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Yemen weapons dealers selling machine guns on X (www.bbc.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Weapons dealers in Yemen are openly using the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, to sell Kalashnikovs, pistols, grenades and grenade-launchers.

The traders operate in the capital Sana’a and other areas under control of the Houthis, a rebel group backed by Iran and proscribed as terrorists by the US and Australian governments.

The advertisements are mostly in Arabic and aimed primarily at Yemeni customers in a country where the number of guns is often said to outnumber the population by three to one.

The BBC has found several examples online, offering weapons at prices in both Yemeni and Saudi riyals.

The words beside the weapons are designed to lure in the buyers.

"Premium craftsmanship and top-notch warranty," says one advertisement. "The Yemeni-modified AK is your best choice."

A demonstration video, filmed at night, shows the seller blasting off a 30-round magazine on full automatic.

Another offers sand-coloured Pakistani-produced Glock pistols for around $900 each.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Sure, but that's also not the common-use definition; it includes things like bump stocks. There are plenty of examples in which legal terminology doesn't reflect plain English, and the journalist obviously isn't using US legalese.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

it includes things like bump stocks

Not anymore! Thanks to a court case, bump stocks, FRTs, and the like are all legal once again. Swiftlinks are still illegal though.

Also the news is totally doing exactly what you imply, they do it every time. Hell they are fond of calling the AR-15 "high powered" despite the .223 round carrying about as much kenetic energy as a hot .357 mag round, or calling standard capacity magazines "high capacity" because despite it being the standard it's higher than their arbitrarily set "low" number, or even calling things "fully semi-automatic" which is just word vomit. They don't care, because the people who are knowledgeable about the subject are already incapable of being manipulated like that sure, but most of the general public is not knowledgeable about it so the percentage works out in their favor to get views. Eventually (and I think soon,) they'll overuse it and maybe it'll start to lose its effect.

That said, most people do just mean "gun that fires full auto" for "machine guns," including machine pistols like the Glock 18. They're not typically making a distinction between LMG, SMG, etc, unless they do specify "LMG." I have no doubt these AKs are full auto (I'd be surprised to learn they were semi-auto actually), and thus they would fit the commonly used definition of "machine gun" enough that I won't give them guff about it. This time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

id call the common use of the term machine gun to be any automatic firearm accurate enough, but you also have a point about inflated language

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

just because something isn't common around you doesn't mean it's not common.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Just because it is common around you doesn't mean it is common on a societal scale, which is the one they are speaking to. You know this. You know, that the general public defines guns this way. The technical definition is not the common one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

that's literally what I just fucking said

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I apologize, the way my phone collapses a lot of comments to fit the screen made it look like you were @[email protected]. Which made it seem like you were saying, basically the opposite. I didn't notice the difference in commenter names until I expanded each little downward pointing chevron on this thread.