And Americans run out to buy them en masse every time someone uses one to commit a mass murder.
How fucked up would it be if one of the first responses to the recent attack in NYC was a renewed consumer interest in the particular model of pickup truck used to run down those cyclists and pedestrians?
But the important thing still wasn’t how they worked, it was how much pollution they put out. If someone invented a two-stroke that created less pollution than a four-stroke then I’d agree that the law banning two-strokes was a misplaced solution.
Perhaps but how much they put out and how they work are intrinsically linked. We banned them because how they worked meant there was no way to make them produce acceptable levels of pollution. So, knowing that, we banned them because forcing the manufacturers to control the output of pollution was not going to be a workable solution. And that’s where you and I part ways. I don’t think you can create meaningful change without knowing what it is you are doing.
Perhaps, a more effective way of avoiding the train crash is to not get on the train. Gunsplainers (good one!) and ironic trollies are a fact of life, best not to be either.
Whose rails? Where do they lead?
Sure I have clues: I have the words you type at me. If I’ve made an incorrect inference, then perhaps you should consider how the words and phrases you’ve used have led me to believe what I do about you.
Depends on what you mean by “capable”. Deer are larger than human beings, so rifles for deer hunting tend to have larger calibers, more stopping power, etc. – which in some sense makes them more deadly. But they also tend to have a slower firing rate, longer barrel, and are typically heavier. Some people hunt small game, and guns for that have a different profile of capabilities.
The M16s that the AR-15s are modeled on are designed with a profile of capabilities specifically intended for warfare – shooting and killing human beings in particular. Yes, they can be used for hunting because humans are after all just another large mammal. But if you won’t acknowledge where the design of the AR-15 comes from and the intention behind it, then a certain percentage of people are going to realize you’re trying to bullshit them and resent it.
I’m not really into partisan politics. You’re not impressing me with this line of argument.
Gun control is not a pet cause of mine. Honesty is. I’m requesting honesty about the intention and appeal of the AR-15. Though they can be used as a hunting weapon, that’s not what they’re designed for, and I would argue that it’s not really a big part of their appeal. If they were intended as hunting weapons, why would there need to be so many “Yes you CAN use the AR-15 as a hunting rifle!” articles? The “use…as” formulation is informative.
So let’s please be honest: the biggest part of the appeal of the AR-15 is for gun nuts to pretend they’re macho AF stone cold killers when they go down to the range. It fills that niche precisely because it’s modeled after a weapon of war, and that is the sense in which calling it an assault rifle is perfectly legitimate: because its resemblance to selective fire weapons is exactly its appeal within the civilian market.
Can’t wait to see the head spinning when someone points out to some very specific elements that a guy nominated to the forces that supposedly will take your freedoms away at gunpoint with guns (or at least bigger guns than yours) just said civilians don’t need big guns – but is nominated by THEIR guy.
Oh who am I kidding, it’s cognitive dissonance and lies all around.
(And I say this as someone reasonably pro-gun but not insane, moderately distrustful of power but not dumb enough to eschew govt. altogether, and just plain tired of the news cycle)
Point of order, since it’s critically important that we all be technically accurate in all aspects of this conversation: the assault weapons ban expired in 2004.
Also see this article by Slavoj Zizek.
Actually that’s a good example of how messed up the entire US system is.
AFAIK the reason two strokes were banned was because the Japanese motorcycle industry was making such inroads into the US industry. At the time, the percentage of pollution produced by two strokes was tiny. US car and truck gasoline engines were very inefficient and themselves produced a lot of just about everything from the carbon oxides to aromatic hydrocarbons. Two stroke engines continued to be widely used on water, where the pollution from all types of engine was a serious matter. The biggest offenders, gas guzzlers and trucks, continued to escape restriction for a long time.
Basically this shows greenwashing (i.e. making a ruling that affected few people but made it sound as though regulators were trying to do something) and pandering to the political Right, who wanted no restrictions on their 10mpg cars.
The same unhealthy tendencies apply to guns in the US: ineffective legislation such as easily subverted background checks is the equivalent of greenwashing, and the whole NRA-type gun culture is pandering to the Right.
oh god, i don’t want to die?
But there’s another angle of the AR-15 saga that has slightly slipped from view. It is why this particular weapon is so unusually effective in killing things—even when compared with other firearms. As it happens, I did an Atlantic article on exactly this subject, back in a very different era of American politics. In 1981, I published a book called National Defense, which was popular at the time and was excerpted in three installments in the magazine. One of the installments was called “The M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story,” and it included the origin story of the AR-15. That article was not previously available online, but my colleague Annika Neklason has just digitized it from the archives, and it’s now available.
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I remember one other thing about that story. Everyone I interviewed about these weapons at the time—the AR-15, its bastard offspring M-16, the opposing AK-47—assumed as a first premise that they were talking about battlefield equipment. None of them seemed to imagine such killing power in civilian hands.
If there was an organization as large and organized as the NRA, who had significantly more people calling/writing in than the NRA, then one would see their political power diminish.
LOL. I suppose the ACLU is equally radical and extreme.
One of those who took over in the 1977 right-wing coup was a racist murderer. It’s no wonder that it’s morphed into a race-baiting funding intermediary between the firearms industry and conservative politicians.
Unless there’s an industry group that can make money off people not getting shot any countervailing lobby will have a hard time beating the scumbags of the NRA.
It focuses on school shootings, but there’s so much in it
epidemiology of violence
autism (and counterfeit deviance)
In the day of Eric Harris, we could try to console ourselves with the thought that there was nothing we could do, that no law or intervention or restrictions on guns could make a difference in the face of someone so evil. But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement. The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts.
You beat me to the trucks point. I’m curious about how these debates will differ when mass plowings become more prevalent. Will the same people that are here demonize Ford vans like they do AR15s? Will there be statements about the fact that most owners of trucks don’t really need them and could do just fine with an Accord? My guess is they won’t since they drive cars and probably cant even see how accurate this metaphor is.
The “cars and trucks are just as dangerous as guns” argument is six kinds of baloney. Even the most avid hunters are likely to spend more time behind the wheel than behind a trigger, yet guns are now responsible for taking nearly as many lives as cars. This despite the fact that the average urban commuter shares the roadways with tens of thousands of people actively using their automobiles every single day.
The last time that many Americans gathered together to use their guns at the same time was the Battle of Gettysburg.
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