By strict definition, a firearm must have the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle: • It must be an individual weapon; • It must be capable of
selective fire, which means it has the capacity to switch between
semi-automatic and
burst/
fully automatic fire; • It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a
pistol but less than a standard
rifle or
battle rifle. For full-power automatic rifles, see
List of battle rifles; • Its
ammunition must be supplied from a detachable box magazine; • It should have an effective range of at least . Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are technically not assault rifles, despite frequently being called such. For example: • Select-fire
Amogh carbines are not assault rifles; their effective range is only 200 yards. • Select-fire rifles such as the
FN FAL are not assault rifles; they are
battle rifles and fire full-powered rifle cartridges. • Select-fire rifles such as the
Joint Venture Protective Carbine are not assault rifles; as their cartridge is too weak. • Fully-automatic-only rifles like the
M231 Firing Port Weapon are not assault rifles; they do not have select-fire capabilities. In contrast, the original
ArmaLite AR-15 would meet the criteria. • Select-fire rifles with fixed magazines like the
Cei-Rigotti are not assault rifles; they do not have detachable box magazines. Several of the rifles on the below list have non-assault rifle variants. Because they lack the selective fire capability as they only fire semi-automatic even though it fulfills the other requirements of the definition above. ==List==