Sure, but the rifle in question is not, and has never been a military weapon. The premise is that this is a “weapon of war”, as the redcoats like to describe it.
Besides, the “assault-style features” are purely cosmetic and have no bearing on the functionality of the rifle.
I’m assuming you know who Eugene Stoner is. If you do, you would also be aware that he designed the AR10 in a competition to be a replacement for the M1 Garand. You’d also be aware that the South Vietnamese liked it so much that they asked him to design a smaller version, which resulted in another team at Armalite scaling the AR10 down in addition to Stoner himself designing a new cartridge based on the Remington 222 (IIRC). Smaller weapon was a lot easier for the smaller stature of the Vietnamese to handle and also caught the attention of Curtis LeMay for use as survival equipment for his pilots.
If you don’t know any of that, perhaps you should educate yourself. A great place to start would be the Library of Congress interviews with Eugene Stoner, where he lays out the exact history I described above, which are on YouTube.
I’m not talking about the Armalite AR-10. Myself, other gun rights activists, and redcoats (gun control proponents) are talking about weapons patterned after the Colt AR-15, which is exclusively semi-automatic.
redcoats
Fucking LOL
This is what American Civil Religion does to your brain, kids
You’re gonna live in fear and you’re gonna LIKE IT
honestly it’s morons like this who will fuck things up for everyday gun owners who aren’t fuckups. Of course, the number of fuckups with firearms is astounding, just based on the idiots leaving their firearms in unsecured cars.
You’re in fear when you don’t have a gun?
redcoats
Oh, you’re a fetishist. I get it now. Anyone who disagrees with the addition of more firearms to a country that already has more guns than people is a redcoat to you. An enemy. Not your fellow citizen, not prior service people who look at firearms as tools of war and see that in our goddamned news every fucking week now… no, we’re your enemy, because we value life more than esoteric interpretations of 200 year old dogma.
Y’all give two fuckin’ shits about a well regulated Militia.
Stoner’s AR-15 and the AR-15 of today are pretty different. Now it’s a genericized term for a firearms platform.
Think of it like a PC. It’s about parts being mostly compatible. Lots of parts are interchangeable, though not everything matches. For instance the ammunition dictate the barrel and bolt size, and the buffer tube determines which stocks can be used, etc.
The common feature on pretty much all of them is the lower receiver, which is different than it was for Stoner and for military guns.
AR-15 receivers don’t accommodate a part that’s required for full-auto or burst fire, and modding them to accept the part is a super duper ultra felony - even if you don’t put the part in.
Oh - and the weapon from Armalite used for pilot survival is a COMPLETELY different firearm. It’s the AR-5, and was a 22 hornet takedown rifle that is not useful for combat at all. You can buy one today in .22lr called the AR-7 or “Henry Survival Rifle.”
The “AR” designation just means they were designed by the Armalite Rifle company - the AR-17 was actually a shotgun designed for bird hunting.
Point of fact: AR-15 is actually a trademark owned by Colt. That’s why there’s the Ruger AR-556, and the S&W M&P 15 Sport II, which are marketed as AR-15 style rifles. Kinda like Styrofoam; people misuse the trademark (esp. styrofoam cups; such a thing has never existed) regularly, but it’s still owned by the Dow Chemical Corp. (Or was; I think they sold that division off to E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.)
The trademark probably won’t last too much longer though, as it’s become genercized AND Colt wasn’t the inventor of the product or the name. They also no longer manufacture civilian AR-pattern rifles, so they’re on really shaky grounds for defending the name.
Bayer lost the trademark for Aspirin. Xerox almost lost the trademark to their own name, and had to actually start advertising their products as “photocopiers” instead of “Xerox machines.”
Sure, but the rifle in question is not, and has never been a military weapon. The premise is that this is a “weapon of war”, as the redcoats like to describe it.
Yes, thank you for this demonstration of pedantism.
If they’re just cosmetic and have no bearing on the functionality, does that make whoever uses them a lamewad cosplayer?
I wanna say Mall Shooter (like Mall Ninja), but…
If shape doesn’t matter, why does anyone care about legislating what shapes can be sold?
Because they’re ignorant. Here are a few clips showing their ignorance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rGpykAX1fo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJmFEv6BHM0
If you want to violate the Second Amendment, at least educate yourself about the subject of your illegal legislation first.
