What I’m hearing is that “assault rifles” are really just normal rifles with cosmetic enhancements that make them look “scary” to “ignorant folk,” and now you’re telling me that gun buyers don’t care about cosmetics? So why does anyone buy “assault rifles?” Either there’s some function to the modifications that’s reflected in the spec sheets, or gun buyers are more vain than you’re implying.
Read my other post. There are tons of reasons to want to buy and shoot an AR 15 (shoot the same stuff as you currently or used to shoot in the military), and AK 47 (just what was so great about that Soviet designed firearm) or other firearms.
As to the design: The plastic is lighter - big deal when you are at the range or hiking into the woods for a hunt. It comes in black (to a lesser extent I have also seen tan and camo versions), because the manufacturers use the same parts for the military as they use for civilians. The functional difference between an AR 15 and an M 16 is the receiver, the rest is the same off-the-shelf stuff. The pistol grip makes it easier to use as well.
Oh, OK, plastic is lighter! So why don’t they just make them like the hunting rifles my Dad has, but just make them out of plastic? If that’s what it’s about.
This is a variation of the “oh they just found loopholes in the last assault weapons ban” bullshit argument that I’ve already thoroughly handled in this post in the other thread.
The features which defined an assault weapon (rifle) were:
Folding or Telescoping stock
Pistol Grip
Bayonet Mount
Flash Suppressor or barrel threading to mount one
Grenade launcher (not what you think - an adapter at the end of the muzzle to allow WW2 style rifle grenades to be fired, and those sorts of grenades are already largely illegal.)
It needed 2 of those features to qualify, because a lot of rifles would have one feature (say, WW2 era rifles would have a bayonet mount) that they didn’t want to ban.
That’s what constitutes an “assault weapon”. If it didn’t have 2 of these features, it wasn’t an assault weapon.
Now gun rights advocates will point out the absurdity that these features somehow make a rifle particularly deadly.
But in order to comply with the ban, rifles were modified not to have these features. This doesn’t mean the law was toothless - it set out to ban these features on rifles and the post-ban rifles complied with the new law - which means it was working as intended. It’s the fact that the whole thing was fucking absurd that meant this had no particular impact on the suitability of those guns for use in crime. The actual crime rate with them was negligible as is, so any impact in the rate was probably random noise anyway.
The reality is that defining a class of weapon by features that don’t significantly affect the functionality of the gun results in post-ban weapons that don’t have their capabilities significantly altered. More importantly, since those guns had the same level of capability as other rifles that did not have those features, it did not actually impact the capabilities of guns available to people, even if somehow they made every scary looking gun dissapear.
Seriously, you guys need to give this up. You are either dumb or disingenuous if you feel that this is really a point you should be focusing your energies on, and I know some of you aren’t dumb.
If you come to the table with greater enforcement of current laws, expanded background checks, stuff that might actually make some degree of sense, you might be listened to. If you fucking keep going after your nonsensical “assault weapons” bullshit - stuff that you know to be bullshit - then no one can take you seriously. You are not arguing in good faith to attempt to compromise to improve public safety. You are simply going after whatever guns you can based on how you think you can score points with public sentiment.
Get some fucking sense and integrity and go after shit that might actually make a difference. Stop lending your support to what you know to be stupid.
First, “assault rifle” is an actual term. It has a real meaning. Assault rifles are already highly regulated in the US, and the importation and manufacture of new ones for sale to civilians was ended in 1986. The reason I point this out is because “assault weapon” is a made up arbitrary term, but it was deliberately meant to sound like “assault rifles” so that gun control advocates can lie to the public about the capabilities of those weapons.
No one says no one cares about the cosmetics of the guns they buy. When you buy a new car, you want something that you like the look of, right? The point people are trying to make is that the looks of it doesn’t affect the functionality of it, the lethality of it, and the suitability for use in crimes.
And you are again wrong in thinking that “assault weapons” are designed from the ground up to look badass. They are, as has been pointed out, largely just the military versions of rifles that have been crippled to not fire fully automatically.
