I was on 5th Ave N, and the demonstrators from Saint Petersburg High School happened by. They were chanting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho–The NRA has got to go!”, as they walked down the sidewalk.
So, I started yelling out,“Benefactor Member Baby!” and pumping my fist.
There were cops all over the place and news choppers in the air. We disagreed amiably, but they may have been surprised that there was opposition. Well, there is, and I am part of it.
To lead a hue and cry against the NRA and AR-15’s is self-destructive. What is you need one some day? And that is what I have to say on the subject.
[I think it was David Hogg that organized the marches, all over America.]
For what? To commit suicide? Because statistically that is more far likely than the gun being put to use for protection. (Put another way a gun in your home makes you less safe, not more safe.)
I doubt there’s an available answer to your question. I don’t know of a good way to measure “needed to use” (It sounds like the sort of thing that would require peeking into alternate universes and recording the results), but I do know that there are a great many defensive gun uses by citizens every year, and some portion of them involve AR-pattern rifles. I suppose some of those DGUs could have been completed successfully with a different model firearm, and presumably some unsuccessful DGUs might have succeeded if the victim had been armed with an AR-15 instead of whatever other model they did have, but again, without some way of exploring alternate universes, I don’t know how we can hope to find a specific answer to “how many times”.
This is very silly. The ballistics on the 5.56 x 45 mm NATO are clearly overkill for this application, and the supersonic report of the bullet at ~850 m/s represents an occupational safety hazard. A 149 gr 9mmP in a classic single acgtion Browning Hi-Power or a modern modular striker-fired Sig P320 pistol with a quick-detact silencer is clearly the preferred tool for this choice. Now, I know you’re going to come back and argue for the simplicity of direct impingment, ready availability of surplus 5.56 ammo in high capicity STANAG magazines, and the need for the kind of penetration required to stop a wanton rampaging pickle that slithers its way out of your hand and onto the kitchen floor, but I’ll remind you that shot placement and quick sights on target are really the key aspects in preventing yet another brined cucumber assault, and the ready access to an easily carried compact service pistol trumps the firepower of a carbine. I’ll remind you of the Great Kimchi Massacre of 1997 and how the delay in getting to the unfortunately vaulted FN-FALs resulted in the needless deaths of many a dolsot bibimbap, and if only the defenders had access to duty sidearms instead of just ineffecually spraying sriratcha we might not have lost so many delicious dishes that day to another pointless mass vegicide.
As for the o.p. good on you for challenging those students in expressing their desire to not be shot in yet another school shooting and their condemnation of a firearms industry-lobbying group which has stridently opposed even minimal oversights and uniform national background check standards. Who do these uppity students think they are, expressing thoughts as if they are real people with genuine concerns for their welfare and that of others. And how eloquent of you to punctuate your response with a fist pump, which I believe was the same gesture that Abraham Lincoln used at the end of the Gettysburg Address. Freedom, God, and Guns is What America Is All About, and if that means we have the highest per capita rate of firearm violence and mass shootings of any developed nation in peacetime, that’s just the price you pay.
I had a point when I started this but it has since disappeared like Dana Loesch’s ability to follow a linear argument.
I could certainly come up with five times an AR-15 was used by a civilian, but again, without a way to explore alternate realities where we can know with certainty the outcome had they used some other weapon, I don’t know how you could be convinced that the AR-15 was needed, as opposed to any other weapon.
FWIW, I don’t consider this a particularly genuine argument either, as I imagine that you’d be no happier if we could wave a magic wand and change everyone’s AR-15’s into an FS-2000 / SCAR-L / Tavor.
I’m not winking. I think using the name of an act to disguise its actual purpose is despicable. You might as well have named it “The Lollypops And Rainbows Act”. Rather than take the chance of explaining the usefulness of suppression devices on guns when it comes to reducing noise(which was done here in another thread quite successfully), it was decided to name it something that sounds nice but tells nothing.
I don’t care if you consider it a “genuine argument”, because it was part of the argument the OP made and you came to defend. He stated that a person shouldn’t protest against AR-15s because you never know when you might need that particular weapon in the future.
Is that true, or false?