I’d love to violate the second amendment! Can you define it in more than four words?
Sure thing, bud. “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Don’t forget the “well regulated” part.
- What right is the amendment about? The right to keep and bear arms.
- Whose right is it? The people.
- What shall be done with this right? It shall not be infringed.
The rest only explains the reason why the amendment was written and doesn’t alter the above facts. Let’s rewrite it a bit to be more understandable:
A well balanced breakfast, being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food, shall not be infringed.
Is it the right of the well balanced breakfast, or the right of the people, in this case, to keep and eat food? Of course, it is the right of the people. What shall be done with it? It shall not be infringed upon. If you dictate to me what food I am allowed to store in my cupboards and in what circumstances I am allowed to eat it, you are infringing upon my right to keep and eat food.
I get it, you’re an individualist, you won’t find me arguing against an individuals right to own guns; however I disagree with your analysis. Your interpretation of “infringed” seems to be “anything preventing.” Well-regulated in the context of the 2nd amendment implies the imposition of proper training and discipline. This has actually already been decided.
DC v. Heller (which ruled on the individual right to bear arms in 2008) states:
“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose”If your food isn’t for breakfast, that law has nothing to do with it.
Invoking other arguments for eating would be a fallacy. Your own stupid analogy just says: breakfast.
Okay, so you’d be down for sensible legislation that takes the right to bear arms as an absolute.
Like if we registered and tracked all firearms, without changing who can buy which ones.
Those laws would be infringements, and are illegal under the Second Amendment.
infringe: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another
Does a right to bear arms mean something besides owning and carrying loaded guns? Because writing down who has which guns does not stop that in any way.
Unless maybe you’re picking the conclusion you want and working backwards.
Here’s a fun one: should full-auto submachineguns be available at 7-11?
I won’t make a comment on whether automatic submachine guns should or shouldn’t be available at a convenience store. But I will state that under the Second Amendment, any law that prevents people from owning and using submachine guns is illegal.
Your exceptionally narrow view of and focus on singular word in an amendment is hilarious.
That’s pretty “should,” guy.
That’s straight-up endorsing 7-11’s ability to sell literally any gun to literally anybody. If you have hesitations about whether that’s a fucking terrible idea… good. Maybe we can talk about that.
AR-15 is a gender identity in some parts.
From the piece,
How did the AR-15 go from being mainly used on battlefields to one of the most popular firearms among civilians in the US?
This question is based on a false premise. Neither the Colt AR-15, nor the ArmaLite AR-15 have ever been used “on battlefields”.
You still see leaders in the Democratic party talking about, “we need another assault weapons ban,” when, as we show in our book, the first one really didn’t work. And secondly, there’s more than 20m in civilian hands right now – what’s a ban going to do at this point?
Support for those movements has been very episodic, whereas gun rights groups are laser-focused on one thing. So people have to start to talk beyond this binary of guns are bad or guns are good. We need to start thinking about surgical ways to make us all safer, because that’s the bottom line.
The man speaks truth. Gun bans aren’t going to make anyone, except for police and criminals, safer.
This question is based on a false premise. Neither the Colt AR-15, nor the ArmaLite AR-15 have ever been used “on battlefields”.
Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure you and everyone else understood the gist of the argument.Gun bans aren’t going to make anyone, except for police and criminals, safer.
Funny how the rest of the First World disagrees, and somehow they have far, far fewer mass shootings. But why allow facts get in the way of a cherished rhetoric?
The rest of the First World are entitled to their irrelevant opinions. They are also free to actually state facts and share sources.
They are also free to actually state facts and share sources.
Thanks.
@baldprophet:
Gun bans aren’t going to make anyone, except for police and criminals, safer.
And then @spaceghoti:
Funny how the rest of the First World disagrees, and somehow they have far, far fewer mass shootings.
This is how 2A debates always fucking go, amd have done for decades. Progress will never be made so long as both sides keep ignoring the real goalposts and keep talking past each other instead of listening.
I’ll do my best to break this down for both of you chucklefucks:
Baldprophet, it’s immaterial if gun bans will make anyone safer or not. The 2A is an Amendment, not a law, which is why gun bans are unconstitutional and an Amendment is required instead. Nothing in the 2A is predicated on safety.
Spaceghoti, it’s immaterial how many mass shootings we have. The 2A is an Amendment, not a law, which is why gun bans are unconstitutional and an Amendment is required instead. Nothing in the 2A is predicated on the number of mass shootings we have.
