What constitutes an "Assault Weapon"?

Most gun-control laws that politicians attempt to pass target guns which they define as "assault weapons".
However, most times this rather nebulous definition includes semi-auto hunting rifles, certain handguns, and guns with rails along the top and bottom.

So, I pose the question to you - What do you believe constitutes an "Assault Weapon"?
E.G. What types of guns do you think civilians should not legally be able to purchase?

A quick run-down on various gun types, for those not-in-the-know:

- A FULLY-AUTOMATIC firearm (Aka a machine gun) is a weapon which fires continuously as long as the trigger is being held down until the magazine is empty. These are typically rifles, firing a moderate to large round, however, there are also many compact fully-automatic pistols on the market, such as the Uzi and G18. The modern military typically uses 3 rounds burst weapons - they fire 3 rounds each time the trigger is pulled. However, space for questions is limited in these poles, so I am grouping 3-round burst weapons in with full-auto weapons.

FULLY AUTOMATIC FIREARMS CANNOT CURRENTLY BE PURCHASED BY CIVILIANS WITHOUT A SPECIAL PERMIT

- A SEMI-AUTOMATIC firearm is a weapon which fires once every time you pull the trigger until the magazine is empty. This includes many rifles, such as the AR-15 and Ruger Mini-14 (Both of which are now banned by the recent AWB). Most pistols, such as the Glock and Colt 1911 are Semi-automatics.

- A BOLT-ACTION rifle is a weapon which requires you to manually work the bolt to load a new round into the chamber each time you fire the rifle. These are most commonly used as hunting rifles.

- A MUSKET is a black powder rifle which requires you to load it from the front of the barrel, typically requiring up to 2 - 3 minutes to load after each shot. Many people enjoy hunting with black powder rifles, however, I have never fired a black powder rifle, and as such I don't have much experience with them.


Please note, due to limited question space I had to ignore many common weapon subcategories, such as: pump-action rifles / shotguns, bolt-action rifles without a magazine, lever-action rifles, bull-pup rifles, shotguns, large-caliber firearms, etc.

If you find that your opinion is not represented among the possible answers, please choose the answer closest to, or above your preferred answer, and comment with more detail.


-- Please excuse any factual errors, to the best of my knowledge, all the information I provided is accurate, but I'm only human --

WMDs have no real value to an individual and do have interstate and international implications

everything else is commonly issued to civilian police departments and thus are legitimately owned by other civilians for the same purpose cops are issued them

There is no option that all of these weapons should be able to be owned by law abiding citizens.

Right now all of the weapons listed except for the Stinger and WMD's can be legally owned by law abiding citizens.

I know someone who does own a tank and there are hundreds of tanks owned by citizens.

There are many civilians who do own and fly military jet fighters.

Any law abiding U.S. citizen can legally purchase and possess a fully automatic machinegun from a sub machinegun to a .50 cal Browning M-2 heavy machinegun. All you have to do is pass a background check and pay a one time ATF tax. Here is the current on line auction taking place right now -> Machine Guns - Gun Auction - Machine Guns at GunBroker.com

The problem now with the law on purchasing a full automatic machinegun which are known as transferable machineguns. That they had to be manufactured before 1986. This law should be repealed !

The ATF report to Congress shows that there are over a 1/4 of a million fully automatic weapons legally owned by law abiding U.S. citizens. In the past 70 years, not one of these legally owned machineguns has ever been used in a crime, not once.

My research shows that since 1920 not one tank owned by a civilian has ever been used in a crime. The only tank ever used in a crime was a M-60 tank stolen from an army reserve center in San Diego, Ca.

No military jet fighter owned by a U.S. citizen civilian has ever been used in a crime.

Liberals get their panties all tied up in a knot anytime they hear the word bayonet. They will classify a rifle with a bayonet lug as an assault rifle. The last person to be bayoneted in America was over 130 years ago. Some soldier stuck a bayonet in the back of some native America.

Technically none of those things in the poll options. An assault weapon is a semi-automatic firearm(this includes revolver shotguns in some states) with certain cosmetic features that make the anti-2nd amendment crowd piss and **** their panties if you go by what the Brady says and any shotgun with a revolving cylinder in Diene Fienstiens proposed assault weapons ban.

This poll didn't allow me to vote. I guess I'm going to have to pick something. I got it: muskets.

