A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals that across all political and social groups in the United States, there is a strong preference against living near AR-15 rifle owners and neighbors who store guns outside of locked safes. This surprising consensus suggests that when it comes to immediate living environments, Americans’ views on gun control may be less divided than the polarized national debate suggests.
The research was conducted against a backdrop of increasing gun violence and polarization on gun policy in the United States. The United States has over 350 million civilian firearms and gun-related incidents, including accidents and mass shootings, have become a leading cause of death in the country. Despite political divides, the new study aimed to explore whether there’s common ground among Americans in their immediate living environments, focusing on neighborhood preferences related to gun ownership and storage.
This is why I use the AR-10, it’s much safer, it’s 5 AR’s fewer than the AR-15
The bigger bullet means it’s easier to avoid.
I’m more comfortable around the guns I’ve seen in documentaries like Contra and Bad Dudes, with the flashing, softball-sized bullets that travel at like six inches per second
Everyone knows Time Crisis has the most realistic bullet travel physics.
LOL for a second I legit thought “The Contras? They mostly used AK-47s we sold them, right?”
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks You’d better run, better run, outrun my gun
So a good bit cheaper, too, then?
Cries in 308 pricing
.308 pricing reasonable on a per-bear-stopping basis, but makes a mess of dinner.
I’m playing Fallout 4 and my favorite weapon uses .308 bullets, I run out all the time and then have to use other weapons that just don’t feel as good. I spend way too much time going to shops to buy all they have and collecting resources and crafting them just to have less than enough.
It seems the real world has a similar problem.
Is that the LMG? I like that one too.
Insert Padme meme here*
I’d be more concerned about a neighbor wearing a MAGA hat and flying a Trump 2024 flag than someone quietly owning an AR-15.
But that’s because I’m aware of the statistics.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/
“Handguns are the most common weapon type used in mass shootings in the United States, with a total of 166 different handguns being used in 116 incidents between 1982 and December 2023. These figures are calculated from a total of 149 reported cases over this period, meaning handguns are involved in about 78 percent of mass shootings.”
If they have a MAGA hat and flag you have to be careful about approaching their driveway or front door. They are fear-addicted and armed.
Thanks for backing up my position with the actual statistics. I’m aware of them too but I was too lazy to dig them up. Thanks.
People should be way more concerned about handguns but mass shootings with rifles get all the attention.
Tbh it’s by design. It’s way easier to scare people with the big black scary call of duty gun and convince them to get on board with that, saying “no pistols are fine but those rifles that function the literal same are the issue,” then later you can try to convince people on the pistols with “actually since rifles only accounted for 500/60,000 gun deaths a year we have to ban the pistols now too.”
Mass shouting are 3+, but rifle shootings that makes news stories tend to be much higher 5-8+. And often times the rifle shooters are also using a handgun, so it skews the numbers a bit there too.
But really all guns and especially handguns need better control, permitting, and revocation laws.
I just categorize my concerns to semi-autos; size is irrelevant. Australia went so far as to ban just about all of them, even though that’s a very broad category.
I see Bond Arms is working around that by releasing a lever action AR-15. Will be interesting to see where that goes.
https://www.bondarms.com/LVRB-Coming-2nd-Quarter-of-2024-P8583.aspx
It would still run afoul of the magazine size ban, but I expect that to get struck down by the Supreme Court.
Great comment and with a great source to boot :)
Except by that exact source, mass shootings with rifles are under reported and the deadliest mass shootings were done with semi automatic rifles.
“Since 1982, there has been a known total 65 mass shootings involving rifles, mostly semi-automatics. This figure is underreported though, as it excludes the multiple semi-automatic (and fully automatic) rifles used in the 2017 Las Vegas Strip massacre – the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, killing 58 and wounding 546. In fact, semi-automatic rifles were featured in four of the five deadliest mass shootings, being used in the Orlando nightclub massacre, Sandy Hook Elementary massacre and Texas First Baptist Church massacre.”
Deadliest again is not “most prevalent”. Yes, that is what gets the attention and makes everyone scared, but they are not as common as the media wants everyone to believe.
Except the stats (art and science)
don’t mention thatin many of the mass shootings, an AR-15 assault rifle was commonly used. Highly lethal, designed to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time.My mistake, they do mention it.
They actually do mention it when used, but like I say, the use is minimal compared to handguns.
AR-15 shootings get more ATTENTION when they happen which gives the impression they are more prevelant than they are.
I think this year there have been two? The woman at Joel Osteen’s church back in February who shot two people before being killed herself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakewood_Church_shooting
And this idiot who shot up a fleeing car back in April, injuring nobody. Police couldn’t even find property damage.
Had to google for that one. Nobody got hurt so lower press coverage.
the gun ownership attribute had three levels: no gun ownership, owning a pistol, and owning an AR-15,
This study design is bad, and they should feel bad. If they’re going to claim that people are afraid of AR-15s, they should compare it apples-to-apples with other rifles, or just ask about rifles generally, like they did with pistols.
Furthermore, any study asking opinion questions for what should be data-driven decisions are misleading at best and harmful at worst. If your concern is safety in communities, you should study actual safety, not feelings. It appears they want to make people feel safe, while not necessarily increasing safety.
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Fair enough for a general survey question. However, the point about how policy decisions shouldn’t be based on opinion/anecdote is still valid (at least in the case of gun control).
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I could understand the argument for factoring people’s feelings into policy in some cases, but let’s take this study as an example.
Handguns are responsible for far more harm than AR-15s, but this study shows people “fear” AR-15s more. A policy that is based on these findings and not empirical data may attempt to reduce gun violence by addressing AR-15 ownership. Thereby not having a major effect on reducing actual gun violence.
A policy focusing on reducing handgun ownership would be much more effective at reducing gun violence, despite people not fearing them as much.
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I think you’re confusing me with other commentors. I haven’t suggested this research in particular is being actively used to support policy decisions. Nor have I suggested this research is advocating for policy.
In my initial comment I simply said policy in general (at least with gun control) shouldn’t be based on people’s feelings/anecdotes.
I think this study asked a very interesting question, and I find the results to be very interesting. I don’t really have any issues with this research by itself.
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How people feel is important to know because it will influence how a change needs to be presented.
In this example: A lot of oeople feel safer owning guns, science show they’re wrong and it actually decreases their safety, in order to be able to change things in a way that people will accept it that perception needs to be changed.
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Yes, people want to feel safe. Emotional health is an important part of quality of life.
And this isn’t a data-driven decision. This is a study on how people feel about an issue. Nobody is making a decision based on this, outside of politicians understanding the best way to speak in public when campaigning. Why are you so upset that someone studies how people feel? Yes, the study could have been more in-depth and asked about different types of rifles, but then someone would complain that they didn’t include X gun or Y rifle, or they would complain that they lumped all rifles together, or complain about the lumping of “assault rifles,” or complain that shotguns aren’t included.
It’s like turning right on red. It has been proven to be safer by tons of data-driven studies. But people fucking hate it when you are used to being able to turn and go about your drive when there is no traffic around.
The study isn’t about community safety or gun stats, they said the goal was to explore opinions. Opinions are therefore the data, the facts, of this domain. Are you seriously suggesting that researchers interested in opinions eschew opinions and use (barely relevant) stats instead? Because people don’t necessarily form opinions on facts. Which is why opinions are their own thing, and evidence is another thing. Two separate domains.
“80% of Americans think there should be more affordable housing in theory. 10% of Americans are willing to live near affordable housing.”
This kind of stuff is worth committing to data.
That’s right, we should be making decisions on what makes people actually safe instead of what feels safe. So all the gun owners who say they need a gun because it makes them feel safe should be ignored because multiple studies have shown that owning a gun actually makes you less safe.
