False. I didn’t come here to defend the OP’s argument. My first post in this thread (#6) was to question a claim by Whack-a-Mole. That’s why I came.
“…a certificate suitable for framing, a lapel pin, a decal, a patch, and a new membership card so you can proudly display your membership status.”
That’s it? No holy rifle round pendant blessed by Wayne LaPierre himself? No official NRA prayer cloth to kneel on while supplicating the benevolent Second Amendment to please deliver unto thee a Bad Guy with a Gun? No tapestry of Jesus, Charles Whitman, Adam Lanza and Stephen Paddock gazing down beatifically from heaven? Don’t tell me they’ve gone secular.
If this guy had used an AR-15, he may not have missed.
I can think of lots of civilian uses for an AR-15, specifically, but most of them will result in you getting shot at by the police.
It would probably make an excellent paperweight, but you could also use a Type 4 70 mm AT for that just as easily.
What people like the OP don’t realize is that people want to be able to defend themselves. And your opponent not having a gun makes for a heck of a lot better defense than you having one.
Why do you want to take away peoples’ means to defend themselves?
Would that work out about as well as people not having illegal drugs, because we banned them?
I read the OP as being opposed to gun control.
The stock response to that would be that there are hundreds of millions of firearms already in the country, you can’t prevent all malevolent people from obtaining firearms or other weapons, and so forth, all of which are true. And there is a legitimate rationale that responsible and reasonable people should have reasonable access to purchase firearms for personal use, including self-defense in the case that law enforcement is unable or unwilling to come to their aid, which does occur.
But responsible and reasonable people don’t march around with military-style weapons at public rallies, or feel the need to carry a weapon at all times in case a rare violent assault in a public area, or argue that any laws that require a demonstration of minimum competence to purchase a firearm. Responsible and reasonable people don’t respond to the tragedy of a mass shooting by blaiming the survivors for speaking out or accusing them of being “paid actors” in some kind of bizarre conspiracy. Responsible and reasonable people don’t unquestioningly reiterate the talking points formulated for the firearms industry by the same PR groups who helped misinform the public on the dangers of tobacco or the effect of fossil fuel use on climate. Responsible and reasonable people look for practical ways to protect their interests while assuring the safety and concerns of the general public are addressed.
And of the advocates who so ardently insist on a need to be armed to deter crime or tyranny, very few actually seem to have any experience or knowledge of just how difficult it is to respond to a determined armed aggressor even if they are armed and expecting it. The stress of a live shooting scenario is nothing like plinking at cans or punching paper targets at the range or even like the induced stress of a shoothouse simulation. The odds that a teacher or other adult in a school is going to be able to stop a determined shooter (and not injure other bystanders, either by accident or misidentification) before he or she can injure or kill multiple people is very low , hence the need to take at least some moderate steps to try to prevent people like Nikolas Cruz with a history of anti-social behavior from having ready access to firearms (AR-15 or otherwise), even if such measures can never be 100% reliable.
Responsible and reasonable gun owners should be willing to support effective messures to keep firearms out of the hands of potentially unstable people for the sake of their own interest as well as concern for the safety of the general public. The NRA is not a representitive of responsible and reasonable gun owners; it has long since become an paid mouthpiece for the firearms industry, but beyond that it as also positioned itself as the ideological defender of conservative values and holds powerful sway over a block of voters and legislators by intimidation and scaremongering about largely ficticious or massively exaggerated efforts at gun prohibition.
Stranger
Reasonable? Sure!
What exactly are those effective measures that are reasonable?
The odd phrasing I bolded caught my eye. (And no, I’m not talking about the typo.)
I don’t think many Americans walk down streets with an AR-15 slung over their shoulder to deter muggers, so perhaps he’s talking about a home invasion. Is that when I’ll need to buy one? (Access Amazon or Guns’R’Us from my smart-phone while hiding in the closet and select the fast delivery option?)
Or, by “some day” perhaps he means “the day I come to my senses and realize that liberals and terrorists are everywhere and I may soon need to defend myself” — is that it? Or, will I need the AR-15 when I want to renew my wedding vows? Or, like Fabian Rodriguez, perhaps I’ll come into a little money and have nothing better to spend it on, even though I don’t need an AR-15.
Someone suggested the AR-15 is to help open pickle jars. I think he was kidding, but so much of the non-parodic gun rhetoric is nonsensical I’m not completely sure.
I am out-of-touch with U.S.A., which I’ve not visited this century. When I lived in California I didn’t know a single person who talked about guns. But now I hear about “Benefactor Member Baby!” America seems absurdly focused on Guns! Guns! Guns!
MAGA MAGA! Go go go!
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion: What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us, An’ ev’n devotion!
In five words or less, please.
@Stranger
It shouldn’t come as any great surprise that many of your political opponents regard themselves as the “responsible and reasonable people” and feel much like you do about their opponents.
We banned rape, but rape still happens. That doesn’t mean rape laws do nothing.
It means that one can’t be confident of “your opponent not having a gun” if we’d just ban guns.
It means I can be a lot surer of it than I am now.
Can you see how “100% assurance you’ll be disarmed, and something-less-than-100% assurance your opponent will be disarmed” is an unattractive exchange for gun owners?
Depends. Are you expecting to be in a situation where you specifically need an AR-15 with a bump stock, extended magazine, and suppressor to defend yourself?
No, I suspect I could use an FN SCAR or an IWI Tavor to roughly equal effect in almost every situation I ever expect to be in.
Or, say, a revolver that holds six shots and can’t be used to rapidly commit mass murder?
I have a fairly easy time envisioning various situations where an AR-15 provides significantly more utility than a 6-shot revolver. I can’t say I “expect” to be in one of those situations (I certainly take steps to avoid it) but I recognize it’s a possibility.