
Why is the AR-15 not an assault rifle?
No self-respecting gun owner would ever call his AR-15 an assault rifle, but many whoâve never done their research think the âARâ in âAR-15â stands for âAssault Rifle.â In reality, the initials stand for âArmalite Rifle,â and this modern sporting rifle is just as deadly as a Ruger Mini-14. Both are rifles sharing the same .223/5.56x45mm caliber and both accept 30 round box magazines. They even have a comparable muzzle velocity of ~3,000 fps and, most importantly, a rate of fire of one per trigger pull.Â

The AR-15. Not an assault rifle.
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The most obvious difference between the two rifles lies in their appearance. The Mini-14 has an unassuming wooden stock that wouldnât make it look out of place hanging over someoneâs fireplace, while the black polymer AR-15 has rails and an extended stock which make it look âscaryâ to anti-gun folks. What these people donât realize is that those âscaryâ features have nothing to do with making the gun more effective at killing. They exist for better ergonomics and modularity and not much else.Â
Firefieldâs rails and laser lights, for example, are seen by these same anti-gun people as being unnecessarily militaristic. Thereâs something intimidating about aggressive looking edges and the color black which gives sensitive people a sense of unease.Â
It seems because of people like this, the federal government, in all its wisdom, defines an âassault weaponâ as a semiautomatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable box magazine capable of holding more than fifteen rounds and has a pistol grip and/or a forward grip. Other cosmetic features such as folding stocks, barrel shrouds, threaded barrels or attached grenade launchers also constitute an âassault weapon.âÂ
Once again, none of these things make the AR-15 more dangerous than its wooden Ruger counterpart. In essence, the âassault weaponâ label is a product of political thought. The term is only used by people who hate guns and want to ban them, so in a practical sense, outside of law, an âassault weaponâ doesnât really exist.Â
What about an âassault rifle?â Does the AR-15 fall under this blanket term? While it has a distant relationship to the âassault weapon,â the term âassault rifleâ is used in a lot of popular media like movies and video games so it has a more neutral connotation than the very anti-gun âassault weapon.âÂ
The etymology of the word first came from the StG-44, the very first âassault rifle.â This German rifleâs designation stands for Sturmgewehr Vierundvierzig. Literally âAssault (sturm) rifle (gewehr) model of forty-four.â Named by Hitler himself, this rifle used an intermediate 7.92x33mm cartridge, smaller than the full-sized 8mm round used by the K98 Mauser. It also featured a select fire feature, enabling users to switch from semi-automatic fire to fully automatic fire with the flip of a switch.Â
The Sturmgewehr literally translates to "assault rifle."
To many modern firearm users, these two features â a rifleâs select-fire capability and its use of an intermediate cartridge, define an âassault rifle.â The AR-15, however, lacks a functional select-fire feature. By design, the AR-15 is a semi-automatic civilian sporting rifle, a completely different animal from the M4 the military uses, which is a select-fire service carbine.Â
In very simple terms â the AR-15 is just a semi-automatic rifle. No one should be calling it an assault weapon because itâs a made-up political term, and it can neither be called an assault rifle because of its lack of a select-fire mechanism.Â
The vast array of Firefieldâs optics, whether they be riflescopes like the Barrage 1.5 - 5x32 or red dots sights like the Impulse 1x28, are compatible with any modern sporting rifle with rails, whether they be AR-15s or Mini-14s.Â
Bernard R. Buckley
I agree with MJH. Itâs much easier to go after law abiding citizens than to go after Street criminals with guns. All phony BS!
OI
To MJH. You lose credibility even when making valid comments when begin to throw in words like communist, etc. If you want people to listen, give them something theyâll listen to. When you deliberately try to be offensive, you shut that down. I guess it all depends on your objective.
MJH
The term âassault weaponâ was made up by an individual named Josh Sugarmann in 1988. He wrote a piece called âAssault Weapons and accessories in America.â It became the blueprint for the Marxist progressive communist democrats to create and implement new gun control legislation.