TSA joins the conversation
The TSA can go die in a fire.
I have to agree. I know my neighbors have a few different assault rifles and it does not bother me at all. When shit goes down I know we got each other backs
What “shit” would have to go down to where you would need to have each others backs? You know your opponents are the ones that don’t even want to own guns… you don’t have to be terrified of us.
Why are you assuming to know who their opponents are? I’m pretty socialist leaning (union steward like, convince my friends to read the Communist Manifeso like) I own a handful of guns. I know my “opponents” are likely armed.
The Socialist Rifle Association is assuming their opponents will be armed.We saw it during the BLM protests: the police are very willing to injure and kill unarmed protesters, but play very nicely when armed protesters are around. That convinced me.
Obligatory “no study is done properly since I, the Internet rando, saith it so”
Given that hunting is a very common pastime in the US, and that hunting rifles are statistically the firearms least likely to be used in a homicide, I think you’d find that information to be a pretty useless outlier, on the level of asking about bow or fencing foil ownership.
A major reason many people buy an AR is because they think they are bad asses and want a bad ass weapon. I would rather have a level headed AR owning neighbor than a wanna-be bad ass neighbor owning ANY kind of weapon.
I own an AR because it’s kinda easy to work on without Royally Fucking it Up.
[citation needed]
As a matter of fact, most progressive policies have majority support in the US. The system is deliberately designed to prevent the will of the majority from being enacted.
That’s a feature, not a bug. The point is you want to protect rights fro the tyranny of the majority.
The point is you want to protect rights fro the tyranny of the majority.
Eh, that may have been the excuse for the separation of powers into a Republic, but that’s not what gave rural southern states an advantage of their more populated neighbors in the north.
That was the great compromise in 1787, which led to the 3/5th compromise. They didn’t fear the “tyranny of the majority” as much as they didn’t want to join a union that could potentially outlaw slavery.
It didn’t really give the southern states an ‘advantage’; it mostly meant that the north couldn’t steamroll them. But the south also couldn’t force their will on the north. It forced the states to have some kind of consensus, rather than allowing the more populous states to govern without the consent of the less populous states.
It’s… Complicated.
I want individual rights to be respected. To that end, I have a problem with the way a lot of states treat e.g. LGBTQ people. But I’m also distrustful of allowing all/most governance to be from a single, centralized organization that isn’t very responsive or responsible.
It didn’t really give the southern states an ‘advantage’; it mostly meant that the north couldn’t steamroll them.
I think that’s just a semantic dispute waiting to happen… Plus, I’d hardly call wanting to end slavery “steam rolling” the south.
But the south also couldn’t force their will on the north. It forced the states to have some kind of consensus,
Maybe not in the time it was written, but I’m pretty sure we’re dealing with the south forcing their opinions on people presently.
rather than allowing the more populous states to govern without the consent of the less populous states.
And that may have made sense when we were mostly just a loose confederation… as an actual country it’s done nothing but create a tyranny of the minority.
But I’m also distrustful of allowing all/most governance to be from a single, centralized organization that isn’t very responsive or responsible.
I could say the same thing about states rights bullshit. That loose confederations just create an environment where there is no overall protection for minority views, and that state governments are too individualistic and incompetent to respond to crises like COVID. And that they are highly irresponsible and unresponsive unless there’s a federal mandate, or it entises their lust for bigotry.
Oh yes we need to protect the rights of (checks notes) religious people to oppress us all.
Yup definitely in danger of a tyranny of the majority.
Edit, looking down thread you’re not here in good faith. You say we can’t have progressive ideas with broad support because tyranny of the majority but you use those very same ideas as examples of things that might be crushed by a tyranny of the majority. Let’s be real the stuff we can’t vote out because of this system is the right of rich white people to oppress minorities. The right of police to execute people. The right of corporations to abuse their workers. No one in the majority is out there cheering the arrest of protestors or the implementation of Christian Sharia law.
You don’t believe that I’m here in good faith because I believe in individual liberties…?
That’s certainly a take.
But you don’t. Based on what you’ve said you favor the rights of capitalists and corporations over individuals.
That’s called democracy. You have to accept democratic decisions even if you don’t like them. I think you people are extremely pathetic for preferring fascist dictatorship to democracy just so can keep stroking your fucking guns.
Their comment has nothing to do with guns.
Suuuuure. Whenever US “conservatives” talk about their rights being taken away, that is always what they mean.
LOL. I’m not even remotely a conservative. By every political measure, I’m a social libertarian, or an anarchist.
Taking rights away only benefits authoritarians. And there are a whooooooole lot of authoritarians in both major US parties.
Another one that people are talking about right now is reproductive rights; I think women should have them. Lots of old white dudes around me (and, TBH, a lot of the women too, because they drink the Flavor-Aid) think women should not have that right.
If you went back 50 or 60 years, you’d be looking at rights to protest (which are on the chopping block now, too), and rights to freedom from religious tyranny (which, again, is also a problem now, albeit mostly in flyover states).
Rights are never very popular when they’re being exercised by minority groups.
If we’re going to accept the concept of rights in the first place, then we also have to say that the majority can’t take those rights away from the minority when a particular right isn’t popular anymore.
That and their right to force us all into following the rules of their religion.
There are supposed to be fundamental rights that remain protected even when one falls into a minority. The tyranny of the majority includes silencing the temporarily minority opposition party, for example. Or minority ethnic and religious groups who are demonized by a slim majority.
And that isn’t happening in the current US system?
I take it you are only against it when it happens to the wrong people.
Of course it is. And guess what? It’s wrong in that case too.
Freedom of assembly means, yes, to freedom to protest things that the majority in the country are okay with.
Tyranny of the Majority is the concept.
So when America democratically decides to end free speech for palestine supporters you’ll just lay down and take it?
They already did that. Everyone protesting safely is a progressive idea with broad support that’s being withheld. And the argument that we can’t grant basic rights because there might be a tyranny of the majority is illogical and morally bankrupt.
You know what stops cops from overreacting at protests? It begins with R and ends with ifles.
The primary problem with implementing those policies that people want are in the details. Everyone wants [thing], but have widely differing views on what that means. Or they have concerns, some of which are valid, that get in the way of implementing the change.
Most people want universal background checks and for people who are likely to be violent to not have guns. But many also don’t want registration to be tracked because when it has been teacked it has been made publically available. Others don’t want to have to pay for the background check to loan their gun to a friend for hunting.
That is of course before differences in who should be paying for the checks and how to track a check was made without that list being made public.
It is like saying everyone likes fruit, but we have to establish a list of acceptable fruit that will never cover the differences in what kinds of fruit people like. Have fun passing that law.
That would be the task of a democratic process, to figure out those details, if only there was one.
If only we had a functioning democracy!
The filibuster is the tool used most often to avoid even having those discussions in congress. The House won’t spend time on legislation that will just be filibustered in the Senate.
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If your suburban/urban neighbor knows what model of gun you have and you aren’t hunting/shooting buddies then you’re doing something horribly wrong and are definitely a scary neighbor regardless of what type of gun it is.
Taking the shotty for a walk.
As you do
[Whistling “farmer in the dell.”]
This is a more of a study on the public’s opinion of this model gun. It gets a bad rap in media, so people who don’t know anything else about it don’t want anything to do with it.
Until they need somebody with one…
Ya know you were making a fair point right up until that last sentence. While yes the reason the AR-15 is so feared is cause its super common meaning that by sheer statistics id expect it to be used in shootings fairly frequently, I dont want some random sonovabitch coming near me with any gun. Not because I fear guns, but because most folks are fucking stupid and unless ive got some type of guarantee they know what their doing im assuming they are a fuck up.
I apply the same rule to power tools and mobile industrial equipment.