Again, why are the people who owned the common soldiers rifles since the start of this country okay, up until about 1968 when suddenly those people are madmen who want to intimidate everyone on their way to murder children?
Do you have any idea how juevenile you sound? “Why do the rifles have to look scary? Why can’t they look like normal rifles!?!”
You can get conventional looking rifles with polymer stocks. You can get scary looking rifles with wood stocks.
You are essentially asking why someone wants a contemporary infantryman’s rifle, which millions upon millions of people have done before, when instead they should allay your fears about weapons that don’t look like “hunting rifles your dad has”. It’s a ridiculous requirement.
I wouldn’t take that shit, if I were you, SenorBeef.
[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
Again, why are the people who owned the common soldiers rifles since the start of this country okay, up until about 1968 when suddenly those people are madmen who want to intimidate everyone on their way to murder children?
[/QUOTE]
But Algher just said that pistol grips makes it easier to use. How is that not a functional difference?
Look, let’s drop the pretense. The “common soldier’s rifle” is an M-16. Most civilian AR-15s that I see actual people own (and I have many friends who own AR-15s) look more like M-4s. Shorter barrels, collapsing stocks, lighter weight. Now, there’s a REASON that the military uses M-4s, and that’s urban combat. It’s not just cosmetic differences; the reduced weight and compact dimensions make it easier to maneuver around in an urban environment. It’s the same reason that SWAT teams use similar weapons.
Much like sawed-off shotguns, there’s a very functional element to a lot of “assault rifles,” and it’s a function that, let’s be honest, doesn’t really apply to most civilian use. The shorter barrel makes it a worse hunting or plinking weapon than an M-16 equivalent, but it’s a functional advantage when you’re trying to turn around in a crowded hallway. Maybe you can argue that it’s a better weapon for self-defense because of this added functionality, but that’s a discussion we can have. Maybe flash suppressors and bayonet mounts were stupid things to ban, but what about short barrels and collapsible stocks? If you’re OK with restrictions on sawed-off shotguns, then why wouldn’t you be OK with similar restrictions on rifles? Why can’t we even talk about weapons restrictions? It doesn’t preclude us from talking about background checks or other more sensible measures. We can talk about both!
Finally, if your position is that people go after assault weapons because they’re low-hanging fruit, and other, more meaningful measures are less likely to pass, I’d agree with you. At the same time, arguing that assault rifles like the M-4 are just cosmetically different from the M-16 is also disingenuous. If that were the truth, then the military wouldn’t have both in their arsenal.
-steronz, who’s qualified twice on the M-16 (but never the M-4) and didn’t see what all the fuss was about
Some people buy red cars, some blue. Some have more horsepower/torque, some have anti-lock brakes.
Some buy a hot-rod Mustang or Camaro, and then drop $$$thousands$$$ more into making it something that could just about hold its own at a NASCAR event.
And some just want something with four wheels and reasonable gas mileage.
And all the above might be just the same person, and it depends on whether you’re talking about his “daily driver” commute car or his weekend hobby car.
Gun owners and buyers are the same way. Trying to pigeonhole “what gun owners and buyers want” will get you just as many different responses as a “What’s Your Favorite Food?” thread in Cafe Society.
That’s just silly.
Favorite Food is ALWAYS chocolate-covered marshmallows.
I agree! I’m just trying to reconcile two conflicting ideas here. One, put forth by Algher, is that most gun buyers are nerds who care not for aesthetics. The other, put forth by SenorBeef, is that the only difference between an AR-15 and a mini-14 is cosmetics. So either the specs of an AR-15 are better, in which case Algher is right, or they’re functionality equivalent, in which case SenorBeef is right.
Do you think you’re being clever here? Do you really think you’ve caught us in some sort of gotcha moment? If, let’s say the Honda Civic and the Toyota Camry were roughly equivelant in engine power, reliability, size, etc. then one person who says they prefer one over the other is either lying because there’s no difference, or we’re secretly admitting the car they prefer is fundamentally different? In a logical world, all car buyers would have to buy the Civic. There are people who buy Camries. Therefore you’re all liars! QED.
