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The gun that divides a nation (barf alert)
WaPo ^ | 27 mar 2023 | Todd Frankel, Shawn Boburg, Josh Dawsey, Ashley Parker, Alex Horton

Posted on 06/13/2023 5:04:45 AM PDT by rellimpank

It is revered as a modern-day musket.

It is reviled as a tool for mass killers.

The AR-15 wasn’t supposed to be a bestseller.

The rugged, powerful weapon was originally designed as a soldiers’ rifle in the late 1950s. “An outstanding weapon with phenomenal lethality,” an internal Pentagon report raved. It soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in the Vietnam War, where the weapon earned a new name: the M16.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agitprop; ar15; banglist; banlist; gungrabbers; rkbaguns
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--a few months old but pertinent--
1 posted on 06/13/2023 5:04:45 AM PDT by rellimpank
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To: rellimpank

This piece of crap took FIVE far-left turd rollers to write. I’m pretty sure that’s a new record.


2 posted on 06/13/2023 5:08:45 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (The southern invasion has been a big success. Foreigner invaders are running the government now.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

Actually, it’s much less biased than it could have been. It was actually a somewhat informative article, though it had a few inaccuracies.


3 posted on 06/13/2023 5:15:01 AM PDT by Lazamataz (The firearms I own today, are the firearms I will die with. How I die will be up to them.)
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To: rellimpank
The gun leftmedia narrative that divides a nation.

Fixed it.

4 posted on 06/13/2023 5:17:15 AM PDT by Joe Brower ("Might we not live in a nobler dream than this?" -- John Ruskin)
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To: rellimpank
True story: just yesterday I was in Cambridge,Massachusetts.You know...Harvard...MIT..."progressives". I saw an older white woman getting into an old,beat up Subaru that sported a bumper sticker saying "shut down the prisons".

We eventually got talking about guns. She wanted the AR-15 banned. When I explained to her that the AR-15 isn't capable of automatic fire and that it only *looks* like a weapon of war (the M-16) she was stunned.

I most assuredly didn't persuade her on prisons...or the AR-15...or anything else. She'll remain clueless until her dying day.

But that's the key...*clueless*. Clueless on guns...clueless on prisons...clueless on race. We did talk about race and I encouraged her to check out Chris Rock's "How Not To Get Your A$$ Kicked By The Police" and his "Black People vs Niggaz". But I doubt that she will.

5 posted on 06/13/2023 5:17:30 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Two Words: BANANA REPUBLIC!)
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To: Lazamataz

I had the same thought. They called it an Armalite Rifle, not an “””””ASSAULT RIFLE””””””

Of course it leaned loony left but in all, it was an interesting article.


6 posted on 06/13/2023 5:42:23 AM PDT by cyclotic
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To: rellimpank

These people are idiots:

Todd Frankel
Shawn Boburg
Josh Dawsey
Ashley Parker
Alex Horton


7 posted on 06/13/2023 5:52:34 AM PDT by Delta 21 (MAGA Republican is my pronoun.)
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To: Delta 21

The question arises: did the five leftist writers prepare this article while drinking overpriced coffee at Starbucks or some effete coffee shop decorated with Gay Pride flags, or did they actually work in an office, in cubicles decorated with left wing and anti-American slogans?


8 posted on 06/13/2023 5:58:18 AM PDT by Wallace T.
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To: rellimpank

I’d be fine with banning AR-15s... (Wait for it.)

...as long as we can still have AR-18s, AKs, FALs, and everything else. I just don’t like the AR-15 and its idiot direct exhaust injection system that craps where it eats. :P


9 posted on 06/13/2023 6:01:32 AM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

When you see more than one reporterette’s name, you can rest assured that it is total BS. They NYT, WP, etc., try to add the ‘appearance’ of legitimacy by adding numbers..


10 posted on 06/13/2023 6:43:32 AM PDT by silent majority rising
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To: rellimpank
...rugged, powerful weapon....

*smirk*

11 posted on 06/13/2023 7:06:32 AM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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To: rellimpank
This editorial article is biased and incorrect in several ways. Here are just a few observations.

The article willfully conflates AR-15’s and other modern sporting rifles (semi-automatic) with the M16 and other actual assault rifles (e.g., AK47) by never defining assault weapon or describing full automatic fire or select-fire mechanisms.

The article willfully conflates all AR-15 style or platform guns as “an AR-15,” including those made by anyone other than Colt and those set up for .22 cal, for example. It's like calling a Camaro or a Miata or a Mustang a Corvette, because they're all long, low-slung, fast sporty cars—they all look kind of alike and do the same thing, right?

The article repeats the liberal ideas that no one “needs” an AR-15 or “military style” weapon, and it implies that personal weapons are only for home defense or hunting. Hey, no one “needs” a Corvette, so they should be outlawed, right?

The article repeats the nonsense that the high velocity ammunition in AR-15 style rifles makes a bullet “tumble” in the body after impact and thus makes more damage.

The Pulse Nightclub shooter used both a rifle and a 9mm handgun.

The article keeps repeating “(so-and-so) declined comment” in a way that makes it a damming confirmation of the article's assertions.

The article ignores the mental illness and illegality involved in all those “mass shootings.” Hey, more laws will definitely solve it all, right?

