What is an assault rifle?

I'm going to hit this one again, because it bears touching back on given that Congress is going be to looking at a set of new gun laws in the following month. The situation is probably one of the most polarized, if not MOST polarized in American politics, and emotions are still running high. While Dianne Feinstein's "assault weapon" ban is on life support, New York City mayor and billionaire Micheal Bloomburg and his lobby group Mayors Against Illegal Guns continues to push for an "assault weapon" ban and Bloomburg himself is pouring his own personal fortune into it.

You can't be emotional and rational at the same time.

Before you address an issue, you need to understand the terminology and all the technical details in the issue itself and in any satellite issues. Here the main issue is gun violence while the satellite issues are the types of guns.

Ever since Sandy Hook, American politicians can't seem to open their mouth and not have "assault weapon" come out of it at some point. But also none have seemed to define what an "assault weapon" is. Why is that? It's because there is no such thing as an "assault weapon", it's a hollow, politically created term, with no definition.

But there is such thing as an assault rifle. The U.S. military defines an assault rifle as:

"Assault rifles are short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges."

But aren't assault rifles and "assault weapons" the same thing? No, and here is why. First I'll start with a short explanation of the assault rifles history. "Assault rifle" is derived from the German "Sturmgewehr", the direct translation is "storm rifle". It was a term Hitler coined for the StG-44, the rifle considered the first true assault rifle.

During WWII the Germans were looking for a gun with the rapid fire and mobility of a sub-machine gun (a machine gun that fires smaller pistol ammo) with the power of a rifle. The Germans were finding that their 9mm sub-machine guns like the MP-40 lacked the range to "storm" or "assault" a dug in enemy. While at the same time while their bolt-action Mauser K98 and semi-auto (one shot, per pull of the trigger) Gewehr 43 had the range but lacked the rate of fire for the task.

The idea here is that with rapid fire and long range, infantry can advance on dug in defensive positions, using the rapid fire ability to keep the defender's "heads down" as they advanced on or stormed/assaulted the enemy positions and took the positions. Hence "assault" rifle, a rifle used to "assault" or "storm" enemy defensive positions.

The key characteristic of the assault rifle is this "select-fire". Basically the rifle has multiple modes, it can go "full-automatic" IE machine gun, and/or "burst-fire" where it shoots two or three rounds per trigger pull, and semi-auto where it only fires one round per pull. In contrast rifles like the AR-15, while they might LOOK like the M-16/M-4 in military service, they lack that key feature of full-automatic/burst-fire. If we go back to the purpose of the assault rifle, to storm enemy positions, they lack this key feature, and thus are unsuited to "assaulting" or "storming" these dug in positions. Hence the AR-15 is NOT an assault rifle.

Another characteristic of the assault rifle is that it fires an "intermediate" powered cartridge. Basically if the bigger .30-06 that hunting rifle and rifles like the classic M-1 Garand fire, are full powered rounds, an intermediate powered cartridge like the .223 are medium powered. This was an idea the Germans came upon in an attempt to reduce recoil in full-automatic fire.

Now that we are clear on what an assault rifle is, we move on to "assault weapon." What makes an "assault weapon" different from a non-assault weapon? Mechanically, as in the working parts and functioning, nothing.

Lets do a compare and contrast with a few.

This is the M-1A, it is a civilian semi-auto version of the military's M-14 family. The M-14 family is an evolution of the classic M-1 Garand of WWII. Classic piece of Americana. The M-1A is pretty conventional, in California where there is an "assault weapon" ban, this rifle is perfectly legal. Functionally it is semi-automatic only and incapable of the full-auto fire the M-14 is capable of. It is gas-operated meaning it uses some of the gas produced from the gunpowder's ignition to cycle the action and load the next round automatically.

This here is the M-1A SOCOM II version of the M-1A. Like the M-1A it semi-auto only and uses largely the same gas system as the one above, and legal in California. Same rifle, just a little more "tactical" with accessory rails for optics, flashlights or what ever else makes you happy. 

