Let me ask you some questions in order to ascertain whether or not you qualify as a Firearms Moron.
1. Which of the following is an AR-15?
A.
B.
C.
If you answered “A”, give yourself a gold star. The AR-15 fires a .223 or .556 cartridge. “B” is an AR-10, which originally was designed to use a 7.62 x 51 mm cartridge. “C” is a Sig Sauer Rattler that uses 300 blackout ammo.
Pages: 1 2
Feh, they’re all direct gas impingement, shoulder fired, individual weapons, regardless of caliber. And they are all defiled by saw-off barrels. A proper rifle – AR platform included – has a barrel of at least 20 inches.
That said, I think the Colorado shooter was a Jihadist terrorist intent on killing infidels by any method available. If not a firearm, he would have used a motor vehicle. Another immigration issue, not a firearms issue.
Eric, rifle barrels only have to be 16 inches. A and B meet that criterium. C is classified and sold as a pistol, but has a “tactical stabilizing brace” instead of a collapsing or folding shoulder stock to make it legal for civilian use. I first thought C was illegal because of that stock, but the manufacturers have gotten around that restriction with the stabilizing brace. I learned something today.
TTG,
I don’t mean legal definition. I mean what makes sense from a rifleman’s perspective.
I’m a firearms moron, but I’m also aware that calls for gun control and misinformation about weaponry have become routine and predictable nearly any time mass shootings occur. And unfortunately in the Age of Fake News, misinformation seems to be purposeful in some instances, and can continue indefinitely without retraction or correction.
In spite of social media evidence, I’ve read several MSM articles about the Boulder murders that have refrained from mentioning the Trump hating and ISIS sympathizing nature of the shooter. However, possible mental illness (duh) and his claim of victimization by high school bullies have been cited. PLUS, once again, the shooter was “known to the FBI”.
Actually, I chose the correct AR-15 photo, only because the granite kitchen countertop underneath it seemed to be a dead giveaway.
Also, a proper rifle has iron sights. If you need a scope to hit a target at normal engagement ranges, you need more training. At least have back-up iron sights if you have a scope. These mass marketed sawed-off ARs with rail systems, like some in your pics, and no iron sights, are pure amateur targeted marketing schemes. I almost see where the liberals are coming from. Emphasis on “almost”. Who needs a 10 inch barreled 300 blackout, collapsing stock, plastic stock, no iron sight, “Rattler” POS? For what? It’s something from cartoon. It trivializes firearm ownership, Makes a joke out of it, IMO.
Now a basic 20 inch (or longer) barrel AR platform with good rear peep sight and front post and, perhaps, a scope mount/rail system? Sure. Makes sense. Most everyone should know how to use something like that and there are legit reasons to own one that should not be infringed.
Eris..
Do you own any of these types of rifles and if so, what do you use them for.
Rob
Rob,
Yes. An accurized AR15A2. Also a Ruger mini-14. The AR I used to shoot in service rifle matches. The Ruger is for fun, plinking, etc. When I lived down near the Mexican border, both would serve in a self-defense role; mostly the Ruger for that purpose. It also served, once upon a time, in a patrol rifle function (Uncle Sam provided a stipend with which to purchase it).
The Ruger is interesting because it has 20 and 30 round magazines and fires the same 5.56mm round as the AR, but the politicians so far have overlooked it because, I think, they are gun morons. It looks more like a traditional rifle; less scary too them.
I don’t shoot much anymore. I’m with Colonel Lang. While I appreciate a smooth functioning, accurate rifle, these things are mostly just tools for me. No fetishes. I was largely joking about barrel length. People can own whatever they want to and don’t need to explain that ownership to me, but I personally, still question these “tacticool” short barreled, red dot scoped, ARs in the hands of civilians.
Stephen Crowder once ran a street test asking people to pick which guns on his display table should be banned.
They agreed guns with wooden stocks looked okay, but the more metallic and industrial looking ones should be banned – regardless of fire power or lethality – which was not part of the choice – just how the guns looked to the person making this gun banning decision.
