Category talk:Assault Rifle

Inclusions, Exclusions

Hey, it's me. Pyr0. You may know me as the guy who continuously causes problems. Well, I'm going to honor that legacy today by asking a serious question about our definition of an assault rifle. Now, I'm not going to do a politician-esque push for every single scary-looking thing under the sun (and a fair few things above it) to be considered an assault rifle. My question is actually about requirement number (b): the 300-meter range requirement. See, after a discussion regarding classifications on the H3VR page (man, that's the start of a lot of things around here, isn't it), I got thinking about that requirement, and started to question why it's there. I mean, the only real reason it's there is to eliminate, like, one or two specific guns that would otherwise fit in (the requirement itself even says so), which seems a bit arbitrary, especially when we still include things that don't meet that 300-meter requirement, like the SR-3M Vikhr, the KAC PDW, and perhaps most egregiously, the APS Underwater Assault Rifle, which has a stated effective range of only 55 yards in open air, and a mere 100 feet in the water (not to mention a few things that, while I'm not 100% sure about, I seriously doubt can pull off 300 meters, like the AAC Honey Badger, or the CSA SA vz. 58 Compact). I mean, effective range isn't a classification requirement for any other weapon type on this site - not even the sniper rifles. Therefore, I think that we should remove the requirement, and include things like the M2 Carbine (since, according to Category:Carbine, .30 Carbine is a rifle cartridge) that were previously excluded. Thoughts? Pyr0m4n14c (talk) 18:41, 29 July 2018 (EDT) P.S.: 10 bucks says Tim's the first one to reply, and he says something that's both really longwinded and really insightful.

You lose ten then. :P Ok maybe you have a bit of a rationale but bein' real, the M2 was not intended to be an 'assault rifle' as it is known, nor should it be considered one. It doesn't fire what is considered a rifle round, it originally did not have select fire (nor again was intended to), and yes, really is not meant to be used nor is really worth a shit at 300 or so meters. Honestly, it's its own animal as far as classification goes and trying to stretch and alter everything else to have it fit under a certain umbrella seems no less arbitrary. I have no problem with it being excluded. As for those other pieces, while I grant the range part is debatable, they fit the other criteria and always did. Though I must concur the APS has no business being included for the same reason the M2 doesn't: that one's clearly not intended to be - and thus should not be considered - an 'assault rifle' as the classification is generally known and accepted because frankly, it just isn't, the 'platform' it's built off of notwithstanding. Hell, being all technical I'd argue it has no place being defined as a rifle in the first place since it shoots darts through a smoothbore barrel, in fact. But that's something else. StanTheMan (talk) 14:26, 30 July 2018 (EDT)

Well damn, I'm down ten bucks. Anyways, I can see your point. However, there are a few things to take into account here. Firstly, according to Category:Carbine, we do consider .30 Carbine a rifle cartridge - the M1 Carbine is under the "Rifle-caliber" subsection, along with both of the Bendix-Hyde Light Rifles and the Cristobal M2 (and the Ribeyrolles 1918 Automatic Carbine, which could be considered part of this category too, but that's another matter altogether). As for the intended use, that's not really all that relevant - I mean, if we categorized weapons by what they were meant to be, then we'd have to consider the Federov Avtomat an LMG, and a whole bunch of compact assault rifles as SMGs (take, for instance, the Colt Model 607) - hell, even the AK-47 was originally issued like a submachine gun. And true, the M1 didn't start out in full-auto, but then again, neither did the Ruger AC556, and by that same logic the Beretta M1918 should be considered a PCC, since the first models manufactured were semi-auto-only (same goes for the Spitfire submachine gun, except even more so).

You hit the nail on the head - we make categories to fit guns, not guns to fit categories, so there will always be things stuck in between the classes - just look at the Browning M1919A6 and the MG08/15 on the machine gun category page. So, what we're stuck with are a few guns that fire what we agree are rifle-caliber rounds, and have to be intermediate ones (since nobody in their right mind could possibly consider them full-powered), feeding from detachable magazines, and firing in full-auto. They fit all of the other criteria - the only thing blocking them out is the range requirement, and that's something that we have ignored in other cases, so I really don't see why we have to obey it here. It seems to be there just to eliminate these few guns, which doesn't make all that much sense, since there isn't really any other reason to block them out. At the very least, I think we could probably work them in with the same "(arguably)" caveat as the Federov - they're guns that don't fit in particularly well anywhere, but fit here the best, so that's where we put them. Sure, it's arbitrary, but when you're drawing lines in the sand, the position they wind up in is bound to be arbitrary - we have to put the line somewhere, after all. I'm just saying that if we're doing this, we should at least keep it consistent with ourselves and our own classifications. Pyr0m4n14c (talk) 15:56, 30 July 2018 (EDT) P.S.: For once, I really can't think of anything to put in the post-script. Which, I suppose, is self-contradictory, since that statement is in and of itself the post-script, but whatever.