There are several primary firearm action types:

Lever action: the traditional rifles of western movies.

Pump action: more common to shotguns than rifles.

Semiautomatic: actions operated primarily by recoil or gas and used in pistols, rifles and shotguns.

Revolvers: handguns and some replica carbines.

Bolt action: common in high-powered rifles, but also found in some specialized pistols.

All may be found in virtually any gun shop, and each action type is more than a century old. Circa June 2024, Semiautomatic handguns and rifles are the most common, usual and popular action types in America, and bolt action and lever action rifles are commonly used for hunting and long-range target shooting.

These various action types have some differences in accuracy and magazine capacity, and semiautomatic actions tend to allow more rapid repeat shots than the other action types, though that difference is slight for those practiced in other action types. Revolvers, for instance, can be fired as fast as semiautomatic pistols, though they commonly have less “magazine” capacity and take a few seconds longer to reload.

Democrats/socialists/communists (D/s/cs) are masters are warping language to support their narratives. In 1988 Josh Sugarmann accidently said the quiet part out loud:  

The public’s confusion over fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons — anything that looks like a machine gun is presumed to be a machine gun — can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons.

There is no such thing as an “assault weapon,” a term invented and applied to semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 as part of Sugarmann’s approach to deceiving Americans, an approach D/s/cs have gladly adopted, and in the case of a Congresswoman from Georgia, recently resurrected:

Graphic: Youtube screenshot.

Last week, in celebration of “Gun Violence Awareness Month,” Democrat U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath introduced HR 8600, the “Gas-Operated Semi-Automatic Firearms Exclusion Act (GOSAFE), in the House. [skip]

“The GOSAFE Act honors our constitutional rights while keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of those who should not have them,” McBath said in a press release announcing the measure. “I thank Senator Heinrich and our partners for their support in bringing about this common-sense piece of legislation. The American people deserve to live free, healthy lives safe from the horror of gun violence—this is an important step in making that a reality.”

It's difficult to know precisely what portion of the American firearm market is semiautomatic.  Best estimates place that number at between 50-60%.  thegunzone.com/what-percent-of-firearms-are-semi-automatic/  However, it’s clear a larger portion than that dominates the contemporary handgun market. In the modern sporting rifle category—AR-15s and similar rifles—semiautomatic actions are almost certainly more dominant.

What McBath’s legislation intends is nothing less than banning most of the handgun, a significant portion of the rifle, and significant portions of the American shotgun markets. This would be problematic in that the Supreme Court’s Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions have made clear the weapons in common, usual use among Americans are prima facie constitutional.

Graphic: Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol. Author.

The most common, usual contemporary handgun action type? Semiautomatics. AR-15s and other similar rifles are the most common and usual modern sporting rifles in America.  Why then would anyone try to ban such firearms?

“As weapons of war have become commonplace in America, so has the unfathomable carnage they wreak on our communities,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety… “We applaud Representative McBath for introducing innovative legislation that would regulate assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which are capable of creating devastating destruction in an instant.”

Long guns of every type are used in only a tiny portion of crimes, and AR-15 type rifles are used, despite hysterical headlines, in a tiny portion of that tiny portion. In 2022, rifles of all types were involved in only 2.82% of all murders. Handguns, because of their relatively easy concealability, are used far more often in all manner of crimes.

Obviously if one is truly concerned about improving public safety, banning semiautomatic handguns, the most common and usual action type, might have some effect, except Americans would simply return to an older, proven technology: revolvers. And there’s that annoying Constitution with its Second Amendment securing the rest of the Bill of Rights in the way of McBath’s good intentions.

Then again, were one truly interested in improving public safety, perhaps not depleting, harassing, and prosecuting the police might have some positive effect. One might go so far as reinstating bail, or even prosecuting violent criminals who use any weapon in the commission of their crimes. To really extend the argument, judges might even convict criminals and sentence them to prison where they can’t harm innocents.

Such things are seemingly impossible in “our democracy.” In our representative republic? That could be a different story.                                                

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.