In gun safety legislation and narratives, we often hear the phrase “assault weapons.” There is a wide disagreement about how assault weapons are generally used in non-military circumstances, but let’s first understand what assault weapons are. As defined by Everytown for Gun Safety, “Assault weapons are generally high-powered semi automatic firearms where each round has up to four times the muzzle velocity of a handgun round. (Everytown, 2021)”

The fact that they are “semiautomatic” means that these weapons can fire bullets (or rounds) faster than a handgun, but the shooter has to pull the trigger for each shot fired. Additionally, they are more powerful for each shot fired (higher velocity = more severe impact). Even further, assault weapons are often used with high-capacity magazines – or a large package of bullets – so that the weapon can fire more bullets at a higher speed that are more impactful than handguns before having to load a new magazine. 

Assault weapons are made to be weapons of war. The most common ones are AK47 (Russian model) and M16 (US model). M43 (Israeli model), AR15, and others are considered assault weapons as well (Britannica, 2017). Some Americans argue that they are useful for hunting, especially wild boar and small game. However, other non-automatic hunting rifles are also commonly used by hunters (MLive, 2016).

Part of the reason we must care about banning civilian use of assault weapons is that studies show that the proliferation of assault weapons have contributed to the increase of mass shootings, and of course that they make shootings more deadly.

• Mass shootings are 6x more deadly when assault weapons are involved.
• While mass shootings that involve an assault weapon account for 32% of mass shooting deaths, they also account for 82% of nonfatal injuries.

Recap:

• Assault weapons are military-grade weapons mainly manufactured in Russia, the US, and Israel.
• Assault weapons allow shooters to fire more higher-impact rounds at a faster rate, contributing to an increase in mass shootings and their severity.  

Citations:

 “Prohibit Assault Weapons.” Everytown, Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, 2021, www.everytown.org/solutions/assault-weapon-ban/. 

 Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Assault rifle”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Oct. 2017, https://www.britannica.com/technology/assault-rifle. Accessed 18 April 2021.

Marketing, MLive. “A Q&A About Assault Rifles.” Mlive, Advance Local Media LLC, 2 Aug. 2016, www.mlive.com/sponsored/2016/08/a_qa_about_assault_rifles.html.