Political Memes

An assault rifle is full auto, or burst fire, a machine gun basically. That's also the case in every video game I've played. You can own them if you get a special federal license, it's expensive so there aren't many out there. Guys will set up businesses charging people $50 to shoot one for a few minutes. That's probably what you saw on YouTube. No mass shooting in recent history was done with an assault rifle.

An assault weapon is an imaginary legal term created during the Clinton administration so it could look like they were doing something about gun violence. The awb defines assault weapons using superficial cosmetic items like a bayonete mount, a pistol grip, a flash suppressor, etc. The same gun with 2 of these is legal, 3 of them and suddenly it's illegal despite no functional changes to the gun. Assault weapons and the assault weapon ban were idiotic ineffective political theater.

Mass shootings are usually carried out with a semi-auto rifle, which means it automatically reloads the chamber and is ready to fire another round as fast as you can pull the trigger. The most popular one is the ar-15. It's the standard semi-auto rifle, they're everywhere because they're cheap, common, and reliable. They show up in mass shootings because they're so common, not because they're necessarily dealer than any other semi auto rifle. The AR stands for "armalite rifle". It's the civilian version of the M-16 assault rifle.