Setup AR-15 for Home Defense

Thank you captian terminology.

But the subject isn't whether an AR is a machine gun or not. Never was and It doesn't matter.

Exept to you. And for some weird reason a lot of the tactical set. Who value image over application.

All trying to sound like they are tactical guys. But wind up sounding like what they think tactical guys would sound like.

I find the whole dynamic hilarious.

 

I will stay with the military definition.

And I am pretty sure it is not illegal for me to call an AR a machine gun.

 

Good grief, you're still blathering inaccurate crap about this? I stopped paying attention to your fevered imagination last week.

 

I hadn't stopped in on this thread in a while. Glad to see it's gone well.

Praise the Lord and pass the God damn ammunition!

 

Oh, Kay Kyser. One of my favorites:



Regarding the rest, either @lklawson is intentionally missing @drop bear 's point, or he doesn't see it. I'm not sure which. Leaning to the former.

 

That being that deliberately calling an AR a "machinegun" is OK? It isn't. As long as he keeps characterizing a tool as something that it isn't, I don't much care about about his ninjitsu rants.

And, yes, words matter very very much, particularly on THIS subject. That is because many people have historically mischaracterized the AR as a "machinegun," including News Agencies, in a deliberate attempt to frame political discourse and shape public opinion for a political goal. I can give you examples but I've been trying to avoid politics.

The simple fact is that equating an AR, which is semi-auto, to a machinegun, which is legally either full auto or select-fire, is a political framing. I've been trying to stop that political re-frame while trying to avoid politics so that this thread doesn't get shut down.

It's pretty obvious that AR's are for many a touchy subject. We have a responsibility to be accurate about what they are and are not. The simple fact is that they are not "machineguns" and that misrepresentation needs to be corrected. AR's are not any sort of military weapon, never mind a "machinegun."

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

It's clear that the language matters very much to you. To many, though (myself included, honestly), whether it's a military weapon, a military style weapon, a machine gun, an automatic weapon, or a semi-automatic weapon that approximates an automatic weapon through the use of a bump stock... it doesn't really matter in this discussion.

In a discussion about getting around gun control laws and maximizing the amount of damage one can do by threading a legal needle, it probably matters a great deal.

 

I understand. In some ways, it's like a TKD guy being told by someone else (repeatedly) that he practices karate.

I will say this about bumpstocks: Almost no one in the firearms community thought of them as more than a toy for turning money into noise at the range. If one wants to use a bumpstock as a replacement for an actual machinegun, they're going to be greatly disappointed. The way that they function makes the thing inaccurate (much more so than problems holding target with a real machine gun) and don't run reliably. They tend to stutter and stop.

To be honest, again, I have issues with each of those characterizations you use. "military weapon, a military style weapon, a machine gun, an automatic weapon, or a semi-automatic weapon" 4 of them are completely inaccurate and the last, "semi-automatic weapon," carries an unwarranted negative reaction by unnecessarily attaching the term "weapon." A tool is a tool and it's how it's used that determines it's function. You could brain someone with a hammer (which is a more common method of committing murder in the U.S. than with Rifles of any kind).

I know that some will say that "rifle used for self defense is definitionally a 'weapon'." Sure, there's a point. But how often does someone refer to a home defense shotgun as "a shotgun weapon?" Or the Browning A5 shotgun as a "weapon" even though it is a semi-automatic shotgun often used for home/personal defense?

The fact is that an AR is just a semi-auto rifle. The design and purpose of an AR is not to "thread the needle" around gun control laws. All it is is a semi-auto rifle with a detachable magazine pretty much like any other detachable mag semi-auto sporting rifle which came before. The only real functional difference between an AR and a Ruger 10/22 is that most of the time the AR is chambered in for a different cartridge.

And that's part of why you think I'm making a "big deal" of this; a mountain out of a linguistic mole-hill. Because it appears from your post that you seem to think an AR is a way for gun nuts to get around gun control laws which outlaw supposedly "military weapons." If you don't believe that, I'm certain that you know people who do. But it's just not so.

So when discussing the AR, I work really hard to try to separate the facts of the rifle from the myths swirling around now; including that it is somehow a "machinegun."

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

I still think it is the latter. because it does come around in subjects that are not guns. And I get this literal look of confusion when I bring it up.

And is very much in the domain of this self defence set. Which is a lot more about terminology than practicality. And that is because the military and law enforcement are terminology focused. And industry is terminology focused. The colour codes the odaa loop and all these methods of dogma people adopt to sound qualified and professional.


Knowing the anagram that relates to the subject is as important as knowing the subject.

And of course a lot of your practical pursuits that I hold in much higher esteem don't really do that.

I have trained with plenty of really good guys who will use the wrestling terms for hip throws. Or not even know all the terms Blasphemy I know.

I was thinking more this by the way.



Because as we know a gun is a piece of artillery.

