There’s always that coupon person who holds up the line over expiration dates and/or coupon value. Folks would thank you for clearing the line at the register.
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Haven’t you heard? Supermarkets are violent places these days, full of psychos with long guns and body armor. You need to be packing serious heat to stand any chance of getting your groceries in and living to tell the tale.
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I got into an online argument with someone over that once. It boiled down to them saying that they should be able to have an AR-15 style weapon simply because they wanted one. “They’re fun to shoot.” I didn’t get a response when I pointed out that the same could be said of rocket launchers but that no mature adult in a modern society thinks people should be walking around with rocket launchers. (And if you’re not a mature adult, then you definitely shouldn’t have a weapon that can kill lots of people in seconds.)
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I wouldn’t be surprised if their accuracy was significantly higher in training/on the range. Most people have to be trained to actually shoot a real person.
The US Army did a study after WWII found less than 20% of soldiers in combat fired their weapons at all. And a much smaller percentage were actually trying to kill anybody when they did.
So the Army changed its training to desensitise recruits, and that went up to around 50% in Korea and 90-95% from Vietnam onwards.
As bad as American law enforcement training is, and as often as cops do kill people, I don’t think they’re getting as systematically desensitised to killing as military trainees are.
So at a guess I’d say, consciously or not, most cops struggle to actually shoot people.
Maybe that’s a way to weed out some of the killer cops - look at how accurate assholes like Derrick Chauvin are in the field. There’s a decent chance they’re the ones who can reliably hit the broad-side of a barn when shooting at people - because they’ve dehumanised almost everyone not in uniform, especially people of colour.
If that is the case, then conduct of any cop with similar levels of accuracy should be watched very, very closely - and they should get chucked on a desk or out the door at the first hint of anything worrying.
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Somebody posted the duck hunting law in one of the other topics. It says when hunting ducks your gun can only have 3 shots.
In other words the government most certainly can regulate guns otherwise why hasn’t the 3 shot law been challenged by the NRA?
No rocket launchers, no fully automatic weapons, no grenade launchers and no ar15s.
See how easy that is?
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There was a documentary about cops like that, Magnum Force. Their only saving grace was their use of Moto Guzzi V750 Ambassadors…
It’s also incredibly difficult to hit anything if you or the target are moving. 7 yards sounds close, but it’s farther than it seems if everyone is moving, especially laterally. My dad takes me shooting at his local range, and there are moving targets at 10 yards as one of the options. It’s shockingly difficult to hit them and I’ve been shooting off and on most of my life. I am also in a stable resting position with no external pressures or stresses on the situation. My hit rate on those targets is maybe 30% at best.
Most peoples’ understandings of marksmanship comes from movies, where characters routinely hit shots that are one in a million or likely impossible. People make fun of Star Wars stormtroopers who never hit anything, but that’s probably the most realistic part of the film. 
37% might actually be pretty decent given the variables. But fuck cops, to be clear. Fuck all of them.
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None of which justify civilian ownership of a firearm that is essentially a weapon of war.*
- Want to defend your home? There are firearms that can do that which aren’t designed to kill large numbers of people at once.
- Want to hunt? There are firearms that can do that which aren’t designed to kill large numbers of people at once.
- Want to fight an enemy army? Go join the military.
- Want to go target shooting but hate having to reload? Boo fucking hoo. Your hobby doesn’t justify making weapons of war available to people who slaughter school children by the dozen.
People have been using guns to hunt and protect their homes for centuries but very few people used weapons like the AR-15 for those purposes until the last 25 years or so. If they are such critical tools then where were they before?
*Gun pedants will quibble on the “weapon of war” part but the AR-15 is literally based on the military’s M16 assault rifle and is every bit as lethal as the semiautomatic M1 rifles that soldiers carried in WWII.
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unfortunately, especially given the weapon in question
- killing more people
- killing lots more people
someone of whom may or may not be children
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Somebody making chitterlings?
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What do people actually use AR-15s for other than recreational shooting/plinking or just to have?
They are used in shooting sports. Specifically National Match Service Rifle and 3 Gun competitions. If you include calibers other than the standard .223, USPSA and Steel Challenge both have Pistol Caliber Carbine classes that they are used in.
They are used in hunting. No, they aren’t typically loaded with full magazines, or used a dozen times on a single animal. (Depending on the state and season, they may be limited to 5 rounds in a magazine). Just like how your car can go 120mph, you aren’t going that fast on the highway; a semiautomatic rifle is useful for a possible quick followup shot., but not using a whole magazine on a deer.
They are used in pest and varmint control. This is different than hunting. You aren’t trying to kill an animal for meat or even a trophy, you are getting rid of animals destructive to crops or livestock and is exclusively something used in rural areas.
Again if you include the versions that shoot other calibers than .223, then applications for this and hunting will increase.
I’ll leave it to individual opinion on what one feels justifies use or not, but literally nearly all firearm designs were, at some point, “weapons of war”. And whether one finds it justified or not - that is what people use them for.
There were many different semi-automatic rifles used for sport and hunting before the AR platform became so prevalent. They have existed for over 100 years. Some of them, though less common, are still made today. Most of them looked less “modern military”-like, with wooden stocks and blued steel, but more or less have the same capabilities.
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An AR-15 is necessary for none of the above, and suboptimal for many of those things. Coyotes don’t line up 10 in a row to require the penetration that an AR-15 provides.
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My grandfather hunted with a bolt-action rifle or a shotgun. In that respect he was a typical hunter of his generation, and typical of most hunters worldwide today. If you asked him why he didn’t use a rifle designed for military use he probably would have told you “because I’m not hunting people.”
The fascination with AR-15 style weapons (both aesthetics and firing capability) is a decidedly American obsession, and a recent one at that. Moreover it’s a pretty sick obsession since every time someone uses one to slaughter a bunch of innocent people the sales tend to jump.
If SUV sales went through the roof every time someone drove one into a crowd of innocent people I’d have to ask what the fuck was wrong with SUV enthusiasts.
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So ask why someone is buying an ar 15 and then require proof that it’s being used for something other than mass shooting of people.
Or just quit selling them.
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But most importantly, were the guns okay? Thoughts and prayers for the poor spent ammo.
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Gun enthusiasts like open carry because they think it provides a crime deterrent.
I prefer open carry over concealed carry because it helps me know which gun enthusiasts to avoid.
Either way, people who feel more threatened by open carry than concealed carry don’t make much sense to me. Seems like broken windows policing “out of sight out of mind” logic.
I need to stop trying to blog when my toddler is awake
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How could you leave off “makes a great back scratcher” from the list? That’s what that aiming post was made for.
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