The AR-15 Isn’t An Assault Rifle Nor Is It A Weapon Of War

With President Joe Biden in the White House and Democrat control of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, owners of AR-15 and similar firearms have a valid reason for concern. Such guns have been targeted for legislation including registration, increased background checks, and even outright bans.

Many who want to see such firearms banned try to use terms that, while sound scary, don’t really apply to the AR-15.
The Assault Rifle Claim

The AR-15 platform has been singled out by opponents of the Second Amendment, using the worrying phrase “assault weapon,” a term embraced all too often by the mainstream media. The firearms industry has countered by more accurately describing those firearms as “modern assault rifles.”

However, an assault weapon typically is selective fire, meaning it can fire in a semi-automatic mode where the trigger needs to be pulled to fire each round; or in automatic mode where the weapon operates like a machine gun. An AR-15 has no selective fire mode, as fully-automatic weapons are banned by U.S. law.