Normally pretty much an anarchist in my policy predilections. But there are folks I went to school with that I wouldn’t trust with a power drill, much less a rifle. Seems they’re just the ones that make the biggest deal over having guns -and least likely to use them in any responsible way. The role these sorts of badass-looking firearms play now is to make powerless Americans feel like they have some agency. Likely dangerous when these misinformed, utterly propagandized serfs feel extra pressed and attribute their low quality of life to all the wrong reasons/people.
Yep, it’s always the guys who get really angry when you say “do you mind not talking about guns” and then just start loudly talking about their guns more
I’m related to an idiot who got drummed out of two professions for that reason
The role these sorts of badass-looking firearms play now is to make powerless Americans feel like they have some agency.
In general helping cowards feel themselves bigger. That’s a problem with weapons, yes.
It’s easy to picture powerless people as “cowards”, but now think about a victim of rape who has several known exes they worry about meeting again.
Ah. You meant somebody whose prior traumatic experience may cause them to use a firearm before thinking? That’s not cowardice, of course. But I’d rather have such people carry pepper sprays and maybe traumatic pistols.
As an anarchist my position is: Guns are useless until they’re pointed at you. No problem with people owning them, but they should only be used to fight against systematic oppression, and (only if there is no other alternative) self defense. Otherwise guns are completely useless.
The aversion to AR-15 owners was stronger than the aversion to owners of other types of firearms (pistols). When given a choice, the probability that a respondent would prefer to live near someone who owned an AR-15 plummeted by over 20 percentage points, indicating a strong societal preference against this type of gun ownership.
Which, as usual, goes a long way towards illustrating how effective propaganda and manipulation of people’s opinions can be. Not just on this specific topic either, but in this case I guess that’s what we’re talking about. Despite its scientific dressings, what this study is exploring isn’t actually any mechanical factor, it is measuring people’s perceptions which are not guaranteed to be reflected by reality. (And again, this is true of many other topics as well…)
The AR-15 platform does the same damn thing and shoots the same damn bullet in the same damn way as numerous other firearms, and yet just the name itself has a bad rap from being incessantly repeated in the news and social media.
Here’s this old chestnut. It’s still true.
Why’s the one on top “scarier?”
Tl;dr: Own, store, and handle your gun responsibly. Don’t be a paranoid loon. Don’t believe in whatever boogeyman Fox News is pushing this week. Don’t hyperventilate about fictional distinctions.
Partly because the AR-15 is lighter than the Mini 14, is easier to reload, and is generally designed to meet the modern needs of armies killin’ humans better. Then there’s the incessant marketing, the huge number of manufacturers at multiple price points (the Mini 14 being a Ruger exclusive), the aftermarket of optics and tacticool accessories, and the general cultural impact. How many Mini 14s have actually been involved in mass shootings and gun-nerd intimidation exercises? It’s almost like the least stable assholes are interested in a “badass” gun.
But okay, fine. There’s a not-insignificant amount of truth to the graphic. By all means, the gun nerds should put it everywhere and inform the previously ignorant public. I don’t think the result will be to convince people the AR-15 is actually useful, just that the Mini-14 is equally unnecessary as a civilian tool or hunting rifle, and they shouldn’t assume a wooden-stock rifle is inherently less dangerous than a plastic one.
And, for the record, I am tediously, annoyingly aware of current second-amendment jurisprudence and the lack of sufficient political will to change the constitution, and while I don’t think the former is well considered, the situation is what it is. It just sucks. It leaves America unique among stable democracies in having gun violence anywhere near the top of the list of causes of death.
By all means, the gun nerds should put it everywhere and inform the previously ignorant public.
The problem is how rude so many of them are about it.
Instead of “there is no such thing as an ‘assault rifle’ and here’s how that myth got started,” it’s “define assault rifle.” It’s this weird assumption that everyone knows as much about guns as they do and it really doesn’t help them. I get that it can be a knee-jerk reaction to people who have issues with guns (as is assuming anyone who has issues with guns wants a blanket ban on them), but it really does not help.
Not to go off on a tangent, but it’s “assault weapon” that’s the boogeyman term, meant to confuse the uninformed with assault rifles. Assault rifles are select fire, full auto and burst fire capable rifles. Assault weapons are semi-automatic rifles that have the same or similar cosmetics as assault rifles.
The trick is a person latches onto the adjective, not the noun, and a rifle is a kind of weapon, so it makes it seem like assault rifles fit under assault weapons, when I’m fact it’s the opposite.
Thank you for correcting me politely! This is the sort of thing that needs to be done more! I did mean to write ‘assault weapon,’ my apologies.
You’re good! In many ways that’s exactly what the marketing people on the anti-gun side wanted to happen. They knew that psychologically the two terms would become synonymous with each other. Unfortunately the attitude problem you highlighted in the loud minority of gun owners only helped that advertising campaign.
It’s a distinction without much of a difference, though. Apart from auto and burst fire, a modern AR-15 does everything an M4A1 does. The Marines’ M4 and M16A4 models don’t even go past burst.
If semi-auto rifles are going to be legal at all, they should have a small integral magazine that’s non-trivial to modify. The sheer efficiency of these rifles makes them really good for assaulting humans, because that’s what they were designed for.
The brass took away the giggle switch from the crayon eaters to save on their ammo bill. There’s a reason “marining” is a verb, after all.
But every gun is designed to kill people, all the way back to the musket. And your suggestion of an integral magazine doesn’t do much, even if you could somehow round up all the ARs with detachable mags and “fix” them. The M1 Garand and it’s stripper clips are a historic example, and the modern ejection port mag loaders the neutered California ARs have to use make it trivial to reload.
You want to tackle this issue? Safe storage laws, building a culture around free, government-provided training and safety, and harsher punishments for NDs are a place to start. That’s not even getting into the quagmire that is our terrible healthcare system, and law enforcement that on average can’t do their jobs and act on tips that would stop many of the recent big mass shootings.
Yeah, the level of gatekeeping is extraordinary. “Not only must you respect my political position, but your lack of nuanced technical information means you have literally no room to be part of the conversation!” I see similar attitudes about military matters, where not having served is viewed as a reason to completely dismiss concerns, rather than a valuable outside perspective to be considered.
I grew up in the gun culture, and we actually have a few guns locked up in a safe in my father-in law’s garage, but I haven’t been motivated at all to go get them in the last 5+ years, because WTF do I really need them for? I might grab the single-shot 12-gauge someday because casual skeet shooting is legitimately fun, but while I still have a sort of lingering “suburban white guy” interest, I just fell out of love with actually having guns over the years, and my fellow gun owners were a not insignificant part of that.
“Assault Rifle” is a bit of a boogeyman term, true, but part of the reason gun folks hate it so much is that while they don’t personally intend to use their own toys that way (anytime soon), their favorite guns absolutely DO amount to semi-automatic versions of common military weapons. You know, the rifles one might need when assaulting an enemy position:
- lightweight
- compact compared to earlier weapons serving a similar use case
- accurate
- high rate of fire. One little factoid the gun folks don’t like to have mentioned is that even the most common military rifles stopped being fully automatic years ago because it’s wasteful, and most are semi-automatic and three-round burst (correction: The US Army retrofit its burst to have fully auto again, though the USMC did not). “They’re not machine guns” is another way to weaponize pedantry. Semi-auto sends plenty of lead downrange.
- arbitrary magazine size limited only by material science and added weight
- quick and easy reloading of the rifle with pre-loaded magazines.
- easily adapted with aftermarket parts that enhance only anti-personnel activities (lasers, flashlights, bump stocks, bayonets, etc.).
- chambered in a mid-size round: high-velocity, small bullet. Designed specifically to do well taking down animals human sized and smaller, but lightweight enough to carry a shitload of them without being over-encumbered.
