rape, for which I could not find data), there were a total of 6500 individual guns used. What does this mean? First, that most gun-related crime involves repeat offenders using the same guns. Second, the 6500 guns used represents .01% of the 70,000,000 handguns in circulation.
I would also point out that numbers of gun-related homicides has dropped 40% in the past 20 years, and that while the numbers of guns in circulation has increased, the percentage of population owning guns has decreased slightly.
Info from DOJ and WIKI websites.

Leave the guns alone. Instead we should crack down and heavily regulate the purchase of ammunition - make it near impossible to buy ammunition. That's what needs to happen.