Description: This site examines the facts, statistics, and history of semiautomatic assault weapons and contrasts military-STYLE rifles with true weapons of war.
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As used by the media, politicians, and gun control activists, “ assault weapon ” is a loosely defined term for a semiautomatic civilian firearm that has the appearance —but not the function—of a fully automatic military firearm. Because these guns have the appearance of military firearms but are not actually used in military operations, they are sometimes referred to as “military- style assault weapons.”
The 1994 U.S. “ Federal Assault Weapons Ban ,” which expired in 2004, defined a rifle as an “assault weapon” if, in addition to being semiautomatic, it could accept a detachable magazine and had at least two military-style features such as a folding or telescoping stock, a pistol grip, a bayonet mount, a flash suppressor, or a threaded barrel designed to accept a flash suppressor. (The list of military-style accessories also included “a grenade launcher”; however, grenade launchers and grenades were already
It is debated whether the term “ assault weapon ,” which entered the American lexicon in the late 1980s, originated as a political ploy by gun control advocates or as a marketing ploy by gun retailers . What is certain is that “assault weapon” is not a technical term, a term of art used by firearm manufactures, or a military term. The closest match in any of those categories is the term “ assault rifle ,” which is a military term referring to a shoulder-fired rifle that fires an intermediate (i.e., medium-p