 

In my opinion, when people use wrong terms, it makes them appear ignorant, when they deliberately use the wrong terms it makes any point they are attempting to make look ignorant. When they deliberately use misleading and emotional terms, it proves their opinion ignorant, weak, and often wrong (which is why they are resorting to low form of conversation) and are not to be taken seriously in any way.

Regards
Brian King

 

That's fair. I think jargon is often used to deflect and actually avoid the actual point. In this discussion, undue attention on jargon actual distracts from the larger point.

 

Some might say that continued deliberate use of misleading emotional and incorrect jargon distracts from what ever the larger point is supposed to be.
Regards
Brian King

 

And some might say the over emphasis on jargon at the expense of the larger point is exactly the problem. I see your point, but I don't think you see mine.

 

I would agree if this were only jargon. I get agravated when someone goes out of their way to correct the term "clip" when the actual term should be "magazine," or when someone gets corrected or ridiculed for asking for "bullets" when they want "ammunition." Those are examples of jargon and everyone darn well knows that when someone talks about a "clip" they mean a mag, or when someone is trying to buy bullets they probably want ammo.

But the term "machinegun" isn't jargon. Everyone "knows" that a machingun spits out more than one bullet when the trigger is pulled. But the continued misuse of the word applied to an AR is wrong, confuses the subject, and actually spreads misinformation. In that case, it's not "jargon."

There's a difference.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

I understand that when someone says clip when they should say magazine, or machine gun when it's really a fully automatic rifle... those distinctions matter to you for a number of reasons you obviously think are meaningful. And I understand that when people say these things, you guys believe the person is being disingenuous or ignorant.

What you're explaining above is quintessential jargon. And I'm trying to tell you that when you focus on the jargon, you are missing the point and it makes you appear disingenuous or ignorant. In a discussion about deaths, the finer points of whether the bullet came out of a tommy gun or an AR-15 are only important to people who want to preserve a loophole of some kind.

Look, in all the reading I've done recently and in the past, there are just two fundamentally different ways to look at this issue. You either look at it from the perspective of someone who wants to keep owning guns and preserve the status quo or you look at it from the perspective of someone who wants to reduce the number of casualties and is looking to subvert the status quo. The rest is building a case to support the argument.

But I will just say that it took no more than a few months after folks started killing people with cars, trucks, and vans, that we took reasonable, common sense steps to mitigate that risk. Hardened barriers in front of government buildings and along side sidewalks on bridges, etc. No one argued about jargon. But when it comes to firearms, for many reasons that people who own those weapons (not tools) think are important, the jargon becomes a strategy for obfuscating the issues and dragging the conversation away from the mass shootings and the ridiculous firepower available to just about anyone, and into the realm of fine distinctions between the characteristics of one weapon vs the other.

I hope this doesn't come across as angry or argumentative. I see where you guys are coming from, but I just don't agree. And I'm trying to show you that where you presume ignorance, you likely appear equally as ignorant to the other side. I wouldn't normally use that word, but since you and others have now used it, I'm hoping it will resonate.

 

I don't have a ton of time right now so I'll reply to the other stuff later on.

I'm sorry, but this is fundamentally not right. Obviously, I run in "gun guy" circles. And no one is disinterested in reducing the number of casualties. EVERYONE wants fewer people injured or dead, including me. I don't think you were intending to be deliberately insulting or to impugn my compassion and humanity. Nevertheless, when cast that way, it sure sounds like "you want to keep your guns more than you want to stop murders." It's just not so and it sounds very much like the deliberately politicized and oft repeated statements that gun owners "care more about their guns than children." I can assure you that this isn't true.

Everyone on either side of the political issue which is being referenced here wants people to be safe. They just have different beliefs on how to best achieve this and whether or not the opposing method is effective.

I gotta run but I'll try to get back to your other points later today if I can.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

Definitely not trying to be insulting. I was talking about the direction that the argument flows. While you may not be disinterested in the number of casualties, if the choice is to keep guns and maintain the status quo or lose access to some categories of weapons, "gun guys" will (I believe) choose status quo every time. So, I mean, if you want to characterize it as "you want to keep your guns more than you want to reduce the number of shootings (which include accidental and intentional injuries and deaths, in the home or outside of the home, singly or en masse)." Then, yeah... if I'm being honest, I do think that the gun "advocates" would opt for status quo vs any kind of gun control or reform to access. Are you honestly suggesting otherwise? In fact, I think your use of "murder" is a perfect example of how language is used on both sides to mischaracterize the issue and appeal to emotion.

In some ways, this entire discussion reminds me of how we talked about cigarettes back in the 80's. The cigarette companies were like, 'Sure, I mean... you're inhaling smoke. It's not good for you. But people get cancer from all kinds of things."

 

I think the point is, you don't have to know the difference between a vortex laser rifle and a Garlaxian photon rifle to understand that they are both weapons that are intended to kill people. Even if you've never heard of them before, if I tell you that they're both weapons that shoot X number of times per minute, and that when they hit people