AR-15 (courtesy assaultweapon.info)

“In most parts of Florida, you can buy a rapid-fire assault weapon at a private gun show without a criminal background check. But you do need one, complete with fingerprints, to help consumers sign up for health insurance,” William E. Gibson of sun-sentinel.com reports. To be fair, Gibson goes on to make the distinction between Americans exercising a Constitutionally protected right and entrusting personal health data to strangers sucking off the tit of political patronage. For our purposes, the appearance of the term “rapid-fire assault rifle” is more worrying. It’s a brazen attempt to [further] conflate semi-automatic rifles with fully-automatic machine guns. The People of the Gun may laugh, but this kind of Orwellian double-talk but it should be resisted at all costs. Words matter. [email protected] or 202-824-8256

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57 COMMENTS

  1. Hmmm…

    So logically, then, there must be slow-firing assault weapons …. Such as muzzleloaders, perhaps? Or how about trebuchets? (They are used to assault positions, or were at any rate.)

    And there must also be rapid-fire non-assault weapons.

    Right? So since they made up the categories, what can we push into them?

    • Always found it funny that “FMJ” was considered an add-on to the bullets while Hollow Points was a death streak…. so what the heck were the bullets? Ball ammo? lol

  3. The complete phrase should be “rapid-fire insurrection assault weapon of war.”

    They are losing, guys. They’re losing so badly that the stench of desperation is pouring off of them and coming right through our screens.

    • I agree they’re losing, you can tell by their desperate attempts to gain traction any way they can.

      I would contend, however, that the smell you’re detecting is Knob Creek…..

      • Like the awesome shooting venue or the pretty decent bourbon? Either way I’m cool with that. There are only a few smells that elicit an emotional response from me: bourbon, gun oil, oscillating bearing grease and burnt gun powder. Hopefully one day I will be able to add the smell of the antis’ pitiful tears to that list.

  6. You can by a small bore semiautomatic rifle at Florida gun shows from a private individual without a background check. You can’t by any firearm produced after 1898 anywhere from an FFL without a background check. Jokes about slow or fast firing assault rifles not withstanding we are see a return to the “gun show loophole nonsense.” We have have to stay on message and keep shooting down this talk about gun shows not requiring a NICS check. Most states allow private sales without checks but there are few gun shows where private persons make up anything more than a handful of modern firearms sales.

  7. I can buy a rapid acceleration, ballistic vehicle with out a background check or a license. OMG OMG. Ugh, this getting sickening.

    • got on that topic with the editor, asked if i could call jeep wranglers “high capacity long distance combat machines” with dangerous handling, engines that produce speeds greater than any legal US roadway, and were civilian versions of the ww2 assault vehicles. and seriously most people don’t “need” 4×4…..idiots

  8. Can we just destroy all guns. I need time to learn important things like how to kill someone with swords or how to punch through a guys skull in one attempt.

    • You must first envision what is beyond the skull. Then you must reach for it with your fist. The skull will no longer be a hinderance to your punching what is beyond it when your vision is true enough.

      It takes patience young grasshopper. Perhaps you should practice more.

  9. I just wrote the following e-mail to Mr. Gibson.

    “Mr. Gibson:

    Read your anti-gun agitprop piece in the Sun Sentinel. Your use of the term “Rapid Fire Assault Weapon” is a feeble attempt to prod low information voters to associate legally owned modern sport rifles with fully automatic military weapons. Modern sporting rifles like the AR15 are no more “rapid fire capable” than my son’s Boy Scout endorsed Ruger 10/22 rifle we use for shooting at paper targets at Scout Camp. One round discharges with each pull of the trigger. AR15s are not M16s, they are not machine guns, they are not fully automatic weapons. They are functionally identical to any semi-automatic firearm sold in this country used by your grandfather or uncle to harvest hogs or coyotes or Boy Scouts to shoot at paper.

    If you want to be anti-Constitutional, that’s your right, but when your propaganda is published using technically incorrect, inflammatory double speak, expect to be called out on it.”

  10. In one day I find posts on speed devices and anti-speed articles: The mid-term elections, plus the need for distractions from the growing list of scandals, are prompting a roll-out of ‘all your guns are belong to us’ 3.0. It’s sort of a psychic flash-bang for undecided voters. No surprise. What say we all wait until late November, 2014, for feature articles on sporting rifle speed innovations? It will take me that long to find the surgeon who does the MEFCI (Miculek Electronic Finger Contraction Implant) operation, anyway. I assume my ODoesntCare policy will cover that bit?