It’s not hard at all to come up with an objective technical definition that has nothing to do with “scary looking or not”. Find some numbers for the various criteria and make bright lines, such that weapons that are still legal will be more poorly suited to mass murder than the current crop of black rifles. There will absolutely be people pushing at the margins, but you can’t let perfect be the enemy of good. But no… people like the feeling of power they get by having weapons that are virtually identical to the stuff that “warriors” have, so they’re going to cling to them like their lives depend on it, even though statistically they very much do not.
I don’t disagree but it’s frustrating to somebody who cares and is knowledgeable about a topic to have people militantly try to outlaw and poorly regulate it while not having critical knowledge and understanding on the topic. There’s a reason gun people tend to be very irritated by a lot of the anti-gun crowd.
Which is exactly the reason why patience is needed.
Again, I agree, but have you ever tried to patiently educate every poorly informed opinion on the internet?
I agree, it is difficult, but that’s what makes it so important if it’s something that you feel passionately about.
If someone is going to make claims about ARs that are dubious wouldn’t asking for a definition of ARs be the best way to make sure they’re talking about the same thing instead of misunderstanding? I’ve never seen someone ask for the definition of AR from someone who wasn’t talking about ARs. Seems like a completely reasonable question and I have no idead why one would think otherwise.
Telling someone, “define assault rifle,” which is what I see, is not the same as something like, “do you know that there is no such thing as an assault rifle?”
I don’t see how that changes the validity of the question. If we’re not talking about the same thing, the conversation is only going to end badly. What’s explicitly wrong with asking for a definition? Because I’m not understanding you at all.
You are conflating asking and demanding. The problem is the demanding. It’s about the way it is communicated that is the problem.
Okay that makes sense. To me, especially over text, the phrase “Define X” reads as a pretty standard question in a back and forth, the same way English speakers omit the pronoun ‘you’ when using imperatives. I feel like unless they were cursing at you, interpreting that as a rude demand makes a lot of assumptions.
Your image is confusing. How does a the rifle with no magazine have the same capacity to rapid fire as the one above it? The Ar-15 appears to have more bullets immediately available, which would mean it would fire them faster.
How is having a pistol grip that improves comfort and hip firing not make the weapon easier and more comfortable to use?
How is being less visible at night not make a black gun more dangerous than one with a bright wooden sheen?
Do both guns have the same exact default trigger pull, or is the ar-15’s lighter and easier to fire?
These guns are different enough in actual use to make one more dangerous than the other. They both can kill you dead, but one literally is designed specifically to be deadiler in several ways. It’s one of the reasons mass murders keep using it specifically to mas murder people.
Why is it surprising that it’s considered deadiler?
This picture is often used to draw out all the points you’ve made, to demonstrate that many people are unfamiliar with many firearms. The Mini-14 in this picture is one available configuration of the rifle. The most basic, simple, low capacity version. However, the Mini-14 is fully capable of using 20 and 30 round magazines, a pistol grip, suppressor, bayonet, and even a folding stock (which the AR-15 can’t do).
A better version of this picture uses two models of the Mini-14, illustrating how one is legal in California and the other isn’t, even though they’re functionally the same rifle. A firearm simply being black does not make it more dangerous. A pistol grip does not make it more dangerous or easier to hip fire for that matter. Any gun is easily hip fired, and I would suggest a non pistol grip rifle or shot gun is more ergonomic to fire from the hip as far as pulling the trigger is concerned.
The real argument should be whether semi auto rifles are more dangerous or not, not if specific semi auto rifles are more dangerous.
I asked the question because i honestly dont know the difference, but right off the bat youre saying the image is designed to show one gun in a “action ready” and the other in a “not ready” state. Leaving out the magazine for the second gun is especially misleading when trying to elict a “they are totally the same” reaction.
It’s no wonder that people will think one is deadlier than the other shown these exact guns in these conditions, because one literally is from the magazine capacity alone.
Sorry for not being more clear in my response. There is a magazine in the second one. It is a 5 round magazine (The standard option for this particular model). However, for example, here are the readily available options for the mini 14: https://themagshack.com/product-category/rifle-magazines/ruger-mini-14-magazines/
As I said this picture points out that many people don’t know the difference (as you acknowledged you yourself don’t know the difference). My point is semi auto rifles as a category of firearm are more deadly. It doesn’t matter what semi auto. The mini-14 vs AR-15 argument is used to illustrate the general ignorance many people have about various firearms. The mini-14 is very much as dangerous as an AR-15, but it doesn’t get the same attention because it’s a gun that can easily look innocuous. The photo used in this post is intentionally disingenuous to highlight this point.
For example, here are the “tactical” models of the Mini-14: https://ruger.com/products/mini14TacticalRifle/models.html
Ruger literally highlights the following benefits to the tactical models: Their short barrels and overall short length make them favorites in any application where maneuverability and ease of handling are priorities.
Many people argue one way or the other while fully acknowledging their own ignorance, and it makes it difficult to find a solution to an issue. As an owner of more than one semi auto rifle, it is frustrating when this particular argument comes up because of how ridiculous it can be. The AR-15 looks scarier, and is therefore deadlier to many people. There are numerous other semi autos that are just as deadly, but don’t get demonized because they don’t look scary. The AK and SKS are a similar example, though less hyperbolic. The argument to be made is to get rid of semi autos, not demonize particular ones.
How is being less visible at night not make a black gun more dangerous than one with a bright wooden sheen?
You’re right. We should regulate black paint just in case someone decides to turn their legitimate wooden rifle into a war machine.
So you ignored everything i asked about except the color?
Okay.
In aggregate, these differences between the two guns, especially the magazine shown on one gun and not the other, make the weapon more dangerous to others, so it’s considered more dangerous to others. Seems pretty simple to me.
Someone already shit on you about everything else, seemed redundant to pile on.
In aggregate, these changes make the weapon
more dangerous to otherslook scary.Fixed.
So it’s your firm connection that the top gun with a 10 round magazine is equally dangerous as the bottom gun with a 1 round chamber?
Okay then.
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You’ve already had it explained to you that the mini14 takes magazines. Being overly pedantic doesn’t help your case.
#BlackGunsMatter
How is having a pistol grip that improves comfort and hip firing not make the weapon easier and more comfortable to use?
In all of the PCSL, 2-gun, etc. matches I’ve been to, I’ve never seen anyone shooting from the hip.
A ‘traditional’ stock offers certain benefits that an AR-15 stock doesn’t; you can sometimes get different comb heights (or an adjustable comb height) in order to make it easier to get a good sight picture. Since an AR-15 has a buffer tube in the stock, you can’t really do much to move it up or down, and your charging handle limits your ability to have a stock with a comb that goes very far forward or up. Neither is “right”, but is going to be at least partially preference and purpose of the firearm.
But fundamentally, a gun that is difficult and uncomfortable to shoot is a bad design, regardless of how the stock is designed.
How is being less visible at night not make a black gun more dangerous than one with a bright wooden sheen?
So, it turns out that black isn’t actually less visible at night. Nor are bright colors more visible at night. If you wear solid black at night in the woods, you’re going to be more visible than if you were wearing camouflage. No joke. It has to do with the way that you perceive color.
Do both guns have the same exact default trigger pull, or is the ar-15’s lighter and easier to fire?
They’re both roughly the same out of the box. Both should be in the 5-6 pound range. An AR-15 trigger assembly can be replaced fairly easily by anyone that wants to spend the money ($200-500, depending); I replaced mine with a flat-faced 2.5# trigger since I use it for competitions. Ruger uses a lot of MIM parts, so you’d need to start by replacing the guts with something made from tool steel, and then go to a gunsmith to get the detailing done to safely reduce trigger pull weight. (Done incorrectly, you can end up with things like a gun that is no longer drop safe.)
