(I know. As if we need another gun thread.)
I know the information is limited with regards to Hero with a gun, but of the limited stories out there, I’ve never heard of a hero saving the day with a thirty round assault riffle.
Has this ever been the case?
Why is the pro-gun crowd worried they wont adequately be able to defend themselves?
Assault rifles (or riffles) are pretty much illegal throughout the US. You have to have special federal permits for them. So outside of the military there will be a very small sample of people you are talking about. Or did you mean something else?
I was listening to a right wing radio show a while back, about when this whole explosion of talk about gun laws started. She presented a story where a woman was alone at home with her kids and had a home invasion. The woman apparently closed herself up in a closet with the kids and a gun. The man pursued, opened the door and she started firing. Apparently only one of the six shots fired hit him. And that, the talk show host argued, was proof that we can’t put a law on the number of rounds in a clip. Because, I swear to god she said this, women tend to be such poor shots that they NEED all those rounds in order to survive in such a situation. So. It’s the fault of us women-folk that we need thirty round clips. We just can’t do what needs to be done with just six.
February 28, 1997. Bank robbers, armed with semiautomatic rifles and covered with body armor, faced off against LAPD officers armed with 9mm or .38 caliber pistols. Fortunately, nearby firearms dealers were able to supply the officers with AR-15s, equalizing the firepower somewhat until the SWAT team could arrive.
In an actual firefight, unless you’re at point blank range, six rounds isn’t likely going to get even a extremely experienced range shooter anywhere. You’re not standing there in proper form exposed shooting at a stationary target. You will miss, a lot.
I don’t know anything about the particular case, but being in a closet and firing at someone opening the door sounds nearly point blank. OTOH, the the invader may have suspected she had a gun, so opened the door from an oblique point. OTOH, many people would probably try to fire a warning shot (or 4) instead, not being able to bring themselves to shoot somebody. OTOH, the whole thing may not have happened at all and be an urban legend.
Let me get this straight. You’re asking why stories of heroism using “assault rifles”* is so comparatively rare when compared to people using handguns and such for the same purpose? Isn’t that like asking why so few people are killed by Buicks at sea? You can’t exactly stuff a rifle in your pockets. Otherwise, incidences of self defense in a random stranger’s own home using whichever weapon isn’t widely reported because it’s not interesting to most people. Even if it did happen, you probably wouldn’t hear about it because the media is retarded about gun journalism (obligatory link; also initially reporting automatic M-16s, amended to semi-automatic, amended to AR-15, amended to Mini-14).
*I am going to ignore the semantics and use the word the non-official way.
Actually no. Assault rifles were invented by the Germans in 1944 and not that widely fielded. The allies were not using assault rifles or even weapons that would be considered assault weapons as currently defined by the US government.
It’s true, you don’t hear much about a armed citizen defeating the bad guys with a semi-auto rifle. There are several reasons for this, one being the fact that unless the bad guys are actually shot & killed, it rarely makes the news.
But the real reason is that such guns are comparatively rare, and are thus rarely involved in anything, including crimes. Mostly, you hear about them in a “mass shooting’ which is a horrible thing, but also very rare.
You could make that argument. I would consider it more of a machine gun than an assault rifle. To unwieldy to fit the usage of the word. It was designed to be used with the bi-pod. The STG-44 is considered the first modern assault rifle. The BAR is certainly the ancestor of such weapons.
Now that I think about it more I’d have to say the BAR can not be considered an assault rifle. It is select fire like an assault rifle however it is an open bolt weapon. It’s action is like a machine gun not a rifle. It was deployed as a light machine gun like a modern SAW not like modern assault rifles. But the point can be argued.
Most of the media wouldn’t put out good news like this because it goes against the message they are pushing - large capacity, scary looking weapons have no place in our society and must be banned.
If I assault you with a weapon, it is an assault weapon, be it a cucumber, hockey stick or an M1-Abrams tank.