Why “Assault Rifle” Sales Are REALLY Booming

By Bob Owens

Professor Robert Spitzer of SUNY Cortland posted an op-ed to the LA. Times* last week seeking to explain why so-called “assault weapons”—a factually erroneous, if common term for firearms that look like military firearms—have become so popular among Americans, especially in recent years.

Spitzer’s imprecision with nomenclature throughout the opinion piece is distracting as he bounces back and forth from “assault weapon” to “AR-15″ to “assault rifle” as if they refer to the same firearms, and frankly, we expect better from someone who has written five books about firearms.

For the record:

• an “assault rifle” is a precise military term for a selective-fire, intermediate-caliber rifle which originated with the WWII development of the German StG 44 (literally “storm rifle 44″), which was developed to storm or assault enemy positions.
• an “assault weapon” is an entirely political term coined by gun control fanatic Josh Sugarmann in the 1980s. The phrase was intentionally coined to confuse and deceive non-gun owners into thinking that guns that cosmetically resemble military firearms are machine guns.
• an AR-15 is a semi-automatic (self-loading) light rifle that uses some of the energy expended from firing a shot to eject the expended shell casing, and to load the next cartridge in the …read more

  Source:: Bearing Arms