Gums with wooden stocks looked “friendlier”; all metal guns looked scary. Totally unscientific sampling; interesting. Most Hollywood types think animated gun shoot-outs with infinitely repeating shots, spraying bullets across wide swaths…. are documentaries. And guns never over-heat in such fantasy settings.
Instant demands for “gun control” is Democrat theater for symbolic effect only, since it is not the gun, it is always the shooter. Mass shooters show a very clear pattern: young male, confused sexuality and prior history of psychotrophic drugs and/or therapy. And they are just as likely to use guns, cars, bombs, knives and whatever when they are in this murderous state of mind.
That is the hard part – how do tell and how do you screen – that is the real word Democrats refuse to do while they wrap themselves up in more instant virtue-signaling and never confront the real issues.
Gun control for Democrats is the equivalent of masks and universal lockdowns for control covid – a cheap gesture, a symbolic gesture, and ultimately a meaningless and even harmful gesture. But shouting gun-control makes Democrats look like “they care”.
Just last Sunday afternoon in a nice residential neighborhood, an older woman was robbed by a man with a gun who jumped into the passenger side of her car, and then ran off to his waiting getaway car. His gun needs to be controlled – but not hers, had she been carrying a self-defense weapon.
Go ahead Democrats, tell me how you are going to do this. How are you going to reach zero tolerance gun confiscation, just like you failed to control the border or “crush covid”.
All
I don’t understand the semi-sexual fascination with guns. I own guns and have been a shooter since I was twelve. I was taught to shoot well when a teen by an uncle up in Maine. Enemies of the US have suffered from that skill, although officers do not often personally engage in violence. Guns are just tools to me.
Reminds me of the scene in the classic western ‘Shane’ where Alan Ladd explains the morality of the handgun to Marian (Jean Arthur):
“A gun is a tool….no better or worse than any other tool….. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it.”
View at time 1:58 on this YouTube clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ternps0JFwo
Colonel,
Like you, I grew up with guns. Living in cattle country, most had pistols, rifles, and ammo in their vehicles. It was normal. My pickup had 2 rifles in the gun rack on the back window, and usually 2 holstered pistols behind the seat, and this was on school ground with my windows rolled down and the pickup unlocked. It was normal, nobody thought anything about it. After school I strapped a holster on, stopped by the drug store to pick up a malt on my way out of town, ran into the Sheriff on the street with my holster on. He didn’t think anything about it, it was normal. He knew my folks.
It’s sad that today’s kids can’t experience the normalcy that you and I grew up with. Like you, a firearm was a tool, and pretty good for turning rattlesnake into chicken.
The media and democrats insist on calling it “gun violence”, when what it really is is goon violence.
I’m pretty much of a firearms moron, but if I ever need to buy a weapon for self defense, friends who aren’t suggested a 12 gauge pump shotgun.
The wife of a friend grew up in the Ukraine when it was still part of the USSR. In middle school, everyone learned the proper use and care of an AK 47. SWMBO, indeed.
I’m proud to say that my daughter, in her first time at a range with a 9mm pistol, put about 30 of 40 in a 2″ cluster. That’s alot better than me.
Peter VE
I recommend a 20 gauge coach
gun.
I own a number of historical firearms; they aren’t just tools but a reflection on the people who designed, produced, and used them. (I did let my 07 FFL lapse due to difficulties using it in HI).
I am in the market for a collector-grade 45-70 Trapdoor which due to antique status is exempt from most federal law.
Here in HI they are using Covid as an excuse to effectively prohibit gun ownership by making it impossible to process the needed permission slips.
Colonel – Gun control? What gun control? Never going to happen. Seems to me anyone can get a gun for criminal or violent purposes and will always be able to do so. Though knives are more popular in some inner city areas in England. More dangerous too, often enough.
