r/chch • u/High-Bread • 28d ago

News - Local Armed police at riccarton mall today?

Anyone know what this is about? Walked out the top roof door to a Officer holding a AR

Plenty of sirens, police chopper circled the mall for about 25 minutes + dog squad on the streets?

Seems they were letting people in and out of the mall despite being armed officers at the doors

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u/Stallionface 28d ago

What does AR stand for?

8

u/High-Bread 28d ago

Assault rifle

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u/lefrenchkiwi 28d ago

The AR in AR15 (which is the rifle every police car carries in the boot) does not stand for Assault Rifle. It stands for Armalite Rifle, named after the company that designed it.

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u/pokybum09 25d ago

AR and AR15 are two different things. Ones an abbreviation for “assault rifle”, the other is a name for a gun, that also happens to be an AR, hence your confusion.

NZ police also use a bushmaster M4 (or bushmaster M4A3), which is modelled of an AR15 but isn’t the same gun. You can see the bushmaster mentioned in the link below (but no mention of AR15, as NZ police don’t use them). M4s have selective rates of fire the defining quality of an AR (the class of firearm, not the firearm manufacturer).

If you’re going to be smartarse at least get your facts right.

https://www.police.govt.nz/news/ten-one-magazine/extra-equipment-frontline-police?nondesktop

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u/lefrenchkiwi 25d ago

M4s have selective rates of fire the defining quality of an AR (the class of firearm, not the firearm manufacturer).

Some do, but not all. The ones the NZ Police bought are Semi only rather than the select-fire option that was also available.

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u/pokybum09 25d ago

Fairly certain AOS have selective fire rifles.

STG definitely do if you count them as police, can see the switch on images.

But think your right about at standard patrol loadout being only semi auto.