The joys of local news

After watching 24 on Monday night my wife and I watched the first few minutes of the local Fox affiliate's 10 o'clock news. They opened with a story on two (possibly connected) crime sprees in Prince George's County, Maryland and in DC. The reporters and cops they interviewed kept mentioning that the criminals had "automatic weapons." However, in each crime they mentioned, no shots were fired. I don't know about you, but if someone were pointing an AR/AK/M14(M1A) at me, I seriously doubt I would care or could tell if the selector switch had a third setting. And, barring shots being fired, would have no way of knowing if it were automatic or not. But, the guns probably looked scawwy so that made them automatics.

Then, they started talking about the crimes in DC. The robbers had "machine guns." Not "assualt weapons." Not "assault rifles." Machine guns. I had visions of someone driving around DC in an Escalade with an M2 mounted on the roof. I had to laugh.

Then, well, I remembered something about DC. In DC, any gun that can fire more thn 12 rounds semi-automatically without reloading is a "machine gun."

From § 7-2501.01:
(10) "Machine gun" means any firearm which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily converted or restored to shoot:
(A) Automatically, more than 1 shot by a single function of the trigger;
(B) Semiautomatically, more than 12 shots without manual reloading.

So, that GLOCK 17 you have? It's a machine gun. My 1911? It's a machine gun. (It's semi-auto, and they make magazines larger than 12.) Your 10/22? machine gun.

"Machine gun" they keep using that word, I do not think it means what they think it means.