@strawd @freemo not really. Once the bullet leaves the weapon the type of weapon is immaterial. You can fire the same rounds through weapons that are not styled like a military weapon. Style has no effect on what damage is done by a bullet.

@JonKramer Well, that may be overstating the point. I'd much rather be shot by a 9mm pistol than a 5.56 rifle.

But "assault rifle" isn't the thing that matters, I think. (Hunting rifles can do far more damage than an "assault rifle", depending.)

@ech , in general, a hunting rifle has a bigger more powerful bullet than an AR. ARs are almost universally .223, not .556 NATO as well. And a 9 mm, although a bigger round, is not as powerful as a hunting rifle of any calibre. That might be the weakest round commonly used outside a 22 or a 25. And law enforcement has made the slow rolled switch to the 10mm or others because the 9mms tend to bounce off things, like windshields.

@strawd @freemo , this link will show you the style of different rifles that use the same ammunition:

https://gritrsports.com/shooting/firearms/rifles/223-remington-rifles/

@strawd No thats not true, in fact quite the opposite. Assault rifles, like the AR-15 has an actual term for it, it is called a "small game rifle". The bullets are very small and relative to other rifles very low power. They are designed to kill small animals like fox and leave tbe animal relatively intact

@freemo "ban guns" is so polarizing, as is "stop the mass shootings". I'd like to see several other moderate, broadly popular and acceptable, measures be put in place at the federal level.

Unfortunately those things can't get traction due to the gun lobby. And the next stop on the argument train is "ban some guns".

@finity the issue is a lot of the ideas coming down the line for gun control is always coming from the left and while i recognize they are at times a compromise to just banning guns, they never take the rights concerns into consideration, so there is always deadlock.

If we want solutions people need to get creative and get into the heads of both sides.

@freemo I think the measures I outlined above do take rights concerns into consideration, and I'm aware of at least a couple attempts to implement some - that immediately were treated as non-starters.

I agree with "getting into the heads of both sides", but I think political gridlock on this is solidly due to the industry lobbies. They should have some say, but it outweighs the desires of the many by quite a bit, and that's undemocratic at the least.

@Pat But that isn't what "assault rifle" means, when people talk about banning them.

@ech

The term "assault rifle" has a very well defined and specific meaning:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault_rifle#Definition

It's a fully automatic firearm (select fire actually).

They use a bottleneck cartridge (the cartridge is where the powder is and is a larger diameter than the lead bullet projectile so that more force is applied to the projectile). It can produce more net energy to the projectile than a pistol round (which is used in sub-machine guns like an Uzi.

It's basic physics p = mv. Even though the bullet is a smaller diameter (smaller mass), like the 5.56 NATO, it delivers more energy than a 9mm pistol round used in a sub-machine gun because it has more powder to produce more velocity. So, e.g., a 9mm Parabellum pistol round produces about 500J of energy, while a smaller caliber 5.56 NATO produces about 1800J because it has more powder.

And since powder weighs less than lead, assault rifles can deliver more raw firepower with a lighter weapon.

But as I said, assault rifles are already banned in the US (unless you have a special permit) because they are fully automatic.

@Pat The term "assault weapon" has lost most of its meaning, unfortunately.

Yes: automatic/select-fire weapons are generally illegal in every state, and those are almost never used in "mass shootings" (probably because they're illegal and really hard to get).

However, this is not what people mean when they respond to shootings like in TN with "we need to ban assault rifles".

And it isn't what California means when it bans assault rifles. (It means things like flash suppressors and various safety features, because it's absurd.)

I think @freemo is objecting to this use of the term, not yours.

@ech

The term "assault weapon" never had a definite meaning, it was always ambiguous; probably to give politicians more wiggle room.

>'However, this is not what people mean when they respond to shootings like in TN with "we need to ban assault rifles".'

I'm not sure what people mean when they say things because I can't read their minds and people often lie these days.

When Pete Buttigieg was running in the Dem primaries in 2015 he needed to take a position on guns and he said he supported restrictions on "assault rifles". I'm pretty sure he knows the difference since he was recently a lieutenant in the Navy. He was likely trying to appeal to the Dem base (because they're ignorant about such things) while sending a dog whistle to the 2A supporters in the party (many of whom would understand exactly what he was saying).

I no longer even watch coverage of mass shootings anymore because I don't want to see a distorted view of what's going on in teams of actual numbers.

@freemo