Posted on 06/14/2016 6:35:59 PM PDT by digger48
It feels like a bazooka — and sounds like a cannon.
One day after 49 people were killed in the Orlando shooting, I traveled to Philadelphia to better understand the firepower of military-style assault weapons and, hopefully, explain their appeal to gun lovers.
But mostly, I was just terrified.
Many gun shops turned down our request to fire and discuss the AR-15, a style of semi-automatic rifle popular with mass killers such as San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook and similar to the Sig Sauer MCX rifle used by Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen.
Killers in mass shootings used AR-15, thanks to NRA But Frank Stelmach of Double Tap Shooting Range and Gun Shop invited me, videographer Michael Sheridan and reporter Adam Shrier to come down. Stelmach is not like many gun lovers. He admires his weaponry, yes, and has difficulty explaining why law-abiding citizens need a gun that can empty a 40-round clip in less than five seconds. But he also hates the idea that “bad people” get a hold of a gun like this and use it to kill without difficulty.
“There should be expanded background checks — extending into your family, friends and associates,” he said. “And there should be a mental health screening. In Europe, if you want to buy a gun, you have to see a doctor (for a psychiatric examination) to see if something’s not right.”
Gersh Kuntzman works with gun ghop owner Frank Stelmach on how to handle the AR-15. Gersh Kuntzman works with gun ghop owner Frank Stelmach on how to handle the AR-15. Stelmach, who opened his shop six years ago after a career in law enforcement in Europe, even calls for government officials to take away guns from some owners — something very few gun advocates support.
He also said he never sells a gun to someone who “looks a little bit funny,” and he claimed he had prevented many guns from getting into the wrong hands because the would-be purchaser “asked stupid questions” like, “What happens to me if the gun is stolen?”
But very few gun shop owners do anything close to Stelmach’s sniff test — and he acknowledged how easy it is to find another gun shop owner willing to make the sale.
Very easy. In fact, as Philadelphia Daily News columnist Helen Ubinas showed today, you can get a military weapon in seven minutes in this country.
Richard Cohen: American insanity: Assault rifles for all Stelmach doesn’t think it should be easy. But he thinks it should be allowed.
He loves the AR-15 for cops, soldiers, hunters and target shooters. “It’s fun to shoot something like that,” he said.
Not in my hands. I’ve shot pistols before, but never something like an AR-15. Squeeze lightly on the trigger and the resulting explosion of firepower is humbling and deafening (even with ear protection).
The recoil bruised my shoulder. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary case of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.
Even in semi-automatic mode, it is very simple to squeeze off two dozen rounds before you even know what has happened. In fully automatic mode, it doesn’t take any imagination to see dozens of bodies falling in front of your barrel.
All it takes is the will to do it.
Forty nine people can be gone in 60 seconds.
An AR-15 wasn’t used...
His last name tells the story.
What is it with the NY Daily News?
Are they munching mushrooms?
What.
A.
Pansy.
Check his WIKI page, apparently his latest nonsense was not too popular:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gersh_Kuntzman
The jokes write themselves with his odd name.
——I’d like to know where I can buy a fully automatic AR-15....
The dumbass reporter seems to think I can....
I have a Garand, don’t think it has much of a kick, but I have heard the Springfield kicks like a mule!
What a pussy.
My wife shoots an AR, emptying magazine after magazine without a whimper.
Or a Mosin Nagant. My guess is he doesn’t have the upper body strength to lift one of those.
It’s only horrifying if you’re on the business end
Another Idiot writer gets it wrong.
If he thinks firing an AR15 is ‘like firing a bazooka’, he would have been asea in WWII with an M1.
But, then, he probably would have seen to it that he remained stateside as a cook.
No insult to cooks intended.
He said the AR15 bruised his shoulder. Nonsense. In basic training I trained with both the M14 and M16, and I felt the 5.56 was a toy compared to the 7.62 round of the M14. The 5.56 was like my .22.
The gun shop owner is a bigger dipstick than the writer for filling the writer’s head with dreck about more stringent background checks and declining sales just because somebody “didn’t look right” to him.
And I’d be glad to have any rifle with recoil “like a bazooka” since the other name for that weapon is “recoilless rifle”. And yes, I have to admit my age by saying I actually have fired a bazooka. This writer needs a padded room and a diet of soft foods because I don’t think he’s actually capable of handling life in a world of sharp-edged reality.
Can't scrub the virus off that one.
“The recoil bruised my shoulder.”
What a pussy. My daughter was shooting my AR15 when she was 9 and didn’t complain because there is virtually no recoil.
Even in semi-automatic mode, it is very simple to squeeze off two dozen rounds before you even know what has happened.If this moron can pull the trigger twenty four times without knowing what has happened, how does he manage the difficult task of alternately inhaling and exhaling?
This paragraph, where each sentence was more ridiculous than the previous ones, had me rolling on the floor laughing hysterically!
What an idiot!
AR-15 is a glorified .22.
WTF...
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