Finally this is the same M-1A with an "EBR" (Enhanced Battle-Rifle) style stock that mimics the M-14EBR/Mk.14EBR stock that the military uses on their updated M-14s. Like the two above it is semi-automatic only, using the same gas system. It might look radically different  but mechanically, and functionally these three rifles are largely identical. They even fire the same caliber.

But this third rifle is an illegal "assault weapon" in California. Why, when mechanically and functionally it is the same as the other two which ARE legal? Yes it has accessory rails but so does the M-1A SOCOM II set up. Because with the EBR stock the the M-1A has a pistol grip AND a detachable magazine. But is that what determines lethality? Cosmetics?

Lets take a look at another rifle.

This is the Ruger Mini-14, looks a bit like the M-1A doesn't it? Should look somewhat familiar if you're a fan of The A-Team. It is a semi-auto only rifle derived from the M-14 and something of a cousin or a little brother to the M-1A above. While the M-1A is chambered for the larger 7.62NATO (a full-powered round like the ones mentioned earlier), the Mini-14 uses the smaller .223/5.56NATO. The Mini-14 in it's standard configuration is legal in California. Looks pretty convention doesn't it.

Let's compare the AR-15 to it. This is the AR-15 in one of it's MANY configurations. Thanks to politicians it is the quintessential "assault weapon" and today even surpassing the AK-47 in infamy.

Like the Mini-14 above, the AR-15 is only capable of semi-automatic fire. It fires the same medium powered round as the Mini-14. Mechanically they are different in that they use different gas-systems. But functionally they are the same, one pull of the trigger will only get you one shot. However like the M-1A with the EBR stock, in it's factory configuration the AR-15 is illegal in California.

The AR-15 is interesting in it's design. The rifle is actually really two main parts (an upper reciver and a lower reciver) that can be swapped out and mix and matched. Now keeping in mind that the AR-15 in it's standard configuration, like above, is an illegal "assault weapon" in Ca, lets take a look at this rifle.

Remember what I said about mixing and matching parts? Well this rifle has an Ares SCR lower receiver, with an AR-15 upper receiver. This rifle is legal in California. The rifle's upper half, with the firing mechanism is an AR-15, the lower half is functionally the same as the lower half on an AR-15. The main difference is the buffer tube that is inside an AR-15's stock is replaced with a design from an semi-automatic shotgun and the bolt carrier group (the part that grabs the bullet and detonates the primer to make the gun shoot) has been modified to accommodate the changes. The rifle is still gas operated, it's still semi-automatic only, and yet it's the one that's legal under an "assault weapon" ban. I'm sure you can tell why, but can you tell me how that makes sense?

Finally this is the Russian Saiga Rifle. The Saiga Rifle is to the AK-47 family what the M-1A is to the M-14 family.

Just like with the M-1A, the Russian Saiga uses the same operating principals as it's parent rifle. But like the M-1A, the Saiga is limited to semi-automatic only. But again, guess which one of those set-ups in the picture is legal in an "assault weapon" ban state, and which on isn't, despite being "the same under the hood".

All of these rifles are functionally identical, only one shot per trigger pull. All lack the ability for full-automatic, hence they are unsuited for "storming" an entrenched position, because they lack the rate of fire needed to "keep and enemy's head down". Remember what I said earlier about the German's not being satisfied with their semi-automatic Gewehr 43? About how it didn't fire fast enough to storm a dug in position? Well, that's the same thing with these semi-automatic rifles. Therefore they are certainly not assault rifles, despite looking like them. Does it make sense that these rifles are largely functionally identical, but several are illegal "assault weapons"?

