The Single Shot, Bolt Action Assault Rifle

According to an ignorant reporter and his edtior at the The Sierra Vista Herald, the AR 50 pictured above is an "assault rifle".

NOGALES, Ariz. — Border agents seized a 50-caliber assault rifle and arrested two teenagers trying to cross into Mexico with it.

The Border Patrol said Thursday that on Tuesday night, officers working southbound inspections in Nogales referred a car for further perusal.

Officers found the Armalite bolt-action rifle on top of the vehicle’s engine.

The 19-year-old driver and his 17-year-old male passenger, both from Mexico, were arrested.

Armalite describes the AR 50 thusly:

This rifle is the newest incarnation of the wildly popular AR-50 chambered for the powerful 50 BMG cartridge. A single shot bolt action rifle featuring a unique octagonal receiver bedded down into a V-shaped stock. [emphasis added]

The terms "assault weapon" and more recently "assault rifle" are used in anti-gun propaganda to create the illusion that a firearm with certain cosmetic features is somehow more deadly than a firearm without those features. For example, the Remington R-15 firing the relatively anemic 5.56x45 (.223 Remington) varmit round is somehow more deadly than the the Remington 700 chambered in the same caliber.

Remington R-15

Remington 700 VTR

It is really just an example of the pre-logical magical thinking where a thing that looks like another thing is the other thing. In other words, if a single shot, bolt action rifle such as the AR50 has a shape similar enough to the miltary assault rifles I see in the movies, then the AR50 magically becomes an assault rifle too.

H/T to David Codrea