Armed guard members will carry the type of weapon they are normally issued and trained on, typically M17 handguns and M4 semiautomatic rifles, similar to assault-style rifles, the Defense Department officials said. Some guard members will carry M9 pistols.
The military weapons are similar to those used by local police departments across the United States. The M4 is a standard semiautomatic rifle and has roughly the same capabilities as semiautomatic rifles used by law enforcement agencies.
Completely incorrect. NBC is clearly trying to downplay the seriousness of this. M4 rifles are not assault “style”. They are assault rifles, fullstop. The M4, and other assault rifles, are not legal for civilian use. They have full automatic or burst fire capability, depending on the specific model.
The weapons these soldiers are carrying are not AR-15s. These are not “assault weapons”. These are weapons of war. They are not for civilian hunters or shooting competitions. They are for killing human beings.
Well…they’re legal, but unlike with semi-auto rifles, you need a license — an FFL — and the federal government isn’t required to give you one. You can find plenty of YouTube footage of people shooting legally-owned automatic weapons.
You don’t need an FFL, it’s a 200 dollar tax stamp, some lengthy background checks, and you have to find one made before 1986 owned by someone who’s willing to sell it to you.
You can kind of get around that by getting an FFL to acquire post-1986 machine guns, but that comes with its own red tape, and you can basically only get them for your business as a gun shop. If you close up shop, you gotta get rid of the new machine guns.