As an aside, semi-automatic technology has been around for over 100 years. The classic M-1911, the handgun seen carried by U.S. soldiers in just about EVERY WWII media, is named that because it was adopted by the military in 1911 AD. The Mauser C-96, the pistol that the prop for Han Solo's blaster pistol was made from, goes back even further to 1899. The direct gas-impingement system used in the AR-15 first showed up in the experimental Rossignol ENT developed by the French in 1901. Yes operating principal of the AR-15 is literally 116 years old. The technology has been around for over 100 years, yet only in the mid to late '90s did we see a peak in violent crime. So what changed between that other 80 or so years and the '90s? It certainly wasn't the gun that had changed...

But I digress.

Again is that what determines lethality? Appearance? If it looks scarier, does it make it more dangerous? Just because I put on a cop's uniform doesn't make me a cop. Politicians will refer to these as "weapons of war" but by and large these rifles are unsuited for modern warfare. Mechanically, they are different from their military counterparts, their military counterparts have the mechanical parts to allow full-automatic or burst-fire capabilities. You will likely NOT find an AR-15 in any nation's (that isn't some two-bit, tin pot, 3rd world dictatorship) armories. You will find M-16s, M-4s and possibly some variant of the AR-10 in a marksman or sniper role, but you're not likely to find an AR-15. It would be comparing me in a cop uniform to an actual cop. I just look like one, while the actual one was trained to be a cop.

To further clarify things, here are a few videos that demonstrate the difference.

Officer Leroy Pyle of the San Jose PD (retired) does an excellent job here of demonstrating how a rifle can look different, but have identical working parts. The video is quite a bit old, but no less valid today.

Here we got Youtuber the "Bigshooterist" he's a bit less... well... "diplomatic", than Officer Pyle, but he makes very valid points, on how semi-automatic firearms are not the same as the military's assault rifles.

Here's one more from Bigshooterist, he goes to make the same point as Officer Pyle, when he took apart the Mini-14. Here Bigshooterist does the same thing, but goes a little more in-depth into the function and appearance. If you're a fan of The A-Team, you'll probably recognize reconfigured Mini-14 at the end.

To put it bluntly there's a lot of bullshit, and that's what it is, all this noise that people like Gavin Newsom and Dianne Feinstein, or celebrities like Amy Schumer or Stephen King, make over guns is pure undiluted bullshit. Politicians don't know what they're talking about, people in the media don't know what they're talking about, and most actors don't know what they're talking about. It's like a big hype machine for something, but no one really knows what that something is, despite everyone talking about it. Hope this cuts though all that bullshit, cuts though all the emotions and brings out the facts of the matter.

King Football dethroned! Stubenville Rape Crew found Delinquent/Guilty! - The Aftermath

Lets get something straight, these two boys committed a heinous crime against someone. What they did to her, all in the name of fun and games will follow her, her family, and her friends for the rest of their lives.

It was a decision they made.

They are not deserving of sympathy.

And yet that is what the lamestream media is doing. CNN correspondant Poppy Harlow had this to say about the verdict.

"It was incredibly emotional—incredibly difficult even for an outsider like me to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believe their life fell apart."

But what about the girl, Poppy? What about her huh? What about how women who've been raped go though years of therapy and have flashbacks? Or how about how some women who've been raped suffer from PTDS? But no, lets feel sorry for these two football players even though they got what they deserved. At least these two were able to watch their own destruction. Her life fell apart and she didn't even get to see it first hand. But Poppy isn't the only one to sympathese with these two  rapists.

Enter Candy Crowley...

"You know, Paul, a 16 year old now just sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, still sound like 16 year olds," Crowley said. "The thing is, when you listen to it and you realize that they could stay until they're 21, they are going to get credit for time served. What's the lasting effect, though, on two young men being found guilty in juvenile court of rape, essentially?"

