I am theoretically (so far) playing with a similar project. A generic computer-operated pan-tilt mount, to operate anything from a camera to an antenna to a gun.
The US military had a similar idea for their armored cars. First they worried that the soldiers wonāt cope well by operating the thing via camera and screens. Turned out that the troops are already trained, from videogames.
That assessment works when youāre on the side with ample human resources. When youāre on the other side, it is wiser to conserve what you got less of, in this case the operators.
I want to learn to weld. If I hadnāt found a job when I did I contemplated trying to learn it for a new career - though I am not 100% sure I would be physically up to the task.
I learned the theory from some books and the internet, and from watching youtube videos. The practice ate some steel scrap and took a few projects.
I am rather frail, and if you donāt handle big pieces of steel you can do it. A stick welder is cheap (get the inverter, DC is somewhat better and much lighter than the transformer AC ones). Sticks are also cheap, the generic ones, and for more money you can get sticks for cast iron (handy), burning/cutting (handy for grooving out fractures before welding, or making rough-shaped holes), stainless, hardfacing, and even depositing bronze (I didnāt try that). Thick pieces of aluminium can be also stick-welded but the electrodes burn FAST.
MIG and TIG would be sexier, but MMA will do most of the common jobs and you donāt need to buy and maintain and haul around gas bottles. Laser and electron beam would be even better but a bit out of reach, equipment-wiseā¦
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Itās a civilian variant AR-15. Standard military issue AR-15s are full auto and are definitely assault rifles. The only difference is that civilian variants do not have a full auto mode. Itās still a weapon designed to take 30 round, 5.56x45mm STANAG magazines, and kill lots of people really quickly.
Really, the potential for destruction isnāt all that much reduced by making the weapon semi-auto. It just makes accidents a little less likely.
You know, Iām probably going to hell for this, but my first thought was why charge $1400 for a Psalm 144:1 rifle when clearly the gimmick price should be $1441.
Iām not making any judgment call about how dangerous it is or isnāt, simply pointing out that a weapon that lacks full-auto capability (like this one) doesnāt appear to technically be an āassaultā rifle at all.
Itās a scare-term thatās being applied incorrectly. (I think? Again, not a gun guy, so Iām not sure)
Yeah, youāre right there.
I still think that even if they donāt precisely fit into the class of assault rifles, theyāve got features that ought to set them apart from regular firearms for typical civilian uses though.
I mean, nobody needs a 30 round mag for hunting. Nobody needs a pile of rails for home defense. Itās a rifle optimized for wartime use on the battle field, and is kinda inappropriate for most civilian uses.
Although, it is true that handguns cause a lot more deaths and injuries.
ETA: The only practical difference between a civilian AR-15 and one thatās fully auto is that it takes 10 seconds to kill a dozen people with the civilian model, while it takes about 6 seconds in the full auto variant.
Itās fashion. Like a micropurse, but for a different aesthetic.
BRILLIANT. They totally should have done that since it was so close to that price anyway.
How much for one that says, āI Like Turtlesā?
Funny how they chose that bible verse, and not Exodus 20:13
blessed are the widow makers
It isnāt an assault rifle. New assault rifles may only be sold to the military and law enforcement.
Youād only get a gun like that in a Steve Aylett novel (to those that havenāt, I recommend reading his Beerlight series).
Ezekiel 25:17.
When you absolutely, positively, got to kill every motherfucker in the room; accept no substitutes
Nah, thatās a different gun, surely? 
Cāmon; you know that if a fundamentalist terrorist got his hands on one of these, heād be itching to use it ironically.
āHey, look! Iām blessing the masses!ā Bada-bada-bada-badaā
First of all, prescriptivism is nonsense when it comes to the meaning of words. The meaning of words isnāt decided by a bunch of elderly gentlemen sitting down together at a table and writing a dictionary ā itās derived from usage.
Second of all, where are yāall getting this very specific definition of āassault rifleā? Wikipedia admits any selective fire rifle, even if itās only semi-auto and burst (no full auto). Iām assuming thereās other definitions out there that we could use. Whatās so special about the āfull autoā definition?
I mean, besides the fact that it allows a bunch of internet pedants to accuse other people of scaremongering.
Thirdly, since prescriptivism is nonsense, and since definitions are always fuzzy, why doesnāt it make sense to allow a slightly non-standard usage of the term āassault rifleā to make it clear weāre talking about something like an AR-15 instead of something like an M1917 Enfield?
We could compare this to a situation where someone calls a juniper bush āa treeā to distinguish it from a collection of shrubs and plants that are less tree-like than the juniper. Technically, a juniper is not a tree, but if the point of using words is to communicate information efficiently and calling it a tree helps people understand what they are supposed to be doing then it seems pretty legit. Calling an AR-15 an āassault rifleā gives you the flavor of what kind of gun it is.
Otherwise you have to resort to something like: āOne of those rifles that is tooled as an assault rifle when sold to the military or police, but is never tooled as an assault rifle when sold to civilians.ā
I mean, especially since I think weāre all pretty clear that the appeal of owning an AR-15 in particular is largely the fact that it looks like an assault rifle (because it actually is when tooled slightly differently) and quite deadly to boot. I just donāt think the āfull autoā thing is really relevant to the info that the author is trying to convey with the phrase āassault rifleā.
And I donāt think correspondingly loose uses of language are policed nearly as strictly as this one. Which makes me think the āassault rifleā pedantry is a knee-jerk reaction born of some kind of insecurity or something.
