Since Toskesh is taking their sweet time...
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Ladies and Gentlemen of the United Nations.
As has come to our attentions that our fair nation has been accused of violating the Geneva Conventions on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious, Have Indiscriminate Effects, or Greatly Enable and Encourage the Pursuant of Armed Conflicts Between Nations , Protocol VI.
Nogrania rejects these accusations strongly and categorically. Nogrania seeks not to violate international law, and instead seeks to work with and within its confines. Nogrania has, and will continue, to uphold the conventions.
The argument laid by our detractors is of nature of a weapon system nicknamed Wictor, that is used by Nogranian Armed Forces. Claim is that this weapon violates the Protocol VI, by the virtue of firing rapidly. Yet, I shall call attention to the fact that rate of fire of weapon system is not defined within Protocol VI. Instead, Protocol VI defines automatic weapon as that which “fires greater than one projectile per activation of the device” without requiring active manual input.
It does not define rate of fire. A trained marksman can operate a semi-automatic rifle at extreme rate of fire, yet would this council ban such weapon based on individual soldier? Is the users personal skill and ability factor in defining whenever or not weapon is to be considered automatic? I say no. Individual soldiers skills are far too varied to be categorized into illegal or legal framework.
And this brings us to main point of contention. Wictor is a semi-automatic weapon, with a trigger that requires input to start an activation. Each activation fires once projectile. No more, no less. One projectile. Combined with this legal trigger is the hand crank with four spokes, that strike the trigger as crank is turned. Each 90 degrees turn requires different action to be carried out. user is constantly required to change the movement of their hand to maintain fire.
Wictor requires more action from the user than a semi-automatic rifle. User is required to turn the crank 90 degrees in order to activate the weapon, each activation requiring further 90 degrees turns. It is up to the user to run the crank, to run the weapon, fast enough to provide suppressive fire. If a soldier were to, for example, be able to empty a semi-automatic pistols 30 round magazine in 2 seconds, that would mean fire rate of 15 rounds per second, total of 450 rounds per minute. Would this tribuna declare such weapon illegal? Does this tribunal declare a human being illegal?
The rate of fire of the hypothetical weapon, as well as very concrete Wictor, comes not from the weapon itself, but from the ability of user to carry out rapid activations. The weapon fires only a single projectile per action. It is up to user to run the device fast enough to reach desired fire rate.
As such, based on logic and letter of the law, Wictor does not violate Protocol VI.