In your discussion of the different features of the rifle you did mention the speed of the ammo as it leaves the barrel, then moved on talking about selective fire, which it lacks and dismissing that section. You, and it appears quite deliberate to me, that you didn't go into the damage done to the human body by the velocity of the round, one of the reasons in the development of the military version.
It is a weapon of war and it and others like it should be banned. As a gun owner this weapon has no place in civilian market, it is not needed and the 2nd Amendment didn't intend for you to have any weapon you desire.
We know the results of the last ban on assault style rifles and that was a drastically reduced incident of mass shootings.
I have never heard of an AR-15 being described as "Military Grade". I have heard it described as Assault and from I have read the definitions of the two are different.
It always amazes me how Second Amendment advocates say "we have the right to bear arms" and that is that. They seem to have failed to have read the first part of that amendment, "“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,". The first part of the Second Amendment makes it clear that the purpose of arming the citizenry is to equalize the fighting power of the citizenry with that of the government thus giving them the ability to overthrow a dictatorial government should one arise. The use and possession of guns was just a means to that end, it was not an end in itself. At that point in history when the Second Amendment was passed the weapons that the citizenry possessed were comparable to those of the government, hence it was a good deterrent to the development of a dictatorial government. That situation no longer exists. Even if every man, woman, and child were armed with machine guns, they would be no match for a government with missiles, drones, bomber jets, and nuclear weapons. Zelensky isn’t asking for machine guns, he is asking for multiple launch rocket systems, tanks, military aircrafts. Let’s face it, if Ukraine had attempted to fight the Russians with only machine guns, the war would have been over in a month with Russia the victor. Although the original purpose of the Second Amendment has been rendered moot, there is a more basic principle which undergirds that amendment that supports the right of the people to be armed. It is the right of a weaker victim to use a weapon in order to have the ability to overcome a stronger assailant. When people tell me that they would like to outlaw all guns, I ask them if a man needs a gun to kill a woman. All agree that he doesn’t. I then ask them if a woman having a gun can prevent a man from harming or killing her. Almost all agree that it would prevent that from occurring. I am a strong supporter of the right of law-abiding citizens to have and use guns for their self-defense, but the current lack of gun restrictions is inhibiting this right, is making the law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to violent attacks from the criminal elements of society. Remember the purpose of the Second Amendment is to create the means by which the citizenry can live in a free and secure state not the freedom to have unrestricted possession and use of a weapon. To put it bluntly it was not meant to have a bunch of good ole boys achieving an almost orgiastic high as they feel the power which a gun in hand confers upon them.
The only problem that you have is that an AR-15 is NOT the weapon of choice for mass shooters. There is not ONE list, study, etc. where the AR-15 is the firearm used in most mass shootings. So, it's not the fact that you read the wrong one - you assumed.
Hello, thanks for engaging in this discussion. Any perusal of statistics in this most complicated topic can be a difficult thing, because so few of those who compile statistical data agree on the basic parameters of definitions.
For instance, I personally view shootings in multiple layers of seriousness. I find it distorts the meaning of the term "mass shooting" to use it for when only two people are dead, an incident less serious than a serious car crash, as well as for instances where more people have died in a single incident than in all of American history, such as the Vegas shooting or historical instances such as Wounded Knee. So, I divide incidents into multiple homicide, public shootings, mass shootings, etc, to better differentiate the seriousness of what actual happened.
Most statistical data does not do this. In fact, I couldn't even find what the criteria for mass shooting was in the statistic you found. For all I know, they were categorizing any event where more than one person shot as a mass shooting, which would be a clearly distorting figure. A large majority of gun violence in our country is due to criminal violence and gang activity, and there are many instances of multiple homicides as part of this form of gun violence. Most of this violence is also carried out with hand-guns, because concealability, as I mention in the episode, is actually the most lethal aspect of firearms in civilian use.
But regardless of these statistics, the fact is that as the numbers of dead go up in instances of public shootings, the firearms used tend to become long guns more often than hand guns, and the AR-15 is used quite frequently used in the deadliest and most high profile mass shootings. The statistic you cited even concedes that "semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings."
This is why I felt it was important to address what makes the AR-15 functional and address while also pointing out that removing it does not actually remove the problem because, as a demilitarized weapon, it's only true advantage over other weapons in the civilian industry is it's affordability, it's notoriety, and it's customization options.
The AR 15 was developed in 1956 based on the M14 rifle which was based on the AR11 rifle. The AR and the title stands for ArmaLite the company that built the originals. Originally it was a wooden stock rifle, like most hunting rifles.
When the Vietnam War kicked in the military was looking for a lightweight reliable rifle. It took a lot of convincing for them to accept and modify the basic mechanism of the AR-15 which they did in 1963, creating the M16. By that time ArmaLite has sold the rights to the rifle to Colt. So the M16 military version is a refined version of the AR-15 made by a different company. It has many features not included in the original AR-15, and not included in the AR-15s currently made.
Most significant is select fire. The AR-15 does not have a fully automatic mode or the three Burst mode. It is semi-automatic only. As far as military grade goes, you must refer to what is called milspec. Milspec standards, are a standard of quality that must be met for a part to be acceptable for government use. It is usually a higher standard of precision designed for rugged use in the field.
