In the wake of the Aurora, CO shooting I’ve been hearing a
lot of people talking about how we ought to have tighter controls on people
buying assault rifles. It’s kind of an odd thing to say in the context of the
Aurora incident because the shooter didn’t have an assault rifle. This
confusion is due to a bit of obfuscation on the part of the gun control lobby.
“Assault rifle” is a well-defined military term. It is a
rifle intended to be used by an individual with provisions to be fired from the
shoulder, capable of full automatic fire, using a cartridge more powerful than
a handgun round but less powerful than a standard rifle, uses a detachable box
magazine, and has a minimum effective range of 1000 feet. The requirement for
full automatic fire capability is an important one because it means assault
rifles are regulated under the National Firearms Act of 1968.
“Assault weapon” is a term coined by the gun control lobby.
It’s not particularly well defined and is generally applied to any weapon they
want to demonize with the intent of confusing people and making them think they’re
talking about an assault rifle. The closest “assault weapon” has ever come to
being defined is probably the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of
1994 aka the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. That defined assault weapons as
semi-automatic rifles, pistols, and shotguns that had two or more cosmetic
features from a list provided in the bill.
Note the difference. Assault rifles are defined by how they
operate. Assault weapons by how they look. Notice also that the one criterion
for how an assault weapon functions, that it be semi-automatic, disqualifies it
as an assault rifle. Semi-automatic guns fire only one round per pull of the
trigger. Assault rifles are capable of full automatic fire, allowing them to
fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger.
The Aurora shooter used an AR-15 rifle. The first AR-15 was
built by a company called ArmaLite as an assault rifle to be used by the US
military. Colt bought the design from ArmaLite and it was rebranded as the M16.
Colt then created their own AR-15, a semi-automatic version of the M16 intended
for civilian use. As a semi-automatic rifle, i.e. one that only fires one round
per pull of the trigger, the AR-15 is not an assault rifle. It can be modified for
full automatic fire but doing so involves using parts regulated by the National
Firearms Act of 1968.
The National Firearms Act of 1968 controls the transfer and
ownership of machine guns. Assault rifles are classified as machine guns
because of their full automatic fire capability. Under the NFA of 1968 you need
the permission of both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the
Chief Law Enforcement Officer of your area to transfer (sell) an assault rifle.
It should come as no surprise that they are very reluctant to grant such
permission. An extensive background check will be performed on the buyer and
even if it comes up clean permission may still be denied. Legally owned assault
rifles aren’t much of a problem when it comes to civilian gun violence. More
regulation seems unlikely to impact illegally obtained assault rifles because,
well, they’re illegally obtained.