Spaceghoti, you get a second blurb, because Baldprophet brought up the irrelevant safety issue, and then you moved the goalpost. Unless safety and mass shootings are synonymous, which is not something you established in your post, your response to Baldprophet is a non sequitur and utterly irrelevant even to their irrelevant nonsense.
Here’s why I don’t give a rat’s ass about your analysis. The Second Amendment has been interpreted to hold gun ownership as sacrosanct, and it’s bullshit. It doesn’t say that. Here’s what it does say:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Interpreted one way, the way we currently interpret it, there’s no way to infringe on the right to own guns. Interpreted another way, the right is to participate in a militia and thus to own and maintain guns for the purposes of national defense. Somehow, all the 2A freaks seem to skip over the first part.
I’m concerned about how guns are being used to create and escalate violence across the nation in numbers we’ve never seen before. We’re the only first world nation in the world that can’t seem to figure out the simple and obvious solution that guns don’t make us safer. It doesn’t save lives. The proliferation of guns among the civilian population has only increased violence, and I really don’t give a shit about any other argument.
Until the gun worshipers stop getting in the way of any kind of commonsense reform, up to and including a new Amendment to clarify or repeal the Second Amendment, I will continue to advocate for the banning of all guns. Because I consider human lives far more important than someone’s fetish.
And that’s all I have to say to all of you.
That’s one interpretation. Let’s see if the founding fathers wrote anything else to clarify what they meant…
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined…”
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, son-in-law of John Adams, December 20, 1787
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
“I enclose you a list of the killed, wounded, and captives of the enemy from the commencement of hostilities at Lexington in April, 1775, until November, 1777, since which there has been no event of any consequence … I think that upon the whole it has been about one half the number lost by them, in some instances more, but in others less. This difference is ascribed to our superiority in taking aim when we fire; every soldier in our army having been intimate with his gun from his infancy.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778
“To disarm the people…[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them.”
- George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788
“I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
- George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”
- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
“…the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone…”
- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
- William Pitt (the Younger), Speech in the House of Commons, November 18, 1783
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined… The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
“The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance ofpower is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves.”
- Thomas Paine, “Thoughts on Defensive War” in Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
- Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833
“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty … Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress 750, August 17, 1789
“For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, December 21, 1787
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.”
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
“[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.”
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28, January 10, 1788
“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
- Tench Coxe, Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
Thank you for making my point so thoroughly. They believed in strong, disciplined militias. And they never imagined the horrors of modern weapons technology inflicted on civilian populations by fellow civilians.
If that’s your takeaway then I suggest you return to grade school and have them teach you how to read again, because the whole comprehension part seems to have sailed right over your head.
It may help with his reading comprehension to use the text in an analogy, like:
“A well balanced breakfast, being necessary to the start of a healthy day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed.”
This way it is clear, “a well balanced breakfast” isn’t who has the right to keep and eat food, “the people” are, because breakfast is important.
Yes, let’s hear what rich white misogynist racist’s said about muskets hundreds of years ago. Definitely should hold importance nowadays.
OP was making an argument based on the constitution, I was simply working within the framework they established to make a counterargument. I could have just as easily quoted Marx, Che, Malcolm X, or any of dozens of others of more modern political icons of the left that understand what happens to a populace once they’ve been disarmed. Spoiler alert: they say the same things the framers of the constitution said.
As far as their moral failings, they were a product of their time. 200 years from now you will be remembered as a savage, ignorant moron too. That’s of course assuming you do anything with your life worth remembering 200 years from now…
The fastest growing segment of gun owners in the US is women and LGBTQ+ people, and it’s not because their heart isn’t breaking whenever a school gets shot up. It’s because they know that guns are never going away, and the right is not getting any less violent, so you better be prepared to protect yourself, because those fascist cops don’t give a fuck about you.
Interpreted another way, the right is to participate in a militia
Sure, if you’re operating on a third grade reading level.
I really don’t give a shit about any other argument.
Your dogmatic fundamentalism prevents your words from being persuasive.
I don’t have the words to describe how much that hurts my feelings.
Dang I was 100% with you until the last paragraph, taking hard-stances just makes people dig-in their heels.
I want access to guns so my trans/PoC/whatever friends can never have their rights taken away. So if a round of J6’ers is ever successful, they can resist.
