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.”
***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
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.