Good News: BB Guns Now Classified By Journalist as Assault Rifles

Well, not so much (emphasis mine):

a BB gun that looks like a fully automatic AR-15 assault rifle

You have got to be kidding me!

I have known a couple folks who were so rabidly anti gun and that they went so far as to ask neighbors if they were gun owners. Then they forbid their children from visiting or talking to the "offenders". They had a boy about my age, and my brother and I took him out shooting with us for a couple years, before they found out. They MOVED!

The offenders above were not supervised nor imparted with any moral values by their parents. My Dad did both with us boys. We had BB guns and a Pellet pistol when we were young. About Jr High, my Dad gave us a real gun. It was a .22 Remington single shot. My point is that the parents should have been taken to task.

I went on to score Marksman in the service.

Well, you CAN shoot your eye out, you know. or so I've heard.

Can you tell what the media is blowing hot air up? Where it all headed?

The interesting thing is the Heller decision put those black rifles at the top of the protected list, ie the citizen militia's arms.

Damn. When I think of all the BB gun wars we used to have as kids, little suspecting we were actually shooting each other with assault weapons. I was hit numerous times being a little slower than some of the older kids and don't seem to have suffered any lasting injuries.

But seriously, if a writer is going to write on a subject, he should at least take some effort to do just a little research.

You'll shoot your eye out!

Bob:
Not to correct you per se, but the M-4, once the forte of SpecOps kids, is NOW the ubiquitous battle rifle here in Iraq.

Reason being is that the size of the full length M-16A2 variant was becoming a danger to the troops in the need for quick dismounting in firefight situations. The Shorty 14.5 Barrel and collapsable stock allows "Joe" to manuveur quickly out of a HMMWV as they are so encumbered by body armor and "Battle Rattle" that a full length "musket" as the A2 is jokingly refered to is a bit@h to get out of the truck with, as it can get hung up easier than a 14 inch 'Shorty.'

Otherwise, Live In Baghdad, Merry Christmas and God Bless the Troops!
Big Country

BB guns are not assault rifles even under the already incorrect definition widely used by journalists; do we really need them to re-dumb it downward again?

Well, you might try working on your reading comprehension first.

Two alleged BB-gun snipers facing felony charges, including assault with a deadly weapon, used a laser scope and a BB gun that looks like a fully automatic AR-15 assault rifle, according to deputies with the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff's Station.

Notice that: (a) it doesn't say the gun is an assault rifle, it says it looks like an assault rifle, and (b) the description doesn't even come from the reporter but is attributed to the Sheriff's office. (I suppose you can quibble over whether a "fully automatic AR-15" is an AR-15 or an M-16, but, again, you'll have to take it up with the Sheriff.)

Kevin, perhaps you shouldn't question the reading comprehension of others, when you can't grasp that the article's headline was "Alleged BB gunmen collared: Teens had assault rifle."

Guns don't kill people. . . I lay my guns all the time and dare them to do so, but they just lay there and do nothing -

Wadda ya expect? Libtards HATE (shudder) guns, so there is no surprise that the frantic jibbering of uninformed, ignorant journalists pops up in almost every media item out there. The problem is, they transfer that hysteria to that part of the equaly ignorant sheeple out there too.

The media loves to whip people up in a frenzy over guns. There was a story printed on the Fox News website in the last few months reprinted from The Daily Mail (UK) that described a man being "gunned down" by a "gas-powered ball bearing pistol". Took me a second to realize they were talking about a BB gun.

I was raised around weapons, as were my siblings. A weapon is a tool, which, if improperly used can be harmful. No different than a circular saw.

I have two daughters, now grown, that I put through a 2 day handgun self defense - safety course while they were still teenagers. I also bought them each a 40 S&W sidearm.

My sister, like most anti gun people, felt that her son should be kept insulated from guns, which means he never had any training or contact with firearms.

A short time after my daughters took their firearms course, my sister left her 16 year old son at home while visiting relatives. A friend of her son brought over a revolver over to her house and they played Russian roulette.

He lost.

Sometimes it is simple stupidity or ignorance that kills people.

If you look at what the Brady Gun Control advocates want, my Browning SA22 is an assault rifle because it is semi automatic, has a pistol grip and a 12 round 22 LR magazine.

The press are fanning the counterintuitive public hysteria over firearms and ignoring the facts. This month's American Rifleman has a piece about the 2007 FBI crime statistics - lowest in 30 years, lowest homicide rate in 40 years. Amazingly, there is a direct correlation between crime and gun bans. Where criminals know their victims have been disarmed by the law, they commit violent crimes with impunity. In states with right to carry laws, they are more cautious.