That being said of course there should be some reasonable laws, you probably shouldn’t be able to pick up a sport-type rifle same-day by just answering a few questions on a questionnaire; we make people get licenses and prove they can drive, I’m not sure guns should be any different.
Except arming your trans/PoC friends is likely to get them killed even more than when they don’t. The presence of guns escalates violence, far more often than it de-escalates.
Furthermore, arming everyone increases the chances that innocent bystanders will get hit. Or do you think everyone ever hit by a bullet was its target? The myth about the “good guy with a gun” is exactly that: a myth. The good guys don’t hit their targets with that much accuracy. I’m sorry if this ruined anyone’s “Die Hard” fantasies, but those fantasies are literally killing people every day.
So if we take away guns, only criminals will have guns, right. Sure, I’ll concede that. Those with guns will be criminals. They’ll also be far less likely to shoot you while they commit a crime because they’ll have no reason to think you’re going to shoot them first. I would rather be robbed than shot. I can get more money. I can’t get more life.
Last, I find it curious that you took my conditional statement as an absolute. I pointed out that in light of the unwillingness of 2A freaks to consider any compromise, my only option is to demand all guns be taken away. What other choice do I have? If compromise were possible then I would accept that. I’m not going to make perfect the enemy of good. But thanks to the gun lobby and the Federalist Society, we can’t have any restrictions on gun ownership and zero discussion on the impact guns are having on the health of our society. To balance that extreme, it is necessary for people who care about human lives to go to the other extreme.
When gun advocates are finally willing to acknowledge the problems they’re creating, I’m willing to talk. Until then, I see no reason why I should give any more ground than they are.
Driving a car isn’t a right enshrined in the constitution. Owning a firearm, however, is.
Sorry bud, but safety is absolutely a factor. The top mass murders of the 20th century (body counts in tens of millions) were preceded by the disarmament of the targeted groups by the government. The Second Amendment exists to help prevent that kind of thing happening here.
As long as the police are generally corrupt and unreliable, and as long as the United States has a standing army, there will never be an amendment revoking the right to keep and bear arms. If such an amendment does come to pass, there will be a civil war and likely an end to the American experiment.
This is the most stupid “argument” in this discussion so far. As if a bunch of armed civilian loonies could prevent the government from going rogue.
As if a bunch of armed civilian loonies could prevent the government from going rogue
See: Vietnam. See: Afghanistan.
Both of these countries laugh at that notion.
And Iraq. And Syria. Or, shit, France in the late 18th C.
deleted by creator
This question is based on a false premise. Neither the Colt AR-15, nor the ArmaLite AR-15 have ever been used “on battlefields”.
I think it’s based on “AR-15” being both a trademark describing specific products and a design pattern for a family of firearms where most components interchange between different manufacturers and models.
The US military M16 rifle and M4 carbine Are AR-15-pattern firearms, and military sales represented the bulk of early sales.
Of course the main difference being that AR15s are semi auto, and M16s and m4s are select fire with an option for full auto or burst, y’know, the thing that is actually functionally different but everyone wants to pretend they don’t understand that to make the gun involved in .2% of gun deaths a year more scary so they can drum up support for a ban.
It’s relatively easy to convert a semi-automatic AR-15 to fully-automatic. A quick web search suggests an M16 fire control group can be ordered for about $50 online, and installation in an AR-15 requires only drilling a hole. Of course, drilling that hole is illegal.
What’s interesting about that is I can’t recall hearing about a mass shooter doing it.
Shooting people indiscriminately in a public place is also illegal and they don’t seem tp have any compunctions against that.
You write:
Neither the Colt AR-15, nor the ArmaLite AR-15 have ever been used “on battlefields”.
However, Wikipedia disagrees, citing use of the AR-15 by South Vietnam:
In October 1961, William Godel, a senior man at the Advanced Research Projects Agency, sent 10 AR-15s to South Vietnam. The reception was enthusiastic, and in 1962, another 1,000 AR-15s were sent.
That is accurate, but it glosses over the designation change. It is noted in the same article:
Colt continued to use the AR-15 trademark for its line of semi-automatic-only rifles marketed to civilian and law-enforcement customers, known as Colt AR-15. The Armalite AR-15 is the parent of a variety of Colt AR-15 and M16 rifle variants.