In your discussion of the different features of the rifle you did mention the speed of the ammo as it leaves the barrel, then moved on talking about selective fire, which it lacks and dismissing that section. You, and it appears quite deliberate to me, that you didn't go into the damage done to the human body by the velocity of the round, one of the reasons in the development of the military version.
It is a weapon of war and it and others like it should be banned. As a gun owner this weapon has no place in civilian market, it is not needed and the 2nd Amendment didn't intend for you to have any weapon you desire.
We know the results of the last ban on assault style rifles and that was a drastically reduced incident of mass shootings.
I have never heard of an AR-15 being described as "Military Grade". I have heard it described as Assault and from I have read the definitions of the two are different.
It always amazes me how Second Amendment advocates say "we have the right to bear arms" and that is that. They seem to have failed to have read the first part of that amendment, "“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,". The first part of the Second Amendment makes it clear that the purpose of arming the citizenry is to equalize the fighting power of the citizenry with that of the government thus giving them the ability to overthrow a dictatorial government should one arise. The use and possession of guns was just a means to that end, it was not an end in itself. At that point in history when the Second Amendment was passed the weapons that the citizenry possessed were comparable to those of the government, hence it was a good deterrent to the development of a dictatorial government. That situation no longer exists. Even if every man, woman, and child were armed with machine guns, they would be no match for a government with missiles, drones, bomber jets, and nuclear weapons. Zelensky isn’t asking for machine guns, he is asking for multiple launch rocket systems, tanks, military aircrafts. Let’s face it, if Ukraine had attempted to fight the Russians with only machine guns, the war would have been over in a month with Russia the victor. Although the original purpose of the Second Amendment has been rendered moot, there is a more basic principle which undergirds that amendment that supports the right of the people to be armed. It is the right of a weaker victim to use a weapon in order to have the ability to overcome a stronger assailant. When people tell me that they would like to outlaw all guns, I ask them if a man needs a gun to kill a woman. All agree that he doesn’t. I then ask them if a woman having a gun can prevent a man from harming or killing her. Almost all agree that it would prevent that from occurring. I am a strong supporter of the right of law-abiding citizens to have and use guns for their self-defense, but the current lack of gun restrictions is inhibiting this right, is making the law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to violent attacks from the criminal elements of society. Remember the purpose of the Second Amendment is to create the means by which the citizenry can live in a free and secure state not the freedom to have unrestricted possession and use of a weapon. To put it bluntly it was not meant to have a bunch of good ole boys achieving an almost orgiastic high as they feel the power which a gun in hand confers upon them.
Here ya go - https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/
The only problem that you have is that an AR-15 is NOT the weapon of choice for mass shooters. There is not ONE list, study, etc. where the AR-15 is the firearm used in most mass shootings. So, it's not the fact that you read the wrong one - you assumed.
Hello, thanks for engaging in this discussion. Any perusal of statistics in this most complicated topic can be a difficult thing, because so few of those who compile statistical data agree on the basic parameters of definitions.
For instance, I personally view shootings in multiple layers of seriousness. I find it distorts the meaning of the term "mass shooting" to use it for when only two people are dead, an incident less serious than a serious car crash, as well as for instances where more people have died in a single incident than in all of American history, such as the Vegas shooting or historical instances such as Wounded Knee. So, I divide incidents into multiple homicide, public shootings, mass shootings, etc, to better differentiate the seriousness of what actual happened.
Most statistical data does not do this. In fact, I couldn't even find what the criteria for mass shooting was in the statistic you found. For all I know, they were categorizing any event where more than one person shot as a mass shooting, which would be a clearly distorting figure. A large majority of gun violence in our country is due to criminal violence and gang activity, and there are many instances of multiple homicides as part of this form of gun violence. Most of this violence is also carried out with hand-guns, because concealability, as I mention in the episode, is actually the most lethal aspect of firearms in civilian use.
But regardless of these statistics, the fact is that as the numbers of dead go up in instances of public shootings, the firearms used tend to become long guns more often than hand guns, and the AR-15 is used quite frequently used in the deadliest and most high profile mass shootings. The statistic you cited even concedes that "semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings."
This is why I felt it was important to address what makes the AR-15 functional and address while also pointing out that removing it does not actually remove the problem because, as a demilitarized weapon, it's only true advantage over other weapons in the civilian industry is it's affordability, it's notoriety, and it's customization options.
The AR 15 was developed in 1956 based on the M14 rifle which was based on the AR11 rifle. The AR and the title stands for ArmaLite the company that built the originals. Originally it was a wooden stock rifle, like most hunting rifles.
When the Vietnam War kicked in the military was looking for a lightweight reliable rifle. It took a lot of convincing for them to accept and modify the basic mechanism of the AR-15 which they did in 1963, creating the M16. By that time ArmaLite has sold the rights to the rifle to Colt. So the M16 military version is a refined version of the AR-15 made by a different company. It has many features not included in the original AR-15, and not included in the AR-15s currently made.
Most significant is select fire. The AR-15 does not have a fully automatic mode or the three Burst mode. It is semi-automatic only. As far as military grade goes, you must refer to what is called milspec. Milspec standards, are a standard of quality that must be met for a part to be acceptable for government use. It is usually a higher standard of precision designed for rugged use in the field.