You’re saying our choices are either: All semi-automatic rifles are exactly the same thing, and no one would ever prefer any one of hundreds of models over the other for any reason, or they’re admitting that their capabilities vary such that some are disproportinately suitable for murder and deserving of regulation.
Congratulations on the combo fallacy, straw men bound together by a false dichotomy. You win the grand prize: you don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
That also makes it handy in brush-country, as well.
The shorter barrel of the M4 is still sufficient in many hunting applications. Here in Missouri, typical engagement ranges for deer are 50 to 200 meters. The M4 is quite easily capable of that. And is lighter and more handy to work through brushy woods than a full sized rifle like a Winchester Model 70. Or full-sized 24" barrel AR15.
Both work equally well, and making an argument that one should be banned because the other works just as well is like saying we should ban sockets and ratchets from toolboxes because a wrench will work just as well.
Or we can tell you to pound sand and keep your hands off of our legally aquired and owned property
Not to speak for steronz, but I think he’s asking a perfectly reasonable question and doing it without bias. Maybe you could drop the bluster and answer it?
Give me a fucking break. That’s not a question. It’s a “gotcha” attempt by, as I said, drawing false dichotomies between two straw positions. It is answered.
If you use his premises and logic, then any time that a consumer makes a choice between similarly featured or capable products, they’re secretly admitting they aren’t similarly featured or capable. The end result of his logic is that for the world to be logically consistent, all people would choose only one of similar products, and no one could choose any others.
It’s a preposterous position designed to try to make my position look logically inconsistent, but it is itself a fallacious argument.
Even if it were a valid argument, the point it tries to get at is bunk anyway. Maybe 100% of gun owners do prefer the evil black rifle look of the AR-15 - that doesn’t mean that it’s any more lethal a tool than other similar products. Even if you accepted the point as he fallaciously tried to make it, it still doesn’t serve to counter the main issue under discussion.
You know, quite often I don’t know what the hell you gun people mean.
And I should note that this was right after you got done putting an interpretation in my words that hadn’t been at all present there, so you can just take your bitching about my failing to **un-**misinterpret what you in fact said, and stick it in your ear.
You cannot have possibly believed that I intended to say that AR-15s are incapable of killing any living thing. The obvious point of my statement from the context is that I think it’s funny that you’re trying to use the fact that the AR-15 is not as powerful and lethal as common hunting rifles as evidence that it’s too dangerous and needs to be banned.
Depends on what you mean by functionality and aesthetics.
Both the AR 15 (made by several companies) and the Ruger Mini 14 fire the .223 round as a semi-automatic rifle, loading from a detachable magazine. Both have an equivalent ability to send the same bullet downrange at the same speed, and with the same need to reload.
Same cartridge, same 3, 5, 10, 30 or 100 round drum capability. Same ability to shoot a round with a single pull of the trigger.
You can get a plastic stock for both. I had one for my Mini-14 in a folding style, until California made that part of the definition of illegal assault weapon. I put the wooden stock back on it. Increased the weight, and I had to get a new gun case for the longer form factor.
Barrel length can be changed on both. I personally like shorter barrels, except on my long-distance rifles (Remington Model 70 in 300 magnum for example).
The pistol grip on the AR 15 is more comfortable to me to shoot, but again that is part of the definition of evil by the State of California. So I go back to the standard hand wrap.
Many would argue that the AR 15 is easier to work with thanks to all of the military surplus gear out there (firing pins, replacement bolts, etc.). There is also an arguement that the standard AR is more accurate out of the box than the Mini-14, and that it can take more abuse in the bush.
Oh look. Somehow Algher answered the question without all the raving.
These aren’t glaring inconsistencies/stark examples of disingenuous arguments on the part of gun advocates, they are nothing more than the most amateur efforts at “gotchas,” each and every one. Fortunately, SenorBeef is able to swat them all away like harmless little flies. He is proving to be an expert at hand-waving.
He gets points for substances but where’s the style, the flash?