These guns are different enough in actual use to make one more dangerous than the other. They both can kill you dead, but one literally is designed specifically to be deadiler in several ways. [emphasis added] It’s one of the reasons mass murders keep using it specifically to mas murder people.
Exactly how do you mean this? Both have the same rate of fire. Both use the same cartridge. They have the same overall length. You can change the furniture on the Mini-14 to black plastic if you want. It’s literally the same bullet, at the same speed, and producing the same number of foot-pounds of force. How, exactly, is one deadlier than the other?
How, exactly, is one deadlier than the other?
It’s not. You’re never going to get a non-disingenuous question to this answer. You can easily get a 30 round magazine for the Mini 14, too, so the notion that the Armalite platform is somehow inherently has more “rapid fire capacity” is nonsense, too.
FWIW you can get aftermarket stocks to go on an Armalite buffer tube with adjustable combs. I’ve seen them. Like, in catalogs. I’ve never actually seen anyone install one in real life, but at least they exist. You can even get a lower for a monte carlo style “sporting” stock for an Armalite upper receiver, if you really want to.
You’re ultimately correct in that it’s just cosmetics.
FWIW you can get aftermarket stocks to go on an Armalite buffer tube with adjustable combs
Sure, the Magpul PRS, for instance. But you can run into issues with LOP and the cheek riser interfering with the charging handle. It’s not really an ideal solution. Mostly you just need to get used to a different cheek weld than you might otherwise have. (Specifically, you use something closer to a chin weld on an AR.) That type of stock is more often used by people that are trying to make an accuracy-focused rifle, with a 20-22" heavy barrel, etc.
Or run a slickside upper.
I suppose this illustrates another point, though, in that the Armalite platform is so popular because it’s so easily customizable. And it’s easily customizable because there are a ton of parts available because it’s popular, so it’s popular because there are a ton of parts available, and there are a ton of parts available because… etc.
Your image is confusing. How does a the rifle with no magazine have the same capacity to rapid fire as the one above it? The Ar-15 appears to have more bullets immediately available, which would mean it would fire them faster.
The magazine isn’t in the second picture but it has one. Looks like a Ruger 5816 to me, so if you want to see what it looks like with the magazine in it, check out their webpage. Funny enough, it looks like a 10 round mag in the AR, and the 5816 comes with a 20.
How is having a pistol grip that improves comfort and hip firing not make the weapon easier and more comfortable to use?
You’re talking about personal preferences here. I tend to find them both pretty comfortable, but you really want to keep the stock at your shoulder.
How is being less visible at night not make a black gun more dangerous than one with a bright wooden sheen?
One of them is black metal, the other one is wood. Either could be painted if you wanted to I suppose, but if we’re talking about night-time scenarios, using a light would make either relatively visible.
Do both guns have the same exact default trigger pull, or is the ar-15’s lighter and easier to fire?
You could probably answer these questions in less time than it took you to write them out by looking them up. The 5816 has a pull of 13.50" the base model ruger AR (8500) is 10.25" - 13.50".
These guns are different enough in actual use to make one more dangerous than the other. They both can kill you dead, but one literally is designed specifically to be deadiler in several ways. It’s one of the reasons mass murders keep using it specifically to mas murder people.
Clearly this is bullshit.
The image implies these guns have the same capabilities and fire rate, but one has a magazine and the other doesnt.
Given a circumstance where someone is shooting at you with either the top gun with a magazine and the bottom gun with no magazine, which would you prefer they have?
Yea, I see your point - no magazine at all has a capacity of 1.
Agreed, that image is misleading.
These guns are different enough in actual use to make one more dangerous than the other. They both can kill you dead, but one literally is designed specifically to be deadiler in several ways. It’s one of the reasons mass murders keep using it specifically to mas murder people.
Others have already explained how they’re both equally lethal, but to your point about mass murderers using the one over the other: The top rifle can be had for ~$400 & looks like the one all the soldiers and video game guys use. The bottom is closer to $1000 and does not look as cool (to the young adult male demographic that commits most mass shootings, at least). I would argue those two factors account more for their difference in mass shooting use than anything else.
These are all differences without distinction, both of these rifles are capable of the same amount of harm.
Magazine capacity is the same, the Ruger just doesn’t have it’s magazine in the picture. Higher cap mags can be found for either rifle.
Pistol grip and color might make a difference in a video game, but no so much in reality.
Trigger pull difference is negligible, and could be lighter on either of the two rifles. There is no such thing as default trigger pull…
The hip fire point really got me. Hip firing a gun makes it far less deadly. You have to actually aim to hit targets. Real life isn’t like video games.
Why’s the one on top “scarier?”
Because of the type of people more likely to buy the one at the top.
I’m not sure why people like you don’t understand that. It’s not the gun, it’s the sort of people buying it.
And if you are an AR-15 owner and don’t like who the gun is associated with, I’m sorry. You don’t get to choose how society judges things, whether or not it is fair.
Because of the type of people more likely to buy the one at the top.
Who’s that?
You don’t get to choose how society judges things, whether or not it is fair.
Are you saying that a study with a self-selection bias of participants that specifically use MTurk, that has 3 comparative subjects (no gun, pistol, AR) is indicative of societal perspective?
You know exactly who I am talking about. You don’t live under a rock, I’m sure. Don’t pretend and play coy. I’m not going to play that game with you.
So now you’re going to defend your own ignorant statement with, “I should know better?” You should not make blanket assumptions about who owns what. I think you are living under a rock.
Fine. I’ll play your game this once, but do you really need it spelled out to you that the AR-15 and other rifles designed to look like military weapons even though they aren’t is what society associates with right-wing assholes who are ready to shoot up those durn libruls and queers?
Whether you think it’s a fair association or not is irrelevant. That’s what a large segment of the population associates that gun with, including many gun owners.
Bitch about it all you want, them’s the breaks.
Now, any more silly game-playing you want to do?
Fine. I’ll play your game this once, but do you really need it spelled out to you that the AR-15 and other rifles designed to look like military weapons even though they aren’t is what society associates with right-wing assholes who are ready to shoot up those durn libruls and queers?
I despise games, but I despise ignorant bullshit more. I don’t want to play games with you. The AR-15 is a popular choice among rifle owners in the US typically because of the availability of parts and ammo… that’s the main reason. It can accommodate both 5.56 and .223, so again, if you’re actually keeping one around to protect yourself against ______ (fill in the blank) you’ll have a better chance at acquiring ammo.
I’m the polar opposite of a right-wing asshole (the asshole part may still hold), but if more ARs and AR parts are being produced, it’s simply a matter of practicality in the long-term.
Whether you think it’s a fair association or not is irrelevant. That’s what a large segment of the population associates that gun with, including many gun owners.
Fair association? What the fuck are you talking about? I could give a fuck about perceptions, but assuming that everyone that owns an AR is a right-winger is dumb. I don’t think YOU get to speak for a large segment of the population; you simply speak for yourself.
It can accommodate both 5.56 and .223
The difference between 5.56x45mm NATO and .223 Rem is so negligible that it’s almost entirely academic. The vast majority of rifles that can use one can use the other. You can’t buy separate dies for reloading, and they don’t have separate sections in reloading manuals. Yes, 5.56 can produce much higher chamber pressures when fired in a .223 chamber, but in most cases you aren’t going to have problems.
And as far as AR-15s… They’re modular, easy to work on, parts are readily available. That’s what makes it the most popular rifle platform in the US, period. The Mini-14, for example, is the IP of Sturm, Ruger & Co; they’re the only ones that make the rifle. An AR-15 is an AR-15, almost regardless of who makes it (other than BCA or PSA). That’s nearly unique among firearms; there really aren’t any other guns on the market where exactly the same firearm, made to the same set of specs, is made by many different manufacturers. Only Glock makes the Glock 17. Only Sig makes the P320 (so far, despite it being the Army service pistol), and only Beretta makes the model 92/M9; that’s why you see so, so many different choices in pistols, because there’s not any single standard design that’s all made to exactly the same spec. (And, BTW, 1911s are awful in that way, as are all AKs; everything needs to be hand fit.)
