A FIREARMS DEFINITION LIST By William R. Dietrick

This was submitted to the Denver Post editorial staff in hopes of curing
their bad habit of using incorrect "buzz-words"

INFANTRY RIFLE: Long gun, medium to high-power cartridge, either
bolt-action or semi-automatic, multiple-shot, Fed by either internal
magazines loaded by stripper clips, or inserted exterior magazines.
Primarily used by infantry troops. Examples include the Springfield
1901A1, the British Enfield Mks I through IV, the Garand M1, the Chinese
SKS, the Ml carbine, and the M14. Many of these rifles have been
converted to sporting firearms for big-game hunting. Perfectly legal to
be owned by private civilians.
SUB-MACHINEGUN: Short, low-power cartridge, fully-automatic firearms, fed
by externally-inserted magazines (including drums). Primarily used by
paratroops and as a backup weapon for infantry providing high-volume fire
support at close quarters, such as house-to-house sweeps,
search-and-destroy operations. etc. Handy for paratroops as they are
short and compact for heavily-loaded air-dropped personnel. Also favored
by civilian police SWAT units for concentrated fire. Examples include the
M3 "grease gun," the Thompson .45, the Uzi, the Swedish K, the H&K MP5,
and the M2 carbine. These are select-fire or fully automatic, and cannot
he owned by civilian personnel, unless they have a Federal Class Ill
firearms license. No legally owned firearm in this genre has ever been
involved in a crime in this country. Semiautomatic versions of these
firearms may legally be owned by civilians.
ASSAULT RIFLE: Medium-length, medium-power cartridge, fully-automatic or
select-fire firearms, magazine-fed, designed for infantry troops. In
modern armies, these have largely supplanted the infantry rifle, as they
provide nearly as good accuracy with far higher fire volume. In some
cases, they mount, in addition, a grenade launcher under the barrel.
Examples include the M-16, the Chinese or Russian Kalashnikov AK-47, and
the Stoner weapons system. These, again, may not be owned by civilians
without a Class Ill license. Some semi-automatic models of these rifles
exist, and may legally be owned by civilians. The M-16 in the semi-auto
version is marketed as the AR-15.
MACHINE GUN: These are fully-automatic weapons designed to provide a
continuous field of fire for troop suppression to cover advances or to
protect a hardened position. Also used on troop carriers, tanks,
helicopters, and jeeps/Hummers. They are either belt-fed or canister-fed,
and are capable of a high sustained rate of fire with high-powered
cartridges. Examples include the M60 (7.62 NATO cartridge), the Browning
.50 (.50-caliber very-high-power) and the Browning .30 (.30-06
cartridge). These may not be owned by civilians without a Class III
license, unless the firearm has been certified de-commissioned (rendered
totally unable to fire or capable of being rebuilt to fire).
ASSAULT WEAPON: A meaningless term invented by the anti-gun movement to
demonize any firearm which they consider ugly. There is no accepted
definition of this term. A number of municipalities (including Denver)
and states (including California) have attempted to define the term, but
have been unsuccessful in doing so, without also outlawing a number of
perfectly legitimate hunting rifles which are functionally identical in
all regards. Some have attempted to do so by banning specific firearms,
and this was done with the Denver ordinance. The Denver ordinance was not
based on any scientific or engineering criteria, but simply by picking
"ugly" guns out of a catalog. As a result, certain firearms are illegal
in Denver, but identical models of different calibers are perfectly
legal. There is no rhyme or reason to their bannings, and it even
includes at least one single-shot bolt-action rifle! Rifles commonly used
across the State of Colorado for varmint hunting, medium-game hunting,
and high-power competition are banned in Denver. The California
"Assault-Weapons" Bill was an example of banning by specifying specific
firearms as being "assault weapons," but the law was recently invalidated
by the courts, as the statute was determined to be unconstitutionally
vague. Again, in this instance, there was no functional difference
between the banned firearms and conventional hunting rifles.
SEMI-AUTOMATIC: A self-loading firearm, which ejects the spent shell upon
firing, inserts another loaded cartridge into the chamber, and locks the
bolt, readying the firearm for another shot. This type of firearm will
fire once for each pull of the trigger, but the trigger must be pulled
for each shot. Examples are the semi-auto pistols used by most police
departments and many civilians, and many hunting rifles, both small and
large caliber. Other uses include target competition, silhouette
shooting, practical pistol competition, etc.
BURST-FIRE: A reasonably new concept only lately introduced to the
military. Few individuals can hold a rifle on target in fully-automatic
mode. The recoil, even of medium-power cartridges, causes the muzzle to
climb under successive shots. This has the effect of the rifle "climbing"
off-target, wasting most of the ammunition. The US Army recently had
their newest M-16's converted to "burst-fire," wherein each pull of the
trigger will rapidly fire three shots. The trigger then has to be pulled
again before the next burst will fire. This prevents wild, sustained,
unaimed firing which wastes ammunition and does little to stop an
advancing enemy. The concept is that the rifleman will aim each burst.
FULLY-AUTOMATIC: This firearm will continuously load, fire, eject,
reload, and fire again, as long as the trigger is depressed, or until the
arm runs out of ammunition. Journalists often fail to distinguish between
semi-autos and full-autos, but the terms are not interchangeable. This is
partly attributable to the firearms manufacturers, who have been lax in
their descriptions. Browning, for instance, markets their upper-line
semi-automatic hunting rifle as the "BAR," or Browning Automatic Rifle.
The true term should be Browning Semi-Automatic Rifle, or BSAR. There was
an actual "BAR," or Browning (Fully-)Automatic Rifle used by United
States troops in WWII, Korea, and Viet Nam. This was a .30-06 caliber
fully-automatic rifle, usually used as a heavy-suppression firearm for
squads, one per company, as a rule. They are no longer in production, and
are no longer issued to US troops. However, many are still in use in
third-world armies. Those who are familiar with firearms have understood
this historically, but to the uninformed public, there is little
comprehension when they see "auto-pistol," for instance, in a news
article.