Aww boo-fucking-hoo. Nobody put a gun to their head and told them to do it. Hell even a few party goers said it was wrong, and yet they did it anyway. They must face the consequences of their actions. Call it discipline, call it being a man, call it reaping what you sowed. Who gives a goddamn about their "promising futures"? They made the decisions to carry out the act that took it away from them. No one took their promising futures away from them. To paraphrase Biff Tannen, they took their entire lives and flushed it completely down the toilet, and they did it by raping a 16 year old girl. Nobody nuked their futures or crushed their dreams but them. The legal system did it's job, at this trial the system worked. 

Then lastly there's Paul Callan...

The most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law and, by the way, the laws in most other states now require such a designation in the face of such a serious crime. That will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Well hey guess what dipshit, that's what happens when you're convicted of a sexual crime. Don't want to be branded with the Mark of Sex Offender, then hey guess what, all you need to do is not sexually assault someone. Not a hard concept and not something hard to do.

Of course lets burn just CNN. Fox is guilty of releasing the girl's name to the public.

This goes back to what I said about adults perpetuating the reign of King Football. Poppy Harlow, Candy Crowley, and Paul Callan are just the same as Reno Saccoccia. Instead of simply discussing the technicalities of what awaits them instead they talk about how the two rapists were in tears, they talk about how they were getting comforting hugs from their lawyers, about their apologies and how one of them's dad wasn't there for them. All painting them in a sympathetic light, as if to say, lets all feel sorry that these two rapists lost their positions as the golden boys of high school football. Notice that neither of them bothered to ask, what is so broken in our society that made these two rapists think that what they did was ok. What is so broken in our society that Reno Saccoccia prioritizes his football over common human decency?

There was no reflection here, no questions raised about how this can be prevented. All there was, was "lets feel sorry for them because they're no longer the golden boys."

There's emphasis that the girl was drunk. Well who cares if she was drunk, that's still not an excuses to rape someone. Had these two golden boys not been put atop King Football's pedestal, they probably wouldn't have done what they did. Had they known better, whether the girl was sober or drunk they probably wouldn't have done what they did.

King Football might have been dethorned, but King Football is only on Elba. But so long as Poppy Harlow and Reno Saccoccia are around, King Football will return. And this will continue to happen again and again.

How many more till will this have to happen? Maybe these people will change when it happens to someone they care about.

A REAL man, doesn't rape.

King Football dethroned! Stubenville Rape Crew found Delinquent/Guilty!

The FBI defines rape as:  

The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

The verdict for the Stubenville rape trial came down: Guilty. Well the equivlant of guilty in a juvenile court.

Today Big Red did not Roll, today Big Red was dethroned. Like Slim Shady, the Justice System did not give a fuck what Football thought.

The defense's argument was weak if not outright grasping at straws. The main argument the defense had was that it was not rape because the girl did not affirmatively say no.

Of course she doesn't have too, most if not all of us have heard of the date rape drug/roofies that knock a person out. It was a defense doomed to fail. Of course it wasn't the defense's fault, they did their job the best they could in the face of such damning evidence. Sure it was a bit underhanded to attack the girl herself, but that is all they had. The law was not on their side, the evidence was not on their side. It was the only hand they had to play.


But this time, King Football was dethroned. The system actually worked. 

However it is not enough that King Football be dethroned. King Football must be guillotined. King Football must be publicly executed. The streets need to flow with the blood of King Football.

As much as I place the responsibility amongst these two, people are to some extent a product of their environment. King Football isn't the sport of football itself, King Football is the privileged position, and special treatment that  athletes seem to get in this society. They were held up as special and hence thought they could do what they wanted.

Others think it's all about football and point to the number of former Big Red players on local police forces and with various administrative ties to the program. They blame the misguided principles that put small-town football above everything and have corrupted not just adults but left punk teenagers to believe they are above common decency, let alone the law.

People aren't necessarily born fucked up, they become fucked up. In a community where you're held up as a prince, free of accountability, THIS is the kind of shit that happens. Where you're held up as the golden boy/s you can do no wrong, and that seemed to be exactly the case here.  