The version of the AR-15 that was sent overseas in 1961 was fully automatic. The trademark was retained for semi-automatic rifles and there are functional differences in the rifles mentioned.
Yes, it was titled as an AR-15, but it was not a civilian version. The difference is fully automatic vs. semi-automatic here, names aside.
Ah, interesting. I didn’t know that a small number of them were actually tested in Vietnam.
How did the AR-15 go from being mainly used on battlefields to one of the most popular firearms among civilians in the US?
This incorrect statement that you pointed out is really, really important. I would say its blatant falsehood, written so plainly in an editorial, is the cornerstone of why gun control laws are not being taken seriously by everyone. Talking heads that rehearse talking points without credibility.
Let’s be clear: everyone wants gun safety and responsible laws. What safety and laws mean varies between different people and different political spectrums, however, if responsible people obtain guns more of the time, and gun ownership is reduced in groups that shouldn’t own them, then everyone wins. This would mean that there would be less legal hesitance for people to own a gun who want them, and less gun violence, which is ultimately the point.
If inaccurate rhetorics are repeated by politicians and the media (like how AR-15s are used “in the battlefield”), then gun owners and parties that align more with gun ownership will very quickly and appropriately dismiss these concerns, because they are inaccurate. Not only does it not make progress, but it discredits those looking to increase gun safety, because they very blatantly don’t have their facts straight.
What would you suggest as an alternative to a ban, since letting people shoot up schools, churches, and bowling alleys isn’t tenable.
I believe that “gun free zones” should only exist with the presence of robust security systems. Having an easily-entered school with little, if any physical security designated as a “gun free zone” makes it a target for the fringe minority of people who have a desire to commit mass murder.
I also think that more meaningful social improvements need to be made, including addressing housing affordability, wealth equality, access to affordable health care, and addressing the decades-long mental health crisis.
I won’t ever be supportive of a ban on guns for the same reason the United States refuses to sign on to certain arms treaties (such as the ones against cluster munitions and land mines): I refuse to go along with anything that would limit my ability to defend myself. The government won’t guarantee my safety, so why should I give up the most effective tool for preventing myself from being a victim of violence?
I don’t care what you wouldn’t be supportive of. I care that the only people who seem to want to do anything about this are the ones pushing gun bans. The people who like guns don’t seem to give a shit, at least not based on how they vote.
Also, once we harden targets like schools, won’t they move on to softer ones like grocery stores, churches, and night clubs?
Flip side of that argument: Once we ban guns, won’t they just find other weapons to commit murder with? I’m confident that they will.
Ah, and now we’re back the good ol’ “But then they’ll use knives” argument.
Round and round we go, ever since Columbine
Well, hey, I’m glad you asked!
Let’s start with something that should be obvious, but isn’t: mass murders are a tiny percentage of all the murders in the US annually. Seriously. If you remove ordinary crime (e.g., gang violence, robberies, fight at a party, etc.) and domestic violence from the mass shootings, you end up with a total of about 100 people killed in 2022, out of a total of 19,200 murders (assuming I’m reading the most recent numbers correctly), or about .5% of all murders.
Murder rates are, in turn, dwarfed by suicides; there are typically 2-3x as many completed suicides as there are murders of all types.
When you look at murder rates broken down by weapon type, rifles account for approximately 5% of gun homicides. (Although 32% of the firearm homicides don’t specify what kind of firearm is used, it seems likely that it roughly approximates the other numbers.) So it’s clear that rifles–including AR-15 rifles–are not the primary driver of gun homicide numbers, or even a particularly large one.
So, given that gun deaths are suicides, and most gun homicides are some subset of ordinary crime (rather than mass-murder/active shooter events), the greatest effects are going to be seen in measures that reduce crimes in general.
So, if you really want to reduce the overall death rate, the first and biggest thing to do would be to have some form of national healthcare that is able to quickly and efficiently get help to people that are suicidal.
If you want to reduce the murder rate, then you need to look at things that drive crime. I suspect that you’d get large reductions by focusing on significant reductions in income inequalities, elimination of poverty, national healthcare (including access to mental healthcare), education reform (esp. elimination of private/home/selective schooling, and properly funding public schools), criminal justice and policing reform, and housing that costs less than 25% of a single adult’s take-home pay. Most ordinary crime is from desperation or hopelessness, and violence is a result of that ordinary crime. Beyond that, you’d need to look at ways of reducing or eliminating systemic racism and misogyny, as both are underlying motivators for racially- and gender-motivated crime. (Which partially goes back to public education.)
