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NSSF Distributes AR-15 Fact Card

NEWTOWN, Conn.—The National Shooting Sports Foundation is providing a Modern Sporting Rifle Fact Card to get out the mechanical facts of the operation of AR-15-style rifles.

"Groups wanting to ban AR-15-style rifles have for years purposely spread misinformation about these firearms to aid their cause," said Steve Sanetti, president of NSSF. "We must work harder to help protect the right of hunters and sports shooters to own the firearms of their choice, including semi-automatic rifles, pistols and shotguns, for lawful purposes. Gun owners everywhere can help correct the misinformed, whether it's a friend, fellow hunter, elected official or the media. NSSF is assisting this nationwide campaign by issuing the Modern Sporting Rifle Fact Card as a resource."

The pocket-size fact card is available to read or download. The card contains these facts, among others:

• The AR in "AR-15" rifle stands for "Armalite Rifle," after the company that developed it in the 1950s. "AR" does NOT stand for "assault rifle" or "automatic rifle."
• AR-15-style rifles are NOT "assault weapons" or "assault rifles." An assault rifle is fully automatic -- a machine gun. Automatic firearms have been severely restricted from civilian ownership since 1934.
• If someone calls an AR-15-style rifle an "assault weapon," he or she either supports banning these firearms or does not understand their function and sporting use, or both. Please correct them. "Assault weapon" is a political term created by California anti-gun legislators to ban some semi-automatic rifles there in the 1980s.
• AR-15-style rifles look like military rifles, such as the M-16, but function like other semi-automatic civilian sporting firearms, firing only one round with each pull of the trigger.
• Chamberings include .22, .223 (5.56 x 45mm), 6.8 SPC, .308, .450 Bushmaster and about a dozen others. Upper receivers for pistol calibers such as 9 mm, .40, and .45 are available. There are even .410 shotgun versions.

To download the pdf, click here.

Reader Comments

"Assault weapon" is a political term created by California anti-gun legislators to ban some semi-automatic rifles there in the 1980s.

No, that's not accurate. The term was coined by Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Policy Center. His openly expressed, deliberate attempt to deceive citizens and politicians into believing that semi-auto rifles were the same thing as machine guns just because they look externally similar is as follows:

"The public's confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons -- anything that looks like a machine gun is presumed to be a machine gun -- can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."

Give the devil his due: Josh is one slicker-than-snot lyin' sumbitx.

Gaviota

Comment by: Lee W | October 27, 2009

I downloaded the pdf: just to have it. Other than that I remembered why I have never bought this weapon. Other than being a piece of junk on the whole. It is ungainly in the handling of it at least for me, give an M-1, or M1A

Comment by: philbo1311 | November 1, 2009

Re the origin of "assault weapon" -- I'm wondering if it was actually "coined" by Sugarmann; perhaps he simply discovered it and adopted using it for political purposes. I had always believed that it arose as a term referring to the German MP-44, either during or just after WWII, translated from the German "sturmgewehr". (Of course, the technical definition is a semi- and full-automatic rifle firing an intermediate-range cartridge smaller and weaker than the full-powered military cartridges of the time (.303 British, 30-'06, 7.62 X 54 Russian, etc.)). You can argue that a 7.62 NATO-caliber rifle isn't an "assault weapon" by this definition, but should instead be referred to as a "battle rifle", which I have seen used by some gun writers. Only rifles firing 5.56 mm, 7.62 X 39, 5.45 mm Russian, & the like would truly be "assault weapons". Of course, then you hang a .450 Bushmaster or .50 Beowulf upper on your AR and we can argue definitions for days after that... :-)

Will (retired employee of the US Army Materiel Command)

Comment by: WILLIAM M | November 2, 2009

The term assault rifle does indeed pre-date Sugarmann, but he brought the concept of assault WEAPON into play as part of VPC's disinformation propaganda to persuade voters and pols who are ignorant of the subject of firearms that semi-auto rifles are actually machine guns used by criminals.

German "sturmgewehr" translates literally as "stormrifle." Actually gewehr can mean any long gun, either rifle or shotgun.

Anyway, the Army and Marines don't use the specious phrase assault weapon. They call their select-fire, magazine fed, gas-operated firearms rifles. It's only the dishonest civil-and-human-rights thieves who call semi-automatic firearms assault weapons, and they often don't distinguish between rifles, shotgun, and handguns. If it's semi-auto, it's an assault weapon. They also call scoped deer rifles sniper weapons.

So much for open, civil debate with leftists.

Gaviota

Comment by: Lee W | November 2, 2009