As we absorb the horrible news about the mass gun murders in Las Vegas, and the probable use of at least one fully-automatic weapon in the carnage, here are three things to know:
* Though the relevant federal licensing is complex and expensive, it is legal to own a fully-automatic weapon in most states. The number of legally-licensed such weapons in the US is somewhere between 140,000 and nearly 400,000, according to several articles I've read today.
Semi-automatic weapons fire every time the trigger is pulled; automatic weapons fire repeatedly as long as a pulled trigger is held in that position, hence the more rapid "automatic" emptying of the cartridges in the weapon's magazine.
* One such fully-automatic weapon, a military-grade M-16 similar to those below, was among 18 weapons stolen from a Janesville, WI gun shop earlier this year in a high-profile crime spree by an anti-government extremist.
Thirteen of those stolen weapons, including the M-16, have not been recovered.
* Legal semi-automatic weapons can be altered through so-called "bump fire" parts modifications to fire faster, though not at the rate of a fully-automatic weapon. You can Google the term.
* With the know how and parts, it is said that a semi-automatic weapon can be converted to full automatic. Again, you can Google the terminology and read threads devoted to the matter.
* Though the relevant federal licensing is complex and expensive, it is legal to own a fully-automatic weapon in most states. The number of legally-licensed such weapons in the US is somewhere between 140,000 and nearly 400,000, according to several articles I've read today.
Semi-automatic weapons fire every time the trigger is pulled; automatic weapons fire repeatedly as long as a pulled trigger is held in that position, hence the more rapid "automatic" emptying of the cartridges in the weapon's magazine.
* One such fully-automatic weapon, a military-grade M-16 similar to those below, was among 18 weapons stolen from a Janesville, WI gun shop earlier this year in a high-profile crime spree by an anti-government extremist.
Thirteen of those stolen weapons, including the M-16, have not been recovered.
* With the know how and parts, it is said that a semi-automatic weapon can be converted to full automatic. Again, you can Google the terminology and read threads devoted to the matter.