I don’t generally post on crime news, but in this case I’d like to correct the media on something I see all the friggin time:
Weapons used in the bank robberies included a .380 handgun, an SKS assault rifle and an MDL assault rifle, according to the U.S. Attorney.
I guess I need to correct the US Attorney too, but, aside from the fact that I’ve never heard of an “MDL assault rifle”, the SKS is not and has never been considered by anyone to be an assault rifle. The correct term would be semi-automatic carbine, or self-loading carbine. There is no version of the SKS that’s natively capable of fully automatic fire, so it’s missing a key part of the definition.
The Chinese did make some select-fires (I’m assuming that they used AK mags), but I don’t think there were many of them.
Except the Chinese called it the Type 56 carbine. Though, the Type 81 stole elements from the SKS too.