Today's so-called "journalists" are very careless with words. This was demonstrated recently in an on-line news story that featured a photograph of a U.S. Navy fleet oiler. The caption beneath the photo identified it as a "battleship".

My late father started my firearms instruction when I was six. Upon going through Navy boot camp firearms familiarization (I won't call it "training"), I hit the bullseye with every round. My instructor stared at me for a moment and then asked: "Who taught you to shoot?" When I told him my dad had trained me since I was a kid, he looked down the firing line for a moment and said: "We could use him here."

The majority of newspeople today have zero firearms experience. They fear firearms, and it's easy to demonize what you fear. A few weekends on the range with a good instructor would change a lot of attitudes. Well, at least perhaps modify a few.

Kevin, perhaps you shouldn't question the reading comprehension of others, when you can't grasp that the article's headline was "Alleged BB gunmen collared: Teens had assault rifle."

Zing!

Headlines are those big bolded things at the top of the article.

That made my morning. I know a bunch of rabid anti-gun folks, and they have some weird logic.

Window glass doesn't fare well under sustained BB gun fire...or so I've heard.

Not to nitpick here, but this is not entirely true

"The M4 does not "fires more shots in less time than a conventional handgun." Both police pistols and the M4s used by the CPD are semi-automatic, meaning they have the exact same rate of fire, one shot per trigger pull, as fast as the shooter can pull the trigger."

The M4, with a 30 round magazine standard, has a higher sustained rate of fire than a handgun with a 8-20 round magazine. With the accuracy generally demonstrated by LEOs involved in shootings however, that may not be a good thing.

Essayons, that is actually true. Semiautomatic weapons have the exact same rate of fire.

If they're talking about the the number of BBs that can be fired before a "reload", well, that's just silly.

Cause that's what we're talking about isn't it? A BB gun. Nothing more. No, you really shouldn't shoot someone with a BB gun, but to get wrapped around the axle about what it looks like is goofy. It doesn't matter if it looks like a Dragunov. Or if it has 10 laser sights. It's just a BB gun.

You couldn't even call it "magizine capacity" when it comes to a BB gun. It's just however many you can pour in. "OMG, the BB gun has a magizine capacity of 42!"

Actually I disagree Brando. Though you can not easily kill someone with a BB gun, it is still a very violent act and can send someone to the ER. We had a couple of kids here doing something like this and seriously hurt one of my friends. The kids should be put away.

From the description, this is not a standard BB gun, it is airsoft. While still painful and potentially dangerous, these shoot plastic bbs and not metal ones.

Yes, they still do damage but this is sheer sensationalism and irresponsible journalism. Something that seems to be the norm now.

Stupid kids doing stupid things but not something that requires a felony charge. Talk about overreaction!

CY,
Firstly - Reporters, from what I understand, seldom write the headlines to their stories. To be accurate you should blame the headline editor for this stupid connections.
Second - You made your accusation in your headline but didn't provide evidence in your article as to the bb gun and assault weapon connection. IMO, you should put your evidence for your charge in your article and I think Kevin was correct to call you on it. I hardly ever click through to linked articles, I don't like to give them the traffic, so it comes off as you are the one with a connection problem.
Thirdly - Are you trying to say someone cannot snipe with a bb gun?

You *think* that Kevin was correct? And you base it on the fact that *you* don't bother to read, and how it "comes off" to you? That's not how a logical argument is constructed.

That's just Appeal to Ignorance.

Well, Kevin was incorrect. The article was incorrect about the Assault Weapon. And you're incorrect to defend it. BB guns aren't assault weapons no matter how you slice it. CY knows it, I know it, and I think that even you know it.

Al

I think CY would have been better served by making the connection between his headline and the story explicit, instead of requiring clicking the link to get it.

Icono,
Exactly my thoughts.

I have no qualms with CY calling the headline to task. In fact, more power to him. The part of the story quoted was clean, is all I'm saying.

If you are going to castigate someone, put the money quote in your article.

Brando,

I don't know what your problem is, but I did read CY's blog post/article. He just didn't back up his claim in his article with the money quote. So I agree with Kevin's read of the article. Go and try to insult me all you want but that won't change CY's problem with his article.

Merry Christmas

6kings - If that's really an airsoft gun than a halfway decent lawyer will get the assault with a deadly weapon charge thrown out of court. The only way it's deadly is if you stick the barrel down someone's throat and force them to choke on the BBs or asphyxiate from the excess CO2.