There is no longer a single rifle that is “the” AR-15. Different people make different AR-15 style rifles. Different AR-15 style rifles fire DIFFERENT THINGS–from stuff that would be hard-pressed to kill an angry rabbit, to stuff that (with a suitably hardened bullet) can punch through typical body armor.
This isn’t minutiae. This is about not being on the wrong part of the Dunning–Kruger curve. You need to know at least a little about what comes out the end with the hole in order to evaluate whether a proposed policy does the job you want it to.
Yes it is. It’s also a distraction designed to present the problem as more inherently complicated than it really is.
If gun enthusiasts were in any way interested in solving the problem then they would be suggesting the kinds of legislation that would get the guns used by mass shooters off the streets. Instead they just hand-wave away every single proposed gun regulation as an unworkable mess by people who just don’t “get” guns.
So again, I say if the gun nuts aren’t willing to bring any ideas to the table then I think we should start by banning all semiautomatic long guns. And put some strict new licensing requirements for handguns as well. If that doesn’t do the trick then everyone has to go back to muzzle-loading rifles until America shows it can be entrusted with anything else.
If you’re talking about .22 rimfire, I know disingenuous gun enthusiasts like to pretend it’s a toy barely more dangerous than a water pistol, but the calibre is quite capable of killing people, school age people even more so.
Oh, thanks for pointing out that oversight. Ban them. IDGAF what the pushback is. IDGAF that there’s gray area. IDGAF that there may be “legitimate” uses of them (there aren’t). They are weapons of war. They are designed to be efficient to aid in the hunting of humans only.
I’m a veteran with an expert qualification in the M-16 (military AR-15) and I say ban them and create federal no-questions-asked full amnesty buyback programs in every district. The ban worked before. Buybacks work. NQA buybacks means that people who are in danger like victims of domestic abuse can remove some of the threat they face. These programs work. If the “lines on the map move from side to side” as we debate what constitutes an assault rifle, fine. It’s a hell of a lot better than debating what our threshold for dead children is.
So again, I say if the gun nuts aren’t willing to bring any ideas to the table then I think we should start by banning all semiautomatic long guns.
“Let’s ban the sorta-kinda-military-ish stuff and allow the varmint-killing stuff” is an OLD idea. It’s the sort of thinking behind the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 ( Federal Assault Weapons Ban - Wikipedia .) (It’s no longer in effect; it sunsetted in 2004.) Had flaws, but the shootings data would suggest it was better than nothing.
As far as banning broader classes of long arms go… Well, to quote a very wise man, “There’s an argument to be made for banning modern firearms in general–big, little, pistol, rifle, whatever.” I bet the folks with raccoon problems could manage with black powder.
Most everyone who is arguing in good faith understands that when most of us use the term “AR-15” we mean “The ArmaLite AR-15 rifle or its various derivatives, clones, and weapons of similar capability.”
The pedants who always respond with “yeah but what is an AR-15, really?” and refuse to engage in the conversation without a universally-agreed-upon dictionary definition are the people who don’t want to have serious conversations about gun control at all.
Show me one single example of anything that looks like an AR-15 that isn’t a straight-up toy and I guarantee it’s a weapon of death. I have a hard time believing that the people who fetishize guns have come up with a less deadly version of an AR while I wasn’t paying attention.
Besides, that’s completely missing the point. The design of an AR lower receiver is for efficient reloading in difficult circumstances (waterlogged, discharging jams, etc). The very nature of it is efficiency. Efficiency=moar death. It doesn’t matter what heat shields, handgrips, rifle bore or stock it has attached, it’s still the same core concept at heart.
“So now you’re trying to ban photographs and drawings of AR-15s?? Clearly you libs are not only ignorant about guns but also hate the First Amendment almost as much as you hate the Second.”
—Bad Faith Bears, probably
Looks like you’ve had an account for a while. Hopefully you’ve read enough to know that in this here casual conversation, we use “AR-15” as a generic catch-all.
We’re not idiots.
Ah, I thought your name sounded familiar @szielins Another AFU Old Hat. There’s quite a few here. Crazy.
Do you, though? Is there any worry that regulating or banning AR-15 style rifles would somehow miss the ones that keep being used for mass murders? Because everything other than that is minutiae that nobody sensible should have to care about while said murders are happening.
Well, I’D worry about it. A regulation predicated on a belief that it’s something about the AR-15 style that needs to be addressed catches a bunch of varmint guns and misses stuff that can blow a rhino in half through a brick wall.
Yeah, and you could probably find some stuff I wrote way back then defending the Second Amendment as such. After the Trump administration, though, it’s clear that it’s so much more useful to authoritarians than to folks trying to keep democracy tottering along, I’d be up for repealing it entirely.
So banning the AR-15 platform means no other platform or make or model of firearm will ever be banned thereafter? Ok then.
You’re making a straw man argument here. No-one is claiming that banning the AR-15 for non-industrial possession will solve the problem entirely. It’s a step focused on the most popular current platform for mass killers. Nothing is being “missed”.
Here’s an idea. Ban the AR-15 style, in the widest sense of “style”. It, and everything like it.
And when grenade launchers and elephant guns become a problem with ease of availability and high frequency of use in the mass murder of people on a daily basis, then pass an amendment to ban them too.
This isn’t hard unless you are one of, or have been taken in by, the people who are trying to make it hard.
Our “extreme” solution has worked out pretty well for us in Australia.
Farmers still have the guns they need, pretty much anyone can get a licence if they apply for one.
Only criminals and cops walk around with pistols.
No-one walks around with rifles or shotguns.
We had a gun problem. We solved it.