In order to prevent violence before it happens, without trampling on civil rights, we need to make society more equitable and just for everyone, and we need a strongly progressive tax system to pay for it, with the highest marginal tax rates going back to pre-Nixon levels.
Yes, I’ve heard this one before. “It doesn’t happen that often so we don’t need to do anything about it.” That’s a classic.
And the best part is people who like guns don’t even vote for better mental health care or improved education or anything that will actually reduce gun deaths. They just vote against any restrictions on gun ownership.
Republicans are generally against any kind of gov’t intervention to correct underlying causalities, that much is true. OTOH, Dems say they support fixing underlying issues, but even states with Democratic supermajorities are unwilling to address systemic problems, and simply go after banning guns. Take housing issues, for instance; it’s a plank of the nat’l Democratic party that there should be affordable housing available to everyone. But when majority Democratic cities try to approve affordable housing, Democrats turn up in opposition to it, because NIMBY. Dems say that they want to do certain things, things that would be good for everyone, but then they can’t get support in their own party to actually do those things. Republicans just don’t give a fuck about helping people. Despite the base of Dems favoring reducing funding for law enforcement and being in favor of criminal justice reform, the party as a whole keeps increasing funding for cops without doing shit for social programs. Hey, here’s another example - my former city, Chicago, has been overwhelmingly Democratic for something like 40 years. My former therapist in Chicago had worked with a community mental health program, helping people with chronic homelessness etc., until funding was cut for the programs, and he lost his job. Who cut the funding? Democrats. Who cut the funding in Chicago for violence prevention/intervention programs that were showing significant reduction in violent crime? Democrats. Who kept voting to move money away from public schools to charter and magnet schools in Chicago? Yet again: Democrats.
So don’t give me that shit about Republicans being the only ones voting against actually fixing problems.
Loves me a good gun pedantry thread. As if the kids aren’t just as dead from “not an assault rifle.”
Threads like this are why we’ll always have this problem. God bless America.
Clearly, the freedom to own and shoot a gun overrides the freedom to live and breathe. And that’s before we start tracking all the gun-related injuries that don’t end in death.
To some apparently. Meanwhile do we have a right to defend ourselves and our loved ones?
Sure. Are you under the impression that a gun is going to do that? Because if so, you’re gravely mistaken.
What are you trying to point out with your link? All I’m seeing is more guns = more homicide, but it seems like your point was that guns are not effective self defense tools and I’m not seeing the connection.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759797/
Objectives. We investigated the possible relationship between being shot in an assault and possession of a gun at the time.
Methods. We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia, PA, from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables.
Results. After adjustment, individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 (P < .05) times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45 (P < .05).
Conclusions. On average, guns did not protect those who possessed them from being shot in an assault. Although successful defensive gun uses occur each year, the probability of success may be low for civilian gun users in urban areas. Such users should reconsider their possession of guns or, at least, understand that regular possession necessitates careful safety countermeasures.
Is that clear enough for you? Possessing a gun for self defense increases the chances that you or your loved ones will be hurt in the act of defending yourself. The mere presence of a gun creates an escalation of violence during confrontations, regardless of whether or not the justification is “self defense.”
It’s clear that you’ll move the goal posts and pull out something new when someone points out your flawed argument. Stop trying to do your side favors and the debate might have a snowball’s chance.
I’m sorry. Does offering clear, reliable sources to prove my point offend you? That sounds positively horrible for you. How about a hug?
That’s an interesting study. I didn’t reply to the earlier post as I wanted to get a chance to review and think on it more. Appreciate the added clarity here.
Americans pretending to be savety nerds when it’s about guns.
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As if the kids aren’t just as dead from “not an assault rifle.”
Totally agree. I think the focus on a particular type of firearm is a distraction.
Because many of the things people cite as a reason to ban “assault weapons” are shared by many other firearms.
Many other rifle rounds are at least as powerful as the 5.56 NATO (in terms of delivered energy). Plenty of firearms can be loaded with 30 round magazines (even Glock pistols). And it’s moot anyway because magazine changes are quick and easy. Pistol grips exist on some firearms (and all, you know, pistols) not that a rifle grip isn’t entirely functional also. Nearly all modern firearms designs are semi-automatic. One shot per trigger pull, no action needed to chamber a round (versus lever action, bolt action, pump action, etc). Automatic weapons have been tightly controlled since the 1968 federal firearms act.