“The players are considered heroes, and that’s pretty pathetic, because they’ve been able to get away with things for years because of it,” Flanagan said. “Everyone just looks the other way.”

“There’s a set of rules that don’t apply to everybody,” he (Bill Miller) said of what he called the favoritism regarding the players. “This has been happening since the early ’80s; this is nothing new. It’s disgusting. I can’t stand it. The culture is not what it should be. It’s not clean.”

There was the possibility this whole thing would have been swept under the rug if not for Anonymous blowing the whole thing up and bringing it to national attention. 

This might not have happened had the adults not perpetuated this privileged lifestyle. Coach Reno Saccoccia is part of the problem. Simply put this man needs to be fired, he is part of the engine that perpetuates this "culture". By failing to discipline his players he gives the impression of either what their doing is ok, or that if it is not ok Coach will make it all go away.

Saccoccia, pronounced SOCK-otch, told the principal and school superintendent that the players who posted online photographs and comments about the girl the night of the parties said they did not think they had done anything wrong. Because of that, he said, he had no basis for benching those players.

No basis my ass. Here's the thing, you bench your players when they have done something wrong, regardless of whether they know it or not. That's how you teach them that it is wrong, that is called discipline. Saccoccia himself should be charged with obstruction of justice. Reno Saccoccia is human filth, one of the worst kinds, barely fit to be called human. But I digress...

But it isn't just King Football, there's another issue here. The other issue is that quite a bit thought there was anything wrong with what they were doing. It didn't cross the minds of many people that it's not right to post or send around nude pictures of a minor, and, at least at the time it happened, it didn't cross some people that by video recording her rape, they were creating child porn. Sure there were some that knew what was going on and tried to do something about it.

Mark Cole testified that he didn't even think it was rape.

How in the Hell... How in the FUCK do you not know that performing sexual acts on someone without their consent is not rape?!

Then we have "people" (and I use the term loosely) like Michael Nodianos who think the who thing was a joke, just fun and games. Though his future is probably wreaked too given that he had to drop out of Ohio State University after receiving multiple threats.


What the fuck went wrong here?

Where were the parents in all this? Maybe it's because of my East Asian upbringing where you were taught to act with honor and dignity (lest you make the family look bad and get a really bad ass beating for it), but never once would it have ever crossed my mind to take pictures and send them around. Making fun of a drunk girl falling down on herself, sure that's one thing, but taking her clothes off, trying to put your dick in her mouth. Really? This is what happens when you don't beat your kids and keep them in line, in my opinion.

These kids were probably not taught the proper way to treat people and the proper way to carry themselves.

Just watching the Nodianos video and one can tell to some extent there is something of a sense that rape/sexual assault is all just fun and games and the victim to be laughed as the butt of some joke. This isn't just unique to Stubenville, it happens everywhere. That is the other problem this entire fiasco has exposed.

Well rape is not a joke, it is not just fun and games. No more than it is fun and games that I take a chainsaw to your legs and watch you crawl around fucking my carpet up with all your blood and laughing at how you'll never play football again.

Where King Football and seeing rape as just fun and games intersect, is where this whole matter sits. These boys thought they could get away with it. That they could do what ever they wanted to because they were the golden boys of Big Red Football. Then they saw this girl as an object for their amusement, and so here we arrive.

Ultimately though these two got off easy. Though it seems to be more out of mercy from the judge than anything. They should have been tried as adults, if you do a big boy crime, you should do big boy time. These two were 16 when it happened, they knew what they were doing. At least, however, they will be branded with the mark of Sex Offender. A brand that will follow them for quite some time. Personally I don't feel an ounce of pity for these two, even though their futures are probably destroyed at this point. I have two nieces, I can't imagine this kind of thing happening to either of them.

Hopefully they will be made an example of to the rest. That the law does not give a damn if you play varsity football. Reno Saccoccia cannot save you.