I can’t help that you don’t like the general public perception of people who own the gun that you own. It doesn’t change that perception and being rude about it also doesn’t help.
It’s also not about what I personally believe, so please stop suggesting it is.
The study only had 3 categories: no firearms, pistol(s), or an AR-15, so you’re literally just ranting at bad survey design.
Okay, so? Does that make it less bullshit somehow?
Because you’re railing against the perception of AR15s vs other rifles when that literally wasn’t part of the study in any capacity. People responding to this just chose the biggest gun on the list, that’s all there is to it.
In 1986 someone used the bottom to basically single-handedly kill 2 FBI agents and wound 4 others in an active gunfight. In most other countries, both weapons are heavily regulated if not prohibited for civilian ownership.
Assault weapon bans are both a product of ignorant perception and the lack of political will to ban all self-loading firearms or subgroups thereof.
active gunfight
I’ve always wondered this. What’s the fixation with adding “active” all the time? Is a “passive” gunfight an overweight Floridian on an oxygen tank, draped across a mobility scooter waiting for the targets to come to him?
I put that there to emphasize that it was a fairly even two-way exchange, “active,” as opposed to something like him setting an ambush where the FBI got little or no shots off. Probably didn’t serve that purpose but I tried.
Then why do people buy the top one over the bottom one?
I can’t answer for “people,” only for me. But I’m pretty sure you can’t just slap an upper receiver for a different caliber on a Mini 14. The AR platform is inherently customizable and modular.
That doesn’t make it shoot bullets any harder versus another gun in the same chambering, though. (Edited).
Way cheaper too.
What’s the practical purpose of changing calibers if it doesn’t make a difference?
Changing calibers absolutely does make a difference. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t have so many. My comment about not shooting bullets harder has the implicit clarification that this is if it’s chambered in the same caliber as another gun.
In their default factory configurations, the vast majority of AR-15’s as well as the Mini 14 (the other gun pictured there) fire the same cartridge in the same caliber with approximately the same amount of energy, to no appreciable difference whatsoever from the point of view of whatever was shot with them. That is .223 Remington.
If you convert your gun to a different caliber, obviously the comparison no longer applies unless you compare it to other guns of the same caliber. But the Armalite platform is very modular, so making that conversion is super easy. This allows you to, just as an example, buy a bog standard model chambered in .223 and leave it that way for self defense or whatever, but then get an inexpensive .22LR upper to fire cheap .22LR ammo for target practice or plinking without having to spend the entire GDP of a third world country on ammunition, and/or keep a larger caliber receiver on hand in .300 Blackout or .450 Bushmaster or similar for hunting.
This saves you from having to buy and secure three separate guns for three separate tasks, especially considering you’re unlikely to be needing all three at the same time. (I don’t know about you, but I only have two hands.)
I think most gun owners tend to own quite a few guns. I also have seen where people tend to buy multiple AR-15 rifles in order to build something different every time for no discernable reason other than they like to build them and show them off. The issue is that the AR-15 platform attracts certain kinds of people who really don’t have an interest in shooting as a sport. If it wasn’t available I would guess that many of those people wouldn’t buy some other rifle in its place.
I see you’ve never met the Ruger 10/22 grandpas. You want to talk about a bunch of guys who spend thousands of dollars buying, building, and ricing out rifles for “competition” or “varmint control” and inevitably have one or more builds they’ve never even fired nor do they ever intend to.
But it’s got a rainbow-stained burl walnut thumbhole stock, magazine release lever conversion, 2" thick carbon fiber bull barrel, all stainless hardware, a $900 trigger group, 50 round aftermarket banana mag, a bipod, and a 10-32x240mm illuminated reticle night vision scope! You don’t understand, I had to spend $8000 on building it because .22 ammo is just so cheap!
Some weirdos are just like that.
The short answer is that AR-15s are just better rifles. They’re more accurate, they’re more reliable, they’re easier to clean and maintain, they’re easier to repair, they have much better ergonomics, none of the parts are proprietary, and consequently there’s an enormous aftermarket for parts, accessories, and customization. They also have a modular design that, with the exception of the barrel nut and castle nut which have torque specifications, can be almost completely disassembled with a single roll punch and an allen wrench or two. That means if something breaks or wears out you don’t have to send it back to the manufacturer or pay out the nose for a gunsmith, you can just order the part and fix it yourself with basically just a pointy stick and a YouTube video. It also means you can start out with a really cheap rifle and upgrade it component by component until you have a high-end rifle if you want to.
That Mini-14 on the bottom is a fine rifle, and they’re actually pretty popular, but the AR platform outclasses it on most crucial metrics. If you could only have one or the other, for most people it’d be the AR without question. A lot of people have spilled a lot of ink speculating about this reason or that reason as to why so many people want ARs, and usually manage to miss the fact that they’re just fantastic rifles. Even with the amount of cringey fetishizing of the military that happens on the conservative side of the gun community, nobody would want one if they sucked.
Details like this are really just a distraction. Do you really think the average respondent understands these technical details, or have any good reason to memorize the specs of all rifles? The focus on the AR-15 is not because of any risk associated with that particular gun, but because most people understand that this is a semi-auto rifle. There is no other model of gun that will have that kind of widespread recognition.
Drawing up these very silly technical arguments is a willful ignorance of the underlying issue: What is the limit of deadly force we should allow one person to lawfully own? We don’t let people own tactical nukes. We don’t need to argue over thermonuclear or hydrogen nukes. We don’t need to understand quantum mechanics to regulate these devices. The technical details do not matter. The potential body count is what matters. And so it is with guns, which happen to occupy that grey area where reasonable people disagree on an acceptable level of lethality. You do not need to know all the different models of gun to be killed by one, so we should not require such technical knowledge when engaging in discourse around their regulation.
Gun owners who demand that you have a favorite brand of gun oil before you are allowed to have an opinion will, as a group, gladly make profoundly ignorant statements about regulating other people’s religions, medical conditions, sexual preferences…
Is that true about those guns though?
I’m assuming the magazine size. Which is generally why magazine size is the common way to enforce which rifles are considered problematic for home ownership.
There’s nothing physically preventing anyone from putting a readily available 30+ round magazine into a Mini 14.
It even says “same capacity” right there in the picture. Although to be fair, the Mini 14 in that picture either has a flush fit low capacity magazine installed in it or is unloaded.
Well, the top one is much easier to convert to fully automatic for starters.
Also, the branding that a loud portion of AR-15 owners have given themselves doesn’t help (trust me I used to be friends with one of them).
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You mean the voter ID laws Republicans have been pushing?
Recognizing that classism affects some groups of people more than others is racist now? Man, are you guys really still on that anti-education kick?
The hilarious part of this is that statistically, many Americans have AR-15s and other rifles sitting somewhere within a few hundred yards of them. There are countless millions of them.
This would be like polling people about their fears surrounding theoretical concealed weapons when, statistically, they just got home from the grocery store or gas station and there were probably 10 people there carrying guns without incident, and they just didn’t know about it.
I may be unaware of the rats living in a small nest inside of a drainspout near me, but that still doesn’t mean rats are “okay” or “harmless”. So this isn’t quite a gotcha about their normality.
I have a problem with being compared to vermin for the rifle that sits unloaded in a safe until I take it to the range
I have a problem with living near a AR-15 owner and rolling the dice about how honestly responsible every member of their household is, but it seems like neither of us is getting a simple solution.