I hope they don’t think they can compensate for that in the States by taking guns off the ordinary citizen. You’d be at the mercy of break-ins or uncontrolled civil disorder, of which there seems to be a little about already and more perhaps to come. The unstated contract between us and the authorities is that they take care of all that. If they fail, are all to be left defenceless?
Not a problem for me, living in a peaceful rural area in England. “Er, can I help you?” sees off intruders, though there are equipment or stock thefts round about and the authorities not able to do much to stop it. Not much of a problem either for the better off whose areas do become difficult. They move. Wholesale.
Up to a point therefore the problem doesn’t exist for many in England or we can move out of the way of it. We can pretend it’s a minor problem to be lived with in the cause of social harmony. That pretence seems to be wearing thin in a few parts of the States as far as one can judge from such a distance. But if the pretence breaks down further?
Your politicians, like ours, tend to live in areas where crime is minimal and well controlled. If they can’t ensure that for the rest then I don’t believe it’s any sort of solution, confiscating the only means of defence the ordinary citizen has left.
This test is clearly missing an AK-47.
Living in Germany, I dont own a rifle but know how to operate one (G-36 somewhat sadly. Looks cooler but is probably worse overall then the G3. Especially if operated by semi literate morons like me).
I was a below average marksman in the german army, about 2/3s of my peers were better shots, 1/3 was worse.
As far as gun control goes, a situation where criminals have less access to deadly firearms is what I would prefer. I am sympathethic towards claims that gun control would not work in the USA because of the massive reservoir of guns (which would leak into the black market for guns to an extent, more so if guns become increasingly illegal), and that it would be unjust to responsible gun owners who did the steps neccessary to obtain weaposry, and that gun control would first disarm law abiding civilians while somewhat disarming criminals considerably later (and actually increasing their armaments short term, as any tightening of gun control will increase the gun black market with leakage from the no longer legal gun market, so my guess is that tightened gun control will decrease prices on the gun black market and thus increase the possiblity of a criminal being armed).
Unfucking the US situation would imho require first having a clear, agreed and legal standard for legal gun ownership that would not retoactively fuck over responisble US gun owners, and then going after illegal gun ownership with some actual gusto, particularly when such guns are used in violent crimes.
Much easier said then done of course.
Visited the illegal gun manufacturing village Darra in Pakistan – you name it, you want it, and you got it. Bare floors, single electrical outlet hanging from the ceiling, stoop labor, take some metal pipes and some cutting and welding equipment, and you get you gun. With antique oil rubbed finishes if that is what you want, to take away the newly manufactured shine.
Roof tops of the small row of businesses were active and constant shooting galleries, where one could try out the large array of lethal wares, leaving the surrounding hillsides densely littered with spent bullets.
Our visit to this village in the late 1990’s was on the QT since the US had recently tried to stop this operation, and it was felt a few US tourists showing up with cameras would not be welcomed. But obviously nothing deterred this ongoing operation which is ,but one link in the vast global unregulated gun trade. Nor were their anything other than warm and welcoming smiles since these manufacturers took great pride in their inventory.
Beto O’Rourke needs to explain how taking your deer rifle out of your locked gun closet will stop the mean streets of Chicago from getting darn good reproductions of an “assault rifle” from Pakistan.
Shows how good “background checks” work, when someone like Hunter Biden lies on his written application form, that Big Guy’s SS agents later tried to confiscate when Hunter’s gun went missing – “Do you have a history of drug use?” – Hunter of course replied NO:
https://therightscoop.com/secret-service-intervenes-in-police-investigation-to-protect-hunter-biden-after-his-gun-was-thrown-in-the-trash/
Omar Mateen used a SIG MCX for the Pulse attack, which was until the Las Vegas shooting the deadliest shooting in US history(and the second deadliest Jihadi attack behind 9/11). I was reminded of this event recently when the media blatantly falsified an anti asian motive for the brothel massacres down south a couple weeks ago, much like they blatantly falsified a non-jihadi motive for Mateen in order to avoid drumming up more support for Trump’s rhetoric(recall Radical Islamic Terrorism) during the 2016 election