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What Do You Need an AR For?
Every time a criminal murders innocents with an AR-style rifle, people ask what other purpose such firearms serve. As I’ll illustrate below, if you have a particular purpose — or even an aesthetic preference — you’ll find what you need in the AR.
In fact, one of the primary reasons the AR is so popular is the immense amount of customization available in sights, barrel lengths, optics, grips, flashlights, lasers, disco balls, magazine capacity, colors, stocks, and caliber. Indeed, it’s important to understand that there is no single manufacturer of the AR rifle, and that nearly everyone — from a local gunsmith who creates custom rifles to mass-market behemoths like Smith and Wesson — offers some version of it these days.
Hunting: The AR is a popular hunting rifle. While its traditional caliber (5.56/.223) is fine for small game, some AR rifles come chambered in Winchester .308 or other calibers suitable for hunting large game such as moose and wild hogs.
Self-Defense: The customizability of the AR platform means that producers can craft very specialized rifles for a variety of self-defense situations such as home defense. Sure, you can use a standard, mass-produced 5.56 AR with a 16″ barrel for home defense, but why not get something more purpose-built? For example, consider Wilson Combat‘s 9mm AR, which should be very well suited for home defense:
Competition: I shoot competitively and can tell you with metaphysical certitude that American competition shooters love their AR rifles, and competition is where the customization really shines. There are too many competitive shooting disciplines to list here, but one of the fastest-growing shooting sports is 3-Gun shooting, where you see customization based both on performance and, frankly, appearance. As any proper competitive shooter knows, looking cool is at least half the battle.
Revolution: We’re not even close to having this be an issue and are still able to make a myriad of electoral choices at the ballot box (even if we don’t necessarily make the greatest choices). But if some horrible day were to come and a totalitarian government were to deprive us of our liberties, we’d be in an awful situation where rifles such as the AR would be tools to regain our freedom and re-establish a consensual government.
Published in Guns
“For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.”
I honestly believe there are other things that don’t even take an hour of use that would make this man anxious and irritable…
Being overly emotional about everything in life can be a dangerous thing…you never know what a dog will bark at you and send you into deep depression.
Hey, folks, make sure you don’t fall into this stupid trap of thinking that “AR” stands for “Assault Rifle.” It doesn’t, except for the liberals’ lexicon. It stands for Armalite Corporation, under who’s employ Eugene Stoner developed what we know as the AR-15. If you’re talking to the average low-information liberal, when you say you have or want an “AR,” s/he thinks you’re talking about a “machine gun.”
If the writer had brass flying in his face, he was shooting left-handed, without proper provisions for left-handers. And of course if it was so terribly loud, he was shooting without hearing protection. So he’s either a liar, or a stupid liar. It’s hard to tell which.
I like my AR for the same reason I like my M1911: just because I like looking at it. I’ve loved both since I first laid eyes on them.
When I start shooting it, I’ll find other reasons, I’m sure.
I shoot lefty and have never had brass fly past my face.
Down the front of my shirt, yes. But nowhere near my face.
I shoot lefty and mostly semi-autos, and the AR is one of the easiest to handle in that situation. The bolt release is right where you need it, charging handle is ambi. The safety is on the wrong side, but that’s a trivial mod. The only thing clearly offside is the forward assist, and how often do you really use that at the range? Yes the empties go more or less past your face, but if you’re paying attention you’re doing it wrong – you should be focused on the front sight.
If really want to go for shock & awe, someone should hand that Pajama Boy a Garand, then tell him you can buy those GI surplus. Probably wouldn’t stop gibbering for the rest of the decade.
You forgot: the zombie apocalypse. Which is why I’m stocking up.
“What Do You Need an AR For?”
Or as General David Petraeus would say after last month, “Why do Americans need to have free speech rights to say bad things about Muslims?”
Two words come to mind: “Worthless” and “weak”.
“Besides, if masculinity is defined by the power to commit violence on a wide scale, I proudly choose femininity. At one time, “being a man” meant standing up for what you believe in — and against injustice. By that definition, we need more real men in power taking on bullies like the NRA, which seeks to bolster the Second Amendment by shutting down opponents’ right to the First. We can’t even debate guns in this country, thanks to the gun lobby.”
There is just no way to respond to this degree of lunacy. This man is immersed in a different reality than the rest of us.
Attacks on the guy’s masculinity are completely irrelevant and it’s really unfortunate so many people from the gun rights side decided to take that angle. “Be more of a man” is not a political argument in favor of gun rights. If anything it hurts the cause by alienating women and un-macho men. Manliness is not defined by brutishness and bigger, tougher, stronger, louder, harder, deadlier, but rather by noble virtues.
Update: I should explain a bit since one of my earlier comments contained a video of a 7 year old girl shooting an AR-15. My was not to belittle him but to objectively show that the AR-15 is nothing like the untamed, explosive, fire-spewing beast of his description.
Q) [insert elitist tone here] “What do you need an AR-15 for?”
A) “Well, one day soon, because of the idiots you insist on voting for, the economy and society are going to collapse. Soon after that, you’ll probably show up at my door begging for something to eat and I’ll be holding that AR-15 and telling you, ‘no.’ Any other questions?”
Wait making fun of him is shutting down debate? He doesn’t even understand why he is being made fun of?
In other news SJWs always double down.
We should mock him just as much for being a functionally illiterate boob who doesn’t understand the meaning of words, as we do for him being a weenie.
I am tempermentally open to the idea that there is reasonable ground around the watch list and holds on purchases until an ajudication can be made. But I am entirely unwilling to do it because of a functionally illiterate, weak, wanna be proto-fascist has bad feelz on the internet. That is less likely to make me cooperate.
Me very like!
I’m sorry, I would like to offer a correction to my previous post.
That would be LYING functionally illiterate, weak, wanna be proto-fascist.