Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
CLAIM: On March 20, 2023, the Texas Tribune claimed the AR-15 was the U.S. infantry rifle used by soldiers during the Vietnam War.
VERDICT: False. The U.S. infantry rifle was an M-16, a rifle with a select fire switch and automatic fire capability.
The M-16 looks like an AR-15, and they shoot the same caliber, but the similarities do not go much deeper than that.
For example, an AR-15 is a semiautomatic, civilian rifle. It shoots one round per trigger pull, period. Its semiautomatic action is driven by the recoil of a bullet being fired and the action uses that recoil to load the next bullet into the chamber, but that new round is not fired until the trigger is squeezed again.
An M-16, on the other hand, has a select fire switch on the receiver that allows the gun to be fired as a semiautomatic, in three-round bursts, or fully automatic. When the switch is on three-round bursts, the M-16 fires three rounds rapidly with a single pull of the trigger. When the select fire switch is on full auto, the M-16 will fire every round in the magazine — at a high rate of fire — with a single pull of the trigger.
History.com notes, “Standard issue for infantrymen in Vietnam was the M-16, a gas-operated, magazine-fed rifle that could fire 5.56 mm-caliber bullets accurately over several hundred yards at 700-900 rounds per minute on its automatic setting; it could also be used as a semi-automatic. Its ammunition came in magazines of 20-30 rounds, making it relatively easy to reload.”
Again, the M-16 is a battlefield rifle with fully automatic capability, and the AR-15 is a semiautomatic civilian rifle.