    I agree with the ‘I can smell the fear’ analysis. Nonetheless I’d like to see the MSR fall fully into the same slot the Winchester ’94 once held, an item so typically American that slandering it is cause for summary deportation to Chicago. It would appear we’re getting close.

    • No, please not Chicago. We don’t need more of those types. I hold no illusions that the city will ever be free, but I’d like to forestall the day that the city council decides to conduct house-to-house searches for firearms as long as possible.

  11. Put a 5.56 cal. on a traditional wood stock, semi-auto, with a 20 round magazine. Problem solved. Then what would they call it? Put a 7.62 cal. on a traditional wood stock, semi-auto with 20 round magazine and I would call it “darlin”. They have them already I know, but they just do not look as scary as the Swiss army knife type of a rifle that so many know and love.

    • Since everybody else gets it and you don’t, since you are too hung up on that you are being corrected, rather than WHY you are being corrected, here goes. A 5.56 CAL would be just over 5 and a half INCHES in diameter, which is artillery projectile size. The interchangeability of sizes is 5.56 MM and .223 CAL. There are differences between the two, but that is the size commonality.

  12. I just got back from my LGS where I picked up a ultra-high capacity, accelerated, assault, ammunition feeding drum magazine clip. (i.e. Magpul 30)

  13. I’m going to open a new company called FBA: Fluffy Bunny Armament. I will produce modern sporting rifles just like everybody else, but they will have names such as the Unicorn Fart, Sweet Pea, and Sugar Tits. That way the general public will poop in their pants a little bit less upon hearing the name used in popular parlance. Plus i’ll die laughing every time a news anchor says my product name with a straight face. American made, possibly using (pink or purple) Magpul furniture, price point starting around $700, who wants one? (Extra $30 for the muzzle brake that looks like a Sour Patch Kid)

    • Can I order a matched pair of Sugar Tits in 7.62×51 with custom serial numbers? XXXXXXX-L and XXXXXXX-R, for example.

      Please post lead time and deposit required. Copy of my dealer’s FFL to follow. 🙂

    • I was on almost a month long streak of reading TTAG comments without spitting anything on my screen. Thank you for ending it…..

    • “…pink or purple”

      Anything with a pearl finish?

      I’ve got an older house and I kind of tend towards the ‘vintage’ stuff…. have you got anything in those spiffy anodized aluminum colors that were popular in the 50’s and 60’s.

      • You name it, I can do it. I’ll even put a bead on your front sight that looks like those AWESOME colored glass balls people put in their yards for some reason. And maybe put some shag on your pistol grip. Wait… That came out wrong…

    • Let us know when you are up and running. I would seriously buy one. I am already building a couple of themed ARs, and we all know how the Hello Kitty AR went over, that rifle is a rock star in it’s own right. I was thinking of a Barney AR.

  16. The concluding remark of the article reflects a rabid desperation in the anti-2A. mentality.

    “I’d be more concerned about whether these people [navigators] have concealed-weapons permits,” he [Arthur Hayhoe] said. “They shouldn’t be hired if they do. Of course, the NRA would scream and holler if that came about.”

    Right, and no non-Democrat registered voters should be allowed to hold those civil service jobs. One stupid idea deserves another.

    • “I’d be more concerned about whether these people [navigators] have concealed-weapons permits”

      Me too. If they did, I’d know that they’ve been thoroughly vetted and more honest than, say, the average cop, politician or hoplophobic assh0le.

  17. It’s at least worthy of consideration that the lines are being blurred between NFA full auto weapons and still-considered-semi firearms. The Tac Con assisted trigger that folks were peeing themselves over (just a few stories down) and the Slide-Fire stock are perfect examples. While earlier renditions of burst fire devices were pretty gimmicky, these new, robust technologies are indeed capable of turning a modern sporting rifle into the functional equivalent of an assault rifle.

    Do I care? Not particularly, but it does make it harder for us to innocently bat our eyes and say, “Oh, you’re referring to those NFA arms that hardly anyone owns, and that are highly restricted.” To the great unwashed, the difference between pulling the trigger once for multiple shots and having the gun assist you in pulling its own trigger for multiple shots, is moot. Which means we should be pressing to eliminate the NFA distinction altogether.

  18. I just wrote him.

    Planning on calling him tomorrow.

    Maybe if we absolutely crush him with emails and phone calls these “journalist” will be less likely to pull stunts like this.

    • No, it will up his “body count” of people claiming to have read his trash screed, and earn him a raise and reprise.

  20. I like watching them complain about tools I have as it reinforces the decision to spend the money. I’m looking for a .45 right now to validate the 2 A with at the moment.

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