Oy! Will this "semi-automatic" thing never stop?

[cthulu2016]

TV discussions of gun control and gun violence seem to use "semi-automatic" to imply a special, unusual type of weapon.

"Semi-automatic" means a gun where a new bullet is fed into the chamber automatically when a shot is fired that is not a machine gun. A machine gun is "fully automatic."

People say these semi-automatic weapons fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. Yes, they do. As opposed to what? A musket?

A revolver (non-semi-automatic) also fires every time you pull the trigger. But since your finger provides the impetus to advance the next bullet it's usually slower than an automatic.

(A pump-action shot-gun is not at all automatic. It requires you to manually feed in the next shell by pumping—neither firing nor squeezing the trigger advance a new cartridge.)

Almost all guns today are semi-automatics, as opposed to revolvers. The guns cops use today are mostly automatics. (The most common cop gun used to be a .38 caliber revolver, but most cops I see today have glocks or something similar.)

A fully automatic weapon is a machine gun. Firing the previous shot advances another bullet which is then itself fired automatically, as long as you hold the trigger down.

The news loves to talk about "semi-automatic weapons" with the implication that they are machine guns (which are illegal) or somehow unusual.

What the heck is a non semi-automatic assault weapon?

I have no use for guns, myself. I don't like them. But I do not like misleading use of language and I know that "semi-automatic" is not a special category of terror weapons. It is a statement of a limitation... that the weapon is not a machine gun.

[SoutherDem]

1. You of course are correct

The problem IMHO is this is a passionate issue, fully automatic, semi-automatic, assault weapon, and assault style weapon are all terms which are often uses and misused in this argument. They are often interchanged even if they shouldn't be.

[Taverner]

2. If guns were banned in Colorado, I am sure he would have found another way

illegal guns, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails...there are many ways to kill large amounts of people

[Populist_Prole]

3. I second that

Too many "definitions" are politically motivated and pay little, or most often, no attention to the actual mechanics.

[RedStateLiberal]

4. The shotgun he had was non semi-automatic.

MSNBC reported it was a Remington 870 which is a pump shotgun.

And you are absolutely correct. "Semi-automatic" gets used way too much and makes it sound like the weapon was fully automatic to those who know little about guns.

[woo me with science]

6. Good post. nt

[4th law of robotics]

7. Semi-auto is typically a setting available on machine guns

Military grade machine guns.

So semi-automatics are guns that have been modified to have features found on military assault weapons.

Other military grade features found on these modified assault pistols: ergonomic grip designed to enhance ease of shooting, full metal barrels, spring fed clips, and squeezable triggers.

/may as well go full derp.

[cthulu2016]

9. That's simply incorrect

A semi-automatic is any firearm which automatically reloads, but will only fire one round per trigger pull.

It has nothing to do with military weapons.

A semi-automatic M-16 is modified to ELIMINATE features found on military assault weapons.

A fully automatic design (the military M-16) is modified so that it cannot operate as a fully automatic weapon, because it is illegal for civilians to have fully automatic weapons.

[4th law of robotics]

10. I was making a joke

running with the long standing tradition of taking ordinary guns and giving them scary qualifiers (cop killing bullets, high powered rifles, assault weapons, military style, etc).

[cthulu2016]

11. I apologize!

I now understand the full-derp comment.

My bad.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. In Google News, I can find 2 "semi-automatic rifles", 1 "semi-automatic weapon"

and 1 "Glocks are semi-automatic". Nothing about "semi-automatic assault weapons". Rifles aren't all semi-automatic, so the adjective is OK (a bolt-action rifle would indeed slow down the carnage). Similarly for 'weapon'.

I can't see what you're complaining about.

[Sirveri]

12. A non semi-auto assault weapon would be the Sharps Carbine.

However considering that's a heirloom of the Civil War, I'm not sure if most people would consider it to be an 'assault weapon'. Considering it was used by cavalry to 'assault' enemy positions however, I guess it qualifies.