The article ignores all the times the AR-15 style (and other personal weapons) STOP crime cold and save lives and protect property, many times even with no shot fired.

The article asserts that people want the AR-15 style rifles only because they're “cool,” and it barely in passing notes that they're super fun to shoot.

The article ignores the buffering on the AR-15 style weapon, attributing its low recoil (the true reason it's so very very fun to shoot) only to the gas tube design.

And the article overall just keeps hammering at the liberal belief that it's big business, big money—”the gun industry’—fooling the hapless American public into buying a bad product, that is driving the AR-15 popularity. They didn't ask Kyle R. if he's glad his rifle was “cool” rather than “effective.”

12 posted on 06/13/2023 7:08:14 AM PDT by Notthemomma ( )
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To: rellimpank

Always been a gun-guy and pro 2A. But never had the desire to get an AR platform rifle until the Left started squawking about them. Didn’t realize what a blast (no pun intended, well maybe a little) they are to shoot. Our family now owns several.


13 posted on 06/13/2023 7:11:18 AM PDT by stevio (Fight until you die.)
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To: gundog
..rugged, powerful weapon....

Single shot...can take out a soldier from a thousand yards..bullet hits before the sound arrives and the shooter long gone.

See the film Quigly Down Under for exploits.

14 posted on 06/13/2023 7:13:32 AM PDT by spokeshave (Proud Boys, Angry Dads and Grumpy Grandads.)
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To: spokeshave

15 posted on 06/13/2023 7:22:09 AM PDT by spokeshave (Proud Boys, Angry Dads and Grumpy Grandads.)
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To: rellimpank

The M16 is neither rugged nor powerful. I was surprised my M16A2, serial number 6137326, survived Parris Island with me.


16 posted on 06/13/2023 7:29:27 AM PDT by real saxophonist (Hoplophobia will never be in the DSM, because the DSM is written by hoplophobes.)
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To: rellimpank

The AR-15 was not well liked back in the 1960s or 1970s.
Gun writers hated it.
Too small a caliber for deer hunting. A “Mouse” Gun!
Not really accurate.
No beautiful walnut wood.
So they spent lost of ink writing about how horrible it was.

Then in the mid 1970s Mel Tappan wrote his book on Survival Guns and an interest in the AR-15 began.
Soon Tappan started a series in a gun magazine on Survival guns and interest really took off! All sorts of semi-auto military rifles began to sell off the shelves!
Here were defense rifles even a little woman could shoot in .223 without bruising your shoulder!
Soon other magazines began to publish how great the semi-auto rifles were! “ASSAULT WEAPONS AND TACTICS” “S(urvival).W.A.T” “GUN TESTS” “GUN REPORTS”and many others.

Uzis! AR-180s AK-47/S, Fn-Fal, Styer, Daewoo, England’s SA-80!, Australia! Several nations began to make their military rifles in semi-auto just to sell in the US! IT WAS GREAT! After all, the anti-gun radicals always said they “ONLY wanted to ban HANDGUNS! Rifles would not be affected”, till they found the military looking rifles were a better target to ban than handguns!

And the screaming began about “A-S-S-AULT RIFLES! Sudenly George Bush banned the import of such weapons and all we could then get was US made semi-auto rifles.

Soon the mentally ill criminal element took notice and began to use semi-auto rifles in their crimes and mass murders.

Clinton then “banned” certain items on such rifles and called it an AW Ban!” Those same bowdlerized rifles remained on the store shelves and were selling all through the “ban”.

By now the US citizenry had taken to such semi-auto rifles like a duck takes to water!

I will say one thing. The anti-gun media did more to popularize such weapons than all the pro-gun writers in the US. People who would never touch such a rifle suddenly became interested in them.

Never give up your rights to own such rifles or handguns!


17 posted on 06/13/2023 7:40:43 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”)
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To: Notthemomma

***The article willfully conflates AR-15’s and other modern sporting rifles (semi-automatic) with the M16 and other actual assault rifles *****

1988,Josh Sugarmann, of the National Council to Ban Handguns tells how to ban rifles.

“Assault weapons’ menacing looks, coupled with the public’s confusion over
fully-automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons
—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine
gun— can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on
these weapons.”
– Josh Sugarmann


18 posted on 06/13/2023 7:46:37 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”)
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To: Lazamataz
'specially the bias in the Rittenhouse bit.

One Smith & Wesson M&P 15 sold in 2020 ended up in the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who fatally shot two people and wounded a third during that summer’s racial justice protests in Kenosha, Wis.

Rittenhouse, later found not guilty based on claims of self-defense, explained during his trial why he chose an AR-15: “I thought it looked cool.” Rittenhouse could not be reached for comment.

19 posted on 06/13/2023 8:46:09 AM PDT by stylin19a (My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We'll see about that.)
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To: Notthemomma
The article repeats the nonsense that the high velocity ammunition in AR-15 style rifles makes a bullet “tumble” in the body after impact and thus makes more damage.

There’s some truth to that. While bullet construction is a big factor, velocity plays a large role. The Geneva Conventions prohibitions on other-than-FMJ ammo came about at a time when when smokeless powder and spitzer bullet designs were pushing velocities past the 2400 fps threshold for bullet tumbling. Wound cavitation became a substitute for bullet expansion.

20 posted on 06/13/2023 8:49:57 AM PDT by gundog (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. )
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