re: #106 BishopX

There are two classes of automatic weapons, semi and fully automatic. The distinction between them is how many bullets come out when you pull the trigger. They are both still automatics. Make sense?

The problem is the that the term “automatic” is normally taken (especially by people who know nothing about guns) to mean “full-automatic”. Thus the insistence on the term “semi-automatic”. Part of the reason is that some anti-gun groups have used the term “automatic” mendaciously to imply that semi-auto firearms were really full-auto ones. I do not, repeat not, accuse anyone here of such mendacity. But it has happened enough to force a certain strictness on terms.