[partialrecall]

> Literally the one difference between the "official", Hitler-approved definition of "assault rifle" and an AR-15 is that the AR-15 doesn't support selective fire.

In case anybody isn't clear on what that means: one is a machine gun and the other is not.

[tptacek]

I mean, sort of? If we're going this deep into the weeds on terminology, a machine gun is optimized for sustained fully automatic fire; in particular, it's heavier and doesn't become impossible to handle due to heat after prolonged firing. Automatic rifles are not generally machine guns.

"Selective fire" is the gun nerd way of saying "capable of fully automatic fire".

[kls]

All automatic rifles fall into the categories under machine guns and are thus banned as machine guns. A select fire carbine battle rifle such as the Uzi or the MP5 are in fact classified as sub-machine guns. The term machine gun denotes a firearm that can fire more than a single round with a single trigger pull. There are pistols that are classified as machine guns.

[masonic]

  Automatic rifles are not generally machine guns.

Words no longer mean things, then.