What is an "assault weapon"?

I’m not intending to start a debate, but I’ve seen this phrase crop up in the various gun control threads and wanted a proper definition. I know very little about guns, though. When I think “assault weapon” I think of, say, an Uzi or an AK-47. Am I wrong? Educate me.

Assault Weapon is a term coined by gun control advocates to further legislation and obfuscate the issue of gun control.

Assault rifle is a real term, denoting a weapon of intermediate caliber, and selective fire capabilities. Assault Weapon has no real or legitimate definition.

Here’s the definition given in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (the statute which contained the now-expired Federal assault weapons ban):

As noted above, it’s essentially a meaningless and arbitrary definition which uses more-or-less cosmetic features to define the term. No street criminal is going to care whether his gun has a bayonet mount.

Beer bottle, table leg, baseball bat, knife, brick, et. al. are what I think of when I hear the term. But I’m smarter than most politicians. :dubious:

As Todderbob said it’s a made up team that’s used to vilify rifles that bear a similarity in appearance to “assault rifles” but are semi automatic in operation rather than select fire. In case you didn’t know, select fire means that the user can select the operation of the rifle. Single shot, or automatic/burst fire.

Many “hunting rifles” are semi automatic in operation. One pull of the trigger will cause a round to discharge, extract/eject the empty case, and a new round to be chambered from the magazine.

As defined by the act, it’s pretty much any firearm that isn’t a “plain vanilla” shotgun, pistol or hunting rifle.

Just to explain a bit more. Most guns you can buy these days are semiautomatic. All pistols except revolvers and most rifles. Shotguns are the big nonsemiautomatic gun, but these days some use a similar concept.

My shotgun is Semiautomatic.

Basically, an “assault weapon” is any (usually) semi-automatic firearm that looks scary.

There are single-shot pistols. Webley-Fosbery made a semi-automatic revolver from 1901 to 1915.

And I’ll agree with everyone else. An assalt rifle is capable of automatic fire (i.e., it’s a ‘machine gun’). ‘Assault weapon’ is a term made up for civilian firearms that look scary but that are functionally identical to myriad other sporting arms.

One you use to murder your family and friends with?

Leave grandpa’s car out of it - he didn’t mean to a) drive thru the crowd b) fall asleep at the wheel.

What really gets me is this one:

. Can anyone explain to me why having the magazine not in the grip sets a semiautomatic pistol down the road towards being an eeevil assault weapon? :dubious:

As noted, the term was made up by lawmakers largely based on cosmetics. Having a detatchable magazine not in the grip is scary-looking. The idea is to ban the TEC-9 and anything that remotely resembles a TEK-9, without having to enumerate each one.

Or an Uzi, where the magazine attaches to the grip, rather than in it.

The magazine on an Uzi does fit into the pistol grip.

An Uzi mag does go into the grip, it also protrudes out the bottom because it holds more rounds than a typical pistol mag. You can buy 20-30 round mags for pistols and they also protrude.

I note that the definition in the law specifically calls out the Uzi.

Most of it protrudes, though, right?

Tec-9, too.

It’s been a while since I’ve handled an Uzi (and I’ve never fired one), but I think most of the magazine is contained within the pistol grip. However magazines come in different sizes, so some may protrude more than the portion in the grip.

EDIT: I misspelled Tec-9 earlier.

The law may specifically mention the Uzi but it is worth mentioning that the Uzi is an automatic weapon and thus has been heavily restricted since the National Firearms Act of 1934. The Assault Weapons Ban actually changed nothing meaningful in regard to the legal status of the Uzi.