Full Auto AR’s (“Addled Reporters”)

Are you irritated by reporters, talk show hosts and other public figures when they talk about firearms and inevitably show their ignorance? Even supposedly strong Second Amendment supporting “talking heads” can’t get their facts straight.

Case in point, a couple weeks ago after the Colorado theatre shooting on “The O’Reilly Factor”, Mr. O’Reilly was expounding on citizens’ access to “heavy weapons” and was
making a claim that an AR was a so-called “heavy weapon”.  Last time I checked an AR in 223/5.56 is classified as a light weapon.

Then Mr. O’Reilly went on about civilian access to full auto weapons. The AR15 is a semi-automatic rifle.  Getting a permit for a full auto M16 is a bit expensive and time consuming, not to mention the cost of the weapon itself which could easily exceed $10,000.  The “Firearms Owners Protection Act” of 1986 forbids the manufacture of full auto weapons for civilian use, but “grandfathers” full auto weapons made before 1986.  So there are relatively few full auto weapons available for civilian ownership.  So after apparently being criticized, Mr. O’Reilly claimed that semi-auto rifles are easily converted to full auto.  Perhaps this is easy for a gunsmith.  However, I would like to see any evidence that an average citizen with common tools could do this.  If some average citizen did accomplish this feat he/she would be in violation of our country’s law against possessing a full auto weapon without the proper license and fees.

Further, these ignorant reporters never consider a few of the facts about full auto weapons to begin with such as:

1. They are not terribly accurate, especially in a rifle configuration and even less accurate when fired by an untrained or inexperienced operator;
2. Since they burn through ammo at such a high rate of fire, the operator must change magazines every few seconds which actually slows the total number of rounds fired per minute, i.e. 600 rounds per minute is theoretical.  If one actually did fire this weapon at 600 rounds per minute, the weapon would overheat which brings up the last point;
3. Air cooled, full auto weapons need to cool off after firing relatively few rounds  For instance the old M60 machine gun, which was fired in 3-5 round bursts, required a barrel change every 250 rounds (1 box NATO 7.62 ammo = 250 rounds).

In any case, I feel these folks, including Mr. O’Reilly, should spend an hour or two and look up the facts before they start expounding “BS” and “looking the fool” on a national stage.

If you saw this episode of the O’Reilly Factor, I would appreciate your commentary and your opinions of his segment.  An open discussion and dialogue is encouraged on this blog as always.