imported post
Often things get confused in antiquity. Even we firearm advocates are confused with firearm terminology. When what we commonly call today "semi-automatic" weapons first came on the scene they were called "automatics". In fact if you look at the antique ammo boxes at gun shows you will see older boxes of .45acp ammo labeled "45 automatic". At that time in history the word automatic meant nothing in regards to how many bullets a gun could fire. At the introduction of those new types of firearms the firearms in existance required some means of manual manipulation to bring the next bullet into battery. You either cocked the hammer, worked the bolt, opened the breach or pulled the trigger to rotate the cylinder in order to chamber a new round. The "new" firearms did all of that automatically by using gas pressure from the expended round. Hence the name "automatic". During the course of time the term got warped. It began to equate to the number of rounds fired with a single pull of the trigger. If only one round was fired the firearm was described as a semiu-automatic. If more than one round was fired with one pull of the trigger it became identified as an automatic. The fact of the matter is that the word automatic as it applies to rate of fire is incorrect. In reality it is an archaic term that has been replaced by the term semi-automatic. There are these basic types of firearms: breakaction, slideaction, bolt action, muzzle loader, semi-automatic. All require a single pull of the trigger to fire each round. Any other firearm that is capable of firing two or more rounds with a single pull of the trigger is a "machine gun". It doesn't matter that it happens to look like one of the forementiond firearms. A service rifle or even a "tommy gun" for that matter is either a semi-automatic or a machine gun depending on which position the selector lever is placed.
