Hacker News Reader

Comment by hasdf | Hacker News Reader

the phrase comes from the unique German WW2 weapon "Sturmgewehr 44" (literally Assault Rifle 44).

It was the first example of the Assault Rifle weapon type with the defining characteristics being an intermediate cartridge (between pistol round and rifle round) that allows controllable automatic fire at engagement ranges further than submachine guns.

Most AR15s cannot be considered 'Assault Rifles' as although they are chambered in an intermediate cartridge, they are for the most part semi-automatic and not capable of automatic fire.

Note that 'Assault Rifle' does not seem to be a ATF defined term, they always use the term Machine Gun for automatic weapons. The term "Assault Rifle" is more commonly associate d with anti-gun organizations as it has become a emotionally charged word

View on HN

> The term "Assault Rifle" is more commonly associate d with anti-gun organizations as it has become a emotionally charged word

Every game I've played where it is relevant uses the "Assault Rifle" term, and way more young people are familiar with game definitions than anything else. Here is roughly how weapons are defined in games:

Submachine gun - Automatic pistol with large clip.

Rifle - Single shot long barrel higher calibre weapon

Battle Rifle - Burst fire rifle with large clip

Assault Rifle - Automatic fire rifle with large clip

Machine gun - Belt fed automatic fire rifle

Edit: Nothing legal about the above, of course, just noting what the general population would associate with each term. And you can understand why people would be worried about automatic fire high calibre weapons. They aren't useful for anything other than to kill lots of people.

I don't think general population cares about the full-automatic distinction of "assault rifle" because you don't actually need full-auto for the kind of attacks people are potentially worried about.

And afaik the usual distinction for a battle rifle is that it's larger caliber (e.g. as many cold-war standard-issue rifles were)

Just to be pedantic, as we're already in the weeds here, all but "rifle" in your list probably do not use a "clip", they use a magazine. The M1 garand is a rifle that uses a clip, the mini-14 would be a rifle that uses a magazine. Generally.

I understand the point you were making. I do have to ask people, if there's any difference between the Mossberg 464 lever action and the Mossberg 464 ZMB rifle - I mean purely from how scary it is, or whatever.

right, parent commenter seemed to claim that it's a legally clear definition. Which people do all the time, and then don't back up if asked, but still feel the need to make sure to let everyone that doesn't use their definition know that they are wrong. While "assault weapons" at least has been used legally to also include semi-automatics, which muddles the water for general usage quite a bit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com