So let’s all be honest with ourselves whatever side of this discussion we are on. It isn’t really about the AR-15 or “assault rifles”. If you want to ban or further restrict access to that style of weapon because of its capabilities in the hands of a nutjob, and you want to make an effective policy, you are really going to need to ban or restrict access to all firearms. Some already know this. The ones arguing against a particular type, I think, don’t.
And since there are so many firearms already owned by Americans, the only way for the policy to be truly effective is getting guns out of people’s hands, nationwide, via a combination of buy-back or confiscation.
There are still arguments for or against. Whatever. But let’s not argue as if assault rifles are magic. They’re more or less as deadly as any firearm.
It does make sense to use the correct terminology in a debate imo
If the debate is about kids dying the arguments should be about how to stop that. Not the exact make and model of gun that killed them.
Arguing stupid details like that just makes it seem like you don’t care people are dying.
I thought the argument was about what sort of guns to ban
Then you haven’t been paying attention.
But that’s the main point of the debate, the legality of owning certain firearms
Maybe for people who don’t care that people are getting killed
I thought people wanted certain guns banned for the specific purpose of avoiding mass shootings
An AR-15 is only a cultural symbol for those who need it as a metal phallus symbol to compensate for certain … inadequacies.
Funny you should say that. FTA:
Earlier this year, several Republican lawmakers were seen sporting a new accessory: lapel pins shaped like an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Andrew Clyde, a Republican congressman from Georgia who also owns a gun store, later said he had handed out the pins to his congressional colleagues “to remind people of the second amendment of the constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties”.
Never got why folks liked the ar15 besides maybe being easy to modify and being magazine based. Personally I wish it was a semi auto variant of the B.A.R. that caught on would also make a damned impressive hunting rifle to boot.
Magazine fed 30-06 rifles have been popular hunting riles for a while. Just not with 30 round magazines, due to weight and it being illegal in most places to hunt with that many rounds in a magazine.
Fair enough, im moreso annoyed its not the iconic rifle. I guess it keeps in from being tainted though.
pssst. The AR-15 has been
usedofficially adopted by a total of no military anywhere on the planet.*about 1,000 Ar15 was purchased between 1957 and 1961, and tested, by the US military. I now realize this can fit the description of “used” if you wanted to be very liberal with the definition of “used,” I suppose. So fine, “this problem was addressed in 1961.”
Now, stop pretending that ar15s sold since 1961 are the same as M16s, better?
Pssst…nobody with half a brain cares about your technicality. The AR-15 is a semiautomatic version of the M-16, the rifle obviously used in the military. IOW, in case you didn’t hear it the first time, the AR is a semiauto civilian version of a military rifle, a copy except for the automatic part. Get it? Unless you’d like to just argue semantics instead of substance…
Pssst, the “military grade” part everyone loves to harp on is the “automatic parts,” other than that it’s just a normal rifle.
Technicality it is, then.
Except those are the exact parts that make it an “m16” instead of an “ar15” which is why there are two different names, the parts that have been illegal for civilians to buy without a class III SOT for two months shy of 38 years now are the “military grade” parts, the rest of the parts are “civilian grade” parts, ergo, the ar15 is not “military grade” since it lacks said “military grade” parts as would be in an “m16” or “m4.” With those parts, it becomes those things, without those parts, it is a civilian ar15. If you build am ar15 but include the parts to make it an m16, you have instead built an m16. You can stop pretending you’re too incompotent to understand that anytime you’d like.
Haha, yeah…keep skipping past the point. I’m no stranger to firearms. Keep harping on technicality. That’s like saying a track-only McLaren 720S with the emissions removed and an open exhaust isn’t the same car as a street legal version. Sure they are. Just different rules.
Ah whatever with your “gun of thesius” bullshit, you know as well as I do supposedly the important parts aren’t legal for civilians without a class III SOT, so why play pretend that the ones on the street actually are “military grade?”
Well…let’s dig into the history of the AR, shall we? Aside from the part where you’re trying to make the argument about Class III bullshit and not the point of the discussion which is that the AR and M-16 are essentially the same rifle.