OhIsee.Then said:

This poll didn't allow me to vote. I guess I'm going to have to pick something. I got it: muskets.

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Nope, can't ban muskets and the ilk.

WMD, obviously.

Tanks, fighters... if fully armed rather than de-mil'd, certainly some serious regulation is in order. Ditto stinger missles and mounted machine guns, artillery, mortars.

Full auto-capable infantry rifles... grey area, up for discussion... but really, since it is a common infantry small-arm it probably should be covered under the 2A. Some regulation, maybe like Class III weapons but without the antiquated requirement.

Semi-autos are common arms and should not be regulated any more than they already are, magazine size ban is not justifiable as it isn't going to have any significant effect on those RARE crimes committed with such weapons.

Goshin said:

WMD, obviously.

Tanks, fighters... if fully armed rather than de-mil'd, certainly some serious regulation is in order. Ditto stinger missles and mounted machine guns, artillery, mortars.

Full auto-capable infantry rifles... grey area, up for discussion... but really, since it is a common infantry small-arm it probably should be covered under the 2A. Some regulation, maybe like Class III weapons but without the antiquated requirement.

Semi-autos are common arms and should not be regulated any more than they already are, magazine size ban is not justifiable as it isn't going to have any significant effect on those RARE crimes committed with such weapons.

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That's right about where I stand too.
I kind of support background checks for full-auto weapons, but it would have to be defined in more detail.
Everything else should be legal to own, and although I do understand doing background checks to make sure you're not selling guns to a psychopath or convicted murderer, doing these checks is not, in my opinion, Constitutional.

OhIsee.Then said:

This poll didn't allow me to vote. I guess I'm going to have to pick something. I got it: muskets.

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Only muskets should be banned, because they can be dangerous.

Pr0metheus said:

That's right about where I stand too.
I kind of support background checks for full-auto weapons, but it would have to be defined in more detail.
Everything else should be legal to own, and although I do understand doing background checks to make sure you're not selling guns to a psychopath or convicted murderer, doing these checks is not, in my opinion, Constitutional.

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I'm willing to put up with NICS to buy from a dealer, as a compromise. I don't think it is strictly Constitutional under strict scrutiny, but that could be debated.

The thing that gripes me is that the number of prosecutions and convictions for felons attempting to buy illegally is really tiny... they're not even enforcing what laws they have, why do they need more?

There is no such things, its a political term who's meaning changes. I voted for the definition of an "Assault Rifle" because the only thing that matters is action, since all semi-autos can receive detachable magazines of any size.

jamesrage said:

Technically none of those things in the poll options. An assault weapon is a semi-automatic firearm(this includes revolver shotguns in some states) with certain cosmetic features that make the anti-2nd amendment crowd piss and **** their panties if you go by what the Brady says and any shotgun with a revolving cylinder in Diene Fienstiens proposed assault weapons ban.

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The poll was about where YOU would draw the line, not where politicians draw the line.

Goshin said:

WMD, obviously.

Tanks, fighters... if fully armed rather than de-mil'd, certainly some serious regulation is in order. Ditto stinger missles and mounted machine guns, artillery, mortars.

Full auto-capable infantry rifles... grey area, up for discussion... but really, since it is a common infantry small-arm it probably should be covered under the 2A. Some regulation, maybe like Class III weapons but without the antiquated requirement.

Semi-autos are common arms and should not be regulated any more than they already are, magazine size ban is not justifiable as it isn't going to have any significant effect on those RARE crimes committed with such weapons.

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Only semi-automatic fighters should be banned.

Goshin said:

The thing that gripes me is that the number of prosecutions and convictions for felons attempting to buy illegally is really tiny... they're not even enforcing what laws they have, why do they need more?

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That's true, but I do have to wonder if that's because there are background checks, e.g. why try if it will only get you in trouble.
Honestly, I really don't want convicted violent criminals to be able to buy a gun, BUT they can already do that on the black market quite easily.
It's a very tricky issue.

Pr0metheus said:

The poll was about where YOU would draw the line, not where politicians draw the line.

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The thread title itself is "What constitutes an assault weapon". None of those things in the poll options legally constitute an assault weapons. As for where I would draw the line it would be nukes and other WMDs, I do not think even governments should be allowed to have those things.