Whenever there is another gun outrage in the US I am accustomed to seeing the same arguments being rehashed by the proponents and opponents of gun control. Being British I am generally on the side of those who want stronger gun control, as you might expect, but being reasonable I can see that there are huge obstacles to such control in the US. Given my general equanimity on this matter I find it surprising that my dander can be got up by one particularly meretricious attack used by the pro-gun group against their opponents.

This attack always follows the use of the term “automatic” and takes the form that the weapon used was not or could not be automatic but was, rather, semi-automatic.

Firstly this is a false distinction but used by the pro-gun group to say the the news organisation, blog or DU poster who uses it knows nothing about guns. The counter argument, rarely deployed, is the the pro-gun supporter using it knows little about English. The true distinction is between semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons; the term automatic on its own means both.

Next, the point will be raised that automatic weapons (i.e. fully automatic handguns) cannot be sold to private citizens of the USA and that the conversion of semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic ones is also illegal. Well I am sure that I am missing something when I believe that any extreme right wing, left wing or criminal group will, of course, refuse to honour this law.

The final argument deployed is that it is incredibly difficult to modify a legal semi-automatic weapon to an illegal fully automatic one. One person even wrote that he was an armourer and that such conversions would require a fully fitted machine shop with CNC mills and lathes.

This is a lie. There are many proofs of this but I will satisfy myself with 3.

Firstly let me introduce DU to the craftsmen of Darra Adam Khel. This is a township in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan and for centuries the gunsmiths of this town have been copying the finest weapons of East and West. This is a tradition they are happy to keep up using little more than old fashioned lathes and mills, good eyesight and engineering files. You can read more about them on the net but the Wikipedia page is pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darra_Adam_Kh... .

Secondly, presumably because the US has such poor engineers of the old fashioned variety (this is very heavy sarcasm), you can see that a CNC lathe would cost a huge amount. Well not really, read about home made CNC devices here http://hacknmod.com/hack/build-your-own-di... / as well as many other places on the internet.

Lastly a very brief search found several US and Canadian sites that outlined how to convert AK47 and similar weapons to fully automatic fire using little more than a $100 pillar drill, there is even one that advises that you can use a twist tie for the same effect.

OK, I have finished my little rant and no doubt I will be roundly attacked for it. Feel free but those of you against gun control please do not use falsehood and condescension against your opponents.