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Comment by YeGoblynQueenne | Hacker News Reader

Actually, I think assault rifles cannot be legally owned by civilians in the US. I'm not from, or living there so corrections are welcome but I remember that the Texas gunman had a special setup that allowed his weapons to fire in automatic mode, or something close to.

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No. That is incorrect. Even fully automatic long-guns (think AK47, AR-15 with a full-auto mod) can be owned legally after paying for the license with the ATF.

Thank you for the correction. Kind of shocked though.

It’s only half true. New transferable fully automatic weapons have been illegal since 1986.

The few that are out there are collectors items costing upwards of $20,000.

So while it’s tecnichally true that if you live in a state where they have not been banned outright you can legally buy a fully automatic assault rifle in the US, they are extremely rare and expensive.

Paying for a $3k or so license, have the ATF, FBI and whatever other alphabet soup agencies turn your history inside out, and then buying one of hundred few, $10k+ fully automatic weapons.

People who buy them don't go on shooting sprees.

They can be retained by people who had bought them before 1994 them but buying one is incredibly difficult in terms of money and paperwork.

No. There is no federal “assault weapons” laws, they expired in 2004.

In most states you can purchase one, some states (CA, NY,CT) have banned them.

"Assault weapons" is a purposely misleading term designed to generate the confusion with "assault rifles" that you're currently experiencing. Assault rifles are indeed illegal to purchase without extensive paperwork and fees, and then only if the weapon itself was registered and grandfathered in before 1986. These weapons are heavily regulated and cost tens of thousands of dollars, despite being effectively never used in crime even at the time they were banned.

I originally wrote "assault weapons" in my comment then changed that to "assault rifles" because I'm fairly certain what the latter, is but not so much the former. Maybe the OP was responding to that earlier version? If so, apologies for the confusion.

Correct, but the National Firearms Act of 1934 which actually bans the sale of machine guns and other automatic rifles is still alive and well.

"Assault weapons" is a meaningless phrase.

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