But it isn't over yet, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is looking to the possibility of charging more people involved in this incident.

The American Galactic Republic

“The Republic is not what it once was—the Senate is full of greedy, squabbling delegates. There is no interest in the common good.” - Chancellor Palpatine


"There is no civility, only politics." - Chancellor Palpatine


OK, never mind that Palpatine was one of if not the most evil being in that Far Off Galaxy, he certainly still has a point regarding the Galactic Senate. 

...and the same could be said of the American Congress. 

Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Corn, Big Tobacco, Big Whatever. I don't think there is a single American who would say Congress wasn't ineffectual, broken and paralyzed by partisan bickering and special interest money. 

But all of that special interest money wouldn't matter if it wasn't for a few, rather two main things. 

Career Politicians...

...and this two-party system. 

Wonder why nothing gets done in Washington D.C.? There are your answers. 

For the Career Politician, every season is election season. They never stop campaigning. This leads to two results, one, that the politician in question is always seeking campaign funds, and second any solution a politician would come up with would only be a short term fix at best and an empty hollow feel-good measure at worse. To a career politician the general population like us are nothing more than votes to keep their jobs. 

Case in point, the whole issue with guns. Many career politicians like Feinstein only pitch hollow solutions that sound nice to some people but really do nothing of value. She wants to bring back an "assault weapon" ban, when the previous one did nothing to prevent the North Hollywood Shootout, or Columbine. No Child Left Behind and the prevalence of standardized tests is another. "No Child Left Behind" sounds nice and all, but the whole thing just degraded into teaching the test. It's all about the test now, imagination isn't fostered, and it's imagination that spurs innovation. 

To boil it all down, unless you're contributing to their campaign at the end of the day the career politician doesn't give a shit about you. They'll throw you a bone and tell you things you like to hear, but at the end of the day the career politician doesn't listen to you the voter, they listen to their campaign contributors. The career politician doesn't care about the common good. The conservative Republican doesn't care that abstinence only programs lead to more teen pregnancies and the liberal Democrat doesn't care that guns have been used in self-defense. Or look at the perpetual gridlock in Washington. They don't care about the common good, they only care about what is good for the party. Every issue is approached with the thought "Is this good for the Party". Or "Will this bring the party back into power sooner?" And I say "sooner" because with only two viable parties, the out of power party will return to power in the near future.

Of course that corruption leads to other problems. Namely people losing faith in the whole democratic process and becoming completely apathetic to the whole matter. Most people probably wouldn't know what amendment gives them the right to a trial (the 6th) or gives the right not to be arbitrarily searched (the 4th), but show them a picture of some celebrity or athlete and they're know who they are in an instant. 

How can we stop this? For one thing term limits would go aways towards blunting this problem. Holding political office shouldn't be a career. Given a time limit to be in office, the idea of constantly campaigning doesn't mean as much, when there is no election left for you. 

Secondly, people just need to give a fuck. Need to pay attention and listen to what goes on. If you can spout off Kobe Bryant's career stats, but have not clue what has been going on with Bradly Manning, you need to reconfigure you priorities. When the government his trampling over someone's Constitutional rights, and could do the same thing to anyone, then really, why is how many points Kobe scored in the last game worth giving a fuck about? 

But what of the second problem? We can institute term limits and other solutions to keep the same corrupt career politicians from occupying their seats for life, but it still wouldn't matter if the next ass in that seat just towed the party line. Many politicians are just hollow caricatures of human beings and only adhere to the party line. Sure there are a few who tend to break ranks with their party like John McCain at one point, but in general these two political parties are like some kind of political hive mind. 

What it would take to solve this issue would have to be a paradigm shift. It certainly won't happen over night, but maybe it's moving in that direction. Congress has abysmally low approval rating and the category of voters called "Independent" is getting bigger and bigger each cycle. Maybe the day will come when voters finnally get fed up with this Republicrat and Demopublic bullshit.