The loser kid who shot up a mall in Omaha yesterday did so with an SKS rifle. Many of the press reports I’m seeing today are referring to this as an “assault rifle”. Repeat after me:
The SKS is not an assault rifle.
The SKS is not an assault rifle.
The SKS is not an assault rifle.
The SKS is not an assault rifle.
The SKS is not an assault rifle.
The SKS is not an assault rifle.
The term assault rifle has a very specific and technical meaning: an assault rifle is a rifle that is capable of selective fire. That is, it’s a rifle that can fire both semi-automatically (one shot per trigger pull) and fully-automatically (multiple shots per trigger pull).
The SKS is not an assault rifle because it is not capable of automatic fire.
The SKS doesn’t even count as an “assault weapon” — that chickenshit, scary-sounding, made-up word that leftists use to refer to semi-automatic rifles that simply look like assault rifles — because it doesn’t have a pistol grip or a detachable magazine.
I’m not sure if the press has an agenda or is merely incompetent when they report on shootings. Certainly, using a real term incorrectly (assault rifle) is little improvement on using a made-up word (assault weapon).
Update 12-7-2007: It looks like it was a Kalashnikov, not an SKS. Most people refer to these as “AK-47s”, probably because that sounds scarier. However, while these commercial sporting rifles are based on the AK-47 design, they are not true AK-47s, nor true assault rifles, because they are also not capable of selective fire.
AK-47 (and later AK-74) refers to the assault rifle issued to Communist bloc soldiers. Kalashnikov (also AK clone) refers to semi-auto sporting arms sold commercially and resembling the AK-47. So:
The Kalashnikov (or AK clone, if you like) is also not an assault rifle.
The Kalashnikov is considered by some to be an “assault weapon” because of its pistol grip, detachable magazine, and general resemblance to the military AK-47, but remember that “assault weapon” is just a made-up word that doesn’t mean anything.
Tags: gun ignorance, guns, Kalashnikov