Every parent of every school shooter would also claim to be a responsible gun owner. Who wouldn’t?
Yea I really don’t care if you’re “rolling the dice.” Laughable hyperbole. Most people are demonstrably unsafe drivers, but I don’t revel in imaginary victimhood and try to take people’s cars away. As a great man once said, “Life sucks, get a fucking helmet.” Or in your case, a plate carrier. I’m going to keep stacking ammo and guns and not shoot anyone, not because murder is wrong, but out of spite for anti-gunners. Anyway Trump sucks. Hail Satan.
“Not caring” about other people’s safety is definitely characteristic of gun owners, so full consistency there.
Same with the fucken “Most people are demonstrably unsafe drivers”. Shit REEKS of self aggrandizement, but then again most conservatives seem to anymore.
Not a conservative, but nice try
You should get out and meet people and see the full spectrum there is, instead of wasting your razor sharp wits on the internet. I think you’d be surprised to find the cartoonish spectres you conjure to rail against are hard to find.
In the comparison above, the rifles would be the rats… not you.
I haven’t seen a single rifle say it was offended by that statement.
While it sounds like you safely own a firearm, letting you do that means we let mentally ill people, irresponsible parents, and whoever feels like also have access.
Sorry to say, but I would take your guns away from you 1000x if it meant taking them away from people who cannot own them safely.
You’ll never get the chance.
The only righteous abortion is my abortion, and the only safe unsecured AR-15 is my unsecured AR-15.
I want to open up an abortion clinic/FFL. Gonna run a special, free AR-15 with every abortion (provided the patient passes a NICs check).
That oughta rustle like, everyone’s jimmies.
I don’t necessarily care if my neighbor owns an AR rifle. I do care what kind of person they are if they own one, or other firearms.
Are they one of the crowd that treats firearms with the careless disregard of a fashion accessory? Do they have to accessorized it to the utmost tacticool possible? Do they have a private arsenal? Do they leave it lying around in their home or vehicle, or any other firearm for that matter, unsecured? Do they tie guns to their personal or political identity?
All of these things are negatives of varying severity, especially any failure to secure the guns and tying gun to their identity. Why those? Guns get stolen from homes and vehicles all the time and then are used in crimes while the gun owner washes their hands of the consequences of their lazy storage. Unsecured guns are used in accidental shootings by kids or others. And identity tied to firearms is just an indication of inflexibility and possible political extremism.
Are they one of the crowd that treats firearms with the careless disregard of a fashion accessory?
This. I’m fine with pro-gun people who are responsible gun owners. I feel weird about people who want to tighten regulations and have guns, but if they are responsible gun owners, then it’s fine.
Pro-gun people who treat it as a toy or as a compensation for their dick size are dangerous, and scary, but not in the cool way.
People who are for tightening regulations etc, but own guns and treat them like toys are the lowest of the low, though. Both dangerous and miserable.
People who play with firearms are dangerous idiots who need to be disarmed immediately, with an axe since it should be enough for a quick and clean cut.
I just came here to say I don’t understand this because while these guns are by and large used in mass shootings, handgunss cause far more death.
Handguns are less accurate, and are used far less for hunting or other sport (at least compared to rifles), partially due to their sheer inaccuracy. They are way more likely to be used in a murder, and people are way less likely to take the time to lock them up properly because they want them “at hand.”
I’m way more likely to be shot by some dumbfuck with a handgun than be caught up in a mass shooting.
Unpopular opinion: ban handguns
I think it’s more that multiple very well-known mass shootings happened with the killers using them- the Pulse nightclub, Uvalde, Stoneman Douglas and Sandy Hook schools and the Las Vegas shooter at the music festival.
But I am guessing that is more about their popularity than their utility.
I mean, agreed, I understand where the fear comes from, and why. It makes public spaces unnerving… but so do handguns, in my opinion. Just because you can’t kill as many as quickly doesn’t mean you can’t still cause carnage and death and harming innocent bystanders.
I’m just way more statistically likely to be shot by a handgun, and so I personally view it with that information in mind. Like, I don’t flip people off for driving like assholes on the road anymore like I did in my youth. Not really worth the likelihood of road rage and some crazed asshole packing heat. Post-COVID it’s gotten way worse.
I don’t disagree. I always feel uncomfortable when I see someone walking around with a handgun in a holster because I have no idea who they are and if they can be trusted with that gun. And if we found a way to stop so many people from living in fear all the time, I wouldn’t see it or be especially worried about it when I did. Unfortunately, with the American media telling everyone they’re about to be murdered any time they go anywhere…
Even if they can be trusted with a gun, even if they pull it out to save the day in a crisis…
There’s still projectiles flying that could hit people and things other than the intended target. That’s the part that it always comes back to for me. Bullets aren’t target-seeking. Even the best and most well-meaning shooter can miss in a stressful situation (especially with a handgun), it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. It just means adding a gun to any situation complicates the situation violently. Adding multiple guns multiplies the violence.
Mass shootings use handguns more often than rifles
Canadians have a lot of guns, for hunting and for fun. Most of them are long, though, because handguns are heavily regulated and a bit of a hassle so pretty much just a firing range thing. We don’t have a lot of gun deaths compared to the USA, and it’s not just culture. It’s the handguns.
I feel like the licensing in Australia is in generally pretty good (sometimes it’s bonkers reactionary in terms of what gets banned).
Rifles you can get levers and bolt action. They fire plenty fast enough for whatever you want to do with them recreationally.
Handguns are licenceable but it’s strict as fuck. Expensive club membership, regular training/competing events (community + keeping skills and culture good), 6 month probationary period with only supervised shooting, another 6 months before you can buy your own, have to have a rock solid safe bolted to the floor inspected initially and randomly (every few years realistically). Seems completely reasonable, handguns exist to put holes in paper and kill humans, plus they’re highly concealable and much harder to use.
Popular opinion: just ban guns
I think it’s the fear of what a full-auto AR-15 can do to a crowd compared to a handgun.
Right, but fear isn’t based in rationality. Even after 9/11, we went balls to the wall against “terrorism” but like… the reality was that a US citizen getting killed by a terrorist on US land was less likely than being struck by lightning. So we had a War on Terrorism over something less likely than a lightning strike.
I’m literally pointing out that handguns cause way, way, way, way more deaths, in general than rifles.
I understand the fear of a mass shooter, but… it’s just not as likely, and we’ve had a precipitous drop in mass shootings in the last year.
Not saying it’s rational, just pointing out my interpretation.
Are fully automatic AR-15s even available to the general public like that? I thought the ones civilians could buy were semiautomatic?
In Canada? Not legally. In America: no new automatic guns can legally be made for sale. The existing stock of legal automatics requires a special process to transfer from one owner to another, and they are expensive.
They can be converted and if someone is ready to go and shoot people in a crowd I don’t think they’re too worried about the conversion being illegal.
Everyone cool with gun rights until you ask if someone they know should have access to guns with little regulation. On the abstract, preserving rights sound good. But when you stop to think of the types of people you know/have met/know about, restricting gun rights feels a bit more logical.
The comments couldn’t get more American if it was a competition on making American commentary.
I understand both side of the argument, but at the same time I get neither. American cultural identity in relation to firearms is unique in the Western world. Guns have transcended rights and wrongs. People hunt. People use guns recreationally. People cosplay warriors. Some people use guns for bad reasons. Most people never cause the slightest harm. But in any event, culturally, guns occupy a political position not usually seen in the first world.
I’m not even sure what I am trying to say? I do know this, the debate will never end because the two different positions are completely contradictory and all compromise is effectively lost. I’d be interested in hearing a solution that both sides could live with. It would be a doozy.
