Assault Rifle <br>
A true assault rifle is a small, rifle-sized, fully-automatic arm chambered for an intermediate-power rifle round such as 7.62 x 39mm (_______) or 5.56 x 45mm (_______). Current examples include the AK-47, AK-74, M16, and Steyr AUG. 
 
The recently designed FN P90 Personal Defense Weapon falls somewhere between the submachine gun and assault rifle categories. It fires a small, light, 5.7 x 28mm rifle-caliber round but is about the size of a submachine gun. The P90 was designed for support troops other than assault infantry, who need full-sized assault rifles. The effectiveness of this new round in combat has not been fully determined. 


Assault weapons: There is little agreement on what constitutes an assault weapon, even among firearm enthusiasts. Legal definitions vary from state to state: Connecticut defines an assault weapon as “any selective-fire firearm capable of fully automatic, semi-automatic, or burst fire at the options of the user.” In Virginia, any gun with a magazine capacity greater than 20 rounds counts. The now-expired Federal Assault Weapon Ban, passed in 1994, laid out complex guidelines to define which firearms were considered assault weapons. (Most were AR-15s and AK-47s.) The federal definition of an assault weapon expired with that law in 2004.



 However, most gun experts agree that fully automatic firearms (defined below) count as assault weapons, as do some higher-caliber semi-automatic guns.