The AR is “ArmaLite”, of which I am sure you are abundantly aware. How long has ArmaLite been around? Since the ‘50s. Guess what…they’re the ones originally trying to sell the AR-15 to the military. Note that I said AR-15, not M-16. And it did sell, but not too well at the time. But guess what? It was the ArmaLite rifle the military bought…so guess what? That makes the AR-15 a military rifle. Of course, obviously they re-designated it M-16. And when the AR patent expired, other manufacturers jumped in making copies but we still generically call them “AR”.
No? Not good enough? How about a quote right from ArmaLite themselves:
The ensuing rifle was called the AR-15 and was produced with aircraft grade aluminum receivers, weighing less than seven pounds. In 1959, the AR-10 was licensed to the Dutch Arsenal, Artillerie Inrichtingen, for sale on the international market and then to Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company, along with the AR-15.
Seeing as you’re so obsessed with technicalities, this should make you happy. But somehow I don’t think it will, even though the AR-15 being a “military rifle” is 100% correct.
That’s not really correct either. A rifle can be an AR-15 and be select fire. The M16–and later the M4–are simply military designations for the AR-15 in one particular configuration.
Yes yes except that has been illegal without a class III SOT since 1986 and we all know it.
Hey, if you want to be technical and pedantic–which I think is the correct way to be here–you gotta get them there details.
Also, it’s only illegal for civilians. Law enforcement agencies and the military can still get select fire rifles, although most police agencies have realized that they don’t serve any real purpose outside of military squad-based tactics.
True, but nobody is talking about banning them for mil, police there are a few though (and I’m one of them, the police should have what we can have and not a drop more, in regards to guns at least. They can have their toys back when they prove they can handle them imo.) But yeah they are less effective then well placed aimed shots in the civilian world by far.
Yes, the other pendants got there before you long ago. Because that totally invalidates the point of gun violence. Good job.
Well maybe take them off your neck then. Pendants.
Sorry to spoil your fear mongering party with actual facts.
Right, of course. Since the AR-15 was only briefly shipped as a military weapon it doesn’t count as one. And since the article is talking about how worship of guns is making gun violence worse by elevating the AR-15 as a status symbol, its non-military status completely invalidates the argument. Clearly, people being hurt and killed by non-military weapons is better for the nation.
I’ve been so blind. Thank you for repeating this fact so I understand. It’s okay because the AR-15 isn’t actually military. All those dead and wounded people can feel better now.
Was tested* by the military and adopted the designation m16 when they picked it up, as they do (remember the m14, the m9, the m…), when they added in the auto sear. Glad I could help against the article trying to mislable for fear mongering purposes and I’m glad you’ve finally opened your eyes.
Yes, thank you for making me realize that all those gun deaths don’t matter. What’s really important is how the AR-15 is designated.
Well since you specify thr ar15, you mean less than 500 out of 60,000 per year for .2% of gun deaths? It’s not that they don’t matter (your words btw, not mine), it’s that the fear mongering in an attempt to ban ar15s is transparently performative and you’re falling for it and perpetuating it.
Why not just stop calling it military grade, if all it brings is pedantry, and it’s not intended to fear monger? (Which you doubled down on the fear mongering, Mr “I love dead kids because they let me act self rightous on the internet.” But whatever.)
Isn’t the straw already gone from that man you’re beating? Or would you care to address what the post is actually talking about instead of nitpicking on whether or not the AR-15 is a military grade weapon?
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Andrew Clyde, a Republican congressman from Georgia who also owns a gun store, later said he had handed out the pins to his congressional colleagues “to remind people of the second amendment of the constitution and how important it is in preserving our liberties”.
(Most recently in Maine, where 18 people were shot and killed at a bowling alley and a bar; authorities found an AR-10, a predecessor to the AR-15, in the suspected gunman’s car.)
The potent symbolism of the AR-15 is what the Wall Street Journal reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson say led them to write their new book, American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15.
Elinson: The history of the AR-15 begins in a detached garage in Los Angeles that belonged to a former marine named Eugene Stoner, a very mild-mannered and shy fellow.
He uses aluminium instead of steel and an efficient, lightweight internal system, using the energy from each shot to expel spent casings and load the next round.
You still see leaders in the Democratic party talking about, “we need another assault weapons ban,” when, as we show in our book, the first one really didn’t work.
The original article contains 1,212 words, the summary contains 195 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
AK feels much nicer to use, NGL.
