[brazzaville]

Good evening.

"It is full-auto or nothing."

Sorry, TalonDJ, that isn't true. The selector lever has three positions, Safe, Semi Auto, and Auto. I think it is a poor design in an otherwise fine weapon.

The lever is in an awkward position, forcing the operator to take his hand off the grip and away from the trigger. The lever on an AK is also very loud. The selector switch on an M-16 can be operated with the thumb of the shooting hand and they can be tuned to be smooth and silent.

Either would be acceptable under the original interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Michael Frazier

[Spktyr]

Mike's right.

The original AK-47 does have three settings that one can choose from on the right-side selector. Top is safe, bottom is semiauto or "single shot," middle is full auto or "hey, where did all my ammo go?". Later military versions sometimes have a fourth selector setting between full and semi that allows it to fire 3 or 4 round bursts. On all variants, the selector lever makes a very loud and distinctive "KLACK" when changing from one setting to another.

On the civilian semi-auto only versions, there's only two settings. Top is safe, bottom is semiauto (some say "off" and "on"). It still makes the KLACK noise. Just about as distinctive as hearing a pump shotgun or rifle action being cycled, and just about as effective at making an uninvited guest leaving your darkened house in a hurry at 3 or 4am. The AK variants that are shotguns make a moderately loud click, not the characteristic KLACK when turning the safety off. They do KLACK when you turn it back on.