You’ve succinctly defined the problem, and the only solution is a cultural shift away from the norm. Hopefully that shift will be peaceful, which will most likely only happen if it’s gradual.
the only solution is a cultural shift
The culture is always shifting. I would not say it has shifted in the direction of safety. On the one hand, you have horders who believe its their civil right to stuff their house with tank shells and miniguns and you can’t tell them what to do. On the other, you’ve got police who will start firing blindly in all directions when an acorn drops, because they’re so terrified of anyone else owning a gun.
Together, these seem to suggest a cultural shift towards “You’re allowed to own a gun but if you make me scared I’m allowed to shoot you” as a middle ground.
Yeah, the culture in this case is a glacier. The cultural shift is going to leave gouges in the earth.
In all honesty if someone has tank shells and a minigun they probably have a shit tonne of permits. Either that or they dont have any dogs so the ATF doesnt care.
… gun-related incidents, including accidents and mass shootings, have become a leading cause of death in the country.
What? Not even close.
It says “a leading cause”, not “the leading cause”. Depending on how long your list of leading causes is, anything could qualify.
I skimmed the source they linked, and it lists guns as the leading cause of death for ages 1-19. I did not see an overall list.
I would agree that a more carefully phrased sentence would have been better and less misleading.
Link to source: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/2020-gun-deaths-in-the-us-4-28-2022-b.pdf
I have an AR-15. It’s usually in it’s case. (I don’t have children.) I know plenty of people that have AR-15s, and a few weirdos that prefer AKs (but they’re finally seeing the light now that cheap Russian ammo isn’t cheap at all any more). It’s just such a non-issue for me. My biggest issue is that I would prefer that the people I’m around are safe, as in, have good muzzle awareness, excellent trigger discipline, etc. But the gun itself? I’m fine with AR-15s.
If they have something like an L85A1, anything by KelTec, or an AK, I know that they have deeply suspect judgement, and can not be trusted in any matters of taste.
anything by keltec
You say that, but let’s be honest: keltec is a mullet company. They make an array of monotonous pocket pistols, and freaky shit. Nothing in between. You know anybody who has a fun keltec is down for a good time.
I feel like KelTec’s motto should be, “All The Cocaine In The US Comes Through Florida”.
A gun company by Florida Man, for Florida Man.
Was always fun to me as a Russian that, if you’re not in a military, you’ll have easier time to get your hands on an AK in America rather than Russia itself :D
But that’s for the better - gun ownership is cancer, in my opinion.
Good news then! In Russia, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and the rights of the criminally accused are also banned!
Do guns help Americans get their freedoms? Is this country a beacon of hope? Isn’t the US slowly following Russia’s guidebooks on slowly stripping freedoms away?
For as long as you are scattered and divided, no gun is gonna help you change the game of politics. If you are united, you can overthrow your government without a single bullet.
Most of European countries, for example, have much stricter gun control. And if there’s a place of democracy, Europe is the destination to watch.
Do guns help Americans get their freedoms?
They sure as fuck did, yeah! :D Just like they’re helping Ukranians keep their country right now. They’re certainly helping the rebels in Myanmar.
Is this country a beacon of hope?
It depends on who you ask. At the moment, people still tend to choose the US over pretty much any other country when they’re trying to emigrate and they have a real choice. So for people outside the US? Probably. For people inside the US? I think that we can, and should, do better.
Isn’t the US slowly following Russia’s guidebooks on slowly stripping freedoms away?
Unfortunately, yes. And the people need to resist that.
If you are united, you can overthrow your government without a single bullet.
That’s a nice theory but it rests on two presuppositions. First, it assumes that the US would ever be united and speak with one voice. Given how many people here identify with their oppressors rather than their fellow oppressed, that seems extremely unlikely. (Look at the number of people willing to vote for Trump three times now.) Second, it rests on the idea that governance requires the consent of the governed, and, well, I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.
On the other hand, armed groups of civilians that are acting peacefully tend to get the kid glove treatment from cops. Cops tend to want to have the advantage of numbers and the ability to use force before they instigate conflict; when they don’t have it, they suddenly remember how to de-escalate. So far, that’s mostly been used by the right, but the left is finally starting to pick up on that shit, which terrifies the chuds. Why do you think that you’ve seen armed groups of civilians protecting drag queens at story time, or protecting people trying to hand out food to the homeless?
And if there’s a place of democracy, Europe is the destination to watch.
I note that the far-right is making significant inroads into European politics.
That’s a fair answer, I appreciate the depth you went into.
I think US is the center of immigration due to high economic potential first and foremost. Building careers in the richest country in the world sounds like an attractive option. Especially for young people who consider burdens like healthcare and home ownership to be less significant. Barely so for democracy outside of proclaimed “land of the free”. But I may be wrong.
If US will not speak with one voice, no amount of arms is gonna help. And I’d much rather live in a country where people don’t have access to guns than in a country where left and right are pointing muzzles at each other (not to mention American left and right are just different sorts of right to the outside world, but that’s a story for another day).
On far-right in Europe - true on your side.
I think you’re right about the perceptions of economic freedoms, yeah. Which is kinda wild, given that most countries in the EU fare much better overall in cost-of-living versus salaries. So it’s like playing roulette; they’re betting that they can win big, instead of being just another chump that loses money to the house.
And, TBH, I think that if the US had the same kind of criminal justice reform and social safety networks that you see in most of the EU (and I’m not including Great Britain in this; they really suck in a lot of ways, which is intentional on the part of UK conservatives), I think that you’d see a lot less violent crime in general, and a definitely lower murder rate.
And I’d much rather live in a country where people don’t have access to guns than in a country where left and right are pointing muzzles at each other
I don’t know where you live. But you gotta understand a couple of things about the US. First, the US is big. All of Europe–including Russia–is 3.9M square miles. The continental US (not including Hawai’i and Alaska) is 3.1M square miles. All of Europe has a population of 745M people, and all of the US has a population of about 335M. So the US is a very large country, and statistically it’s very sparsely populated. I live in a semi-rural area; if shit happens, it’s going to take emergency services–cops, fire department, ambulance, whatever–a minimum of 20 minutes to show up. But in the US, the cops have no legal obligation to protect you in any way; there is no criminal or civil liability if any police officer or agency refuses to do their job. On top of that, cops are far, far more likely than not to be on the political right.
So what does this mean?
You need to be able and willing to protect yourself, and take care of yourself, because the government here can’t, and won’t. Especially if you aren’t white and christian.
You can say, “I don’t want to live in a society that’s armed”, but that’s a very privileged stance to take, given that most of the people in the US have to be ready to fend for themselves, and hope that the veneer of civility doesn’t fail.
I’m from, well, Russia :D With half the population over almost double the area, and quite some threats, too.
And yeah, we have guns banned here.
Not that we don’t have issue with police/other emergency services arriving to remote areas in time, nor are we a thriving peaceful nice democracy, but I certainly don’t expect less gun control to improve the situation here - and I don’t think it’s optimal for the US, either.
Individually, you may benefit from holding a gun. But collectively, there will be plenty of people putting those guns to a bad use, or just overreact in self-defense.
Funny, in modern countries we just think you’re all fucking cowards no matter what
Why?
People who have guns -
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Hunters ✅
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Soldiers ✅
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Farmers ✅
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Cowards who are protecting themselves from -
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Other cowards
There are also gun collectors and target shooters. Nothing wrong with either hobby. There are even Olympic target shooting events.
I had a guy pull a knife on me in the walmart parking lot, apr 2020. He decided to leave instead of stab me, and would you like to know why? Because in your summation “I’m a coward” who decided that instead of being stabbed I would reach for my firearm. Call me a coward all you want but I got my groceries and he probably found some more courageous victim, I’ll call that a wash.
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I’m a leftist Canadian trade unionist who owns guns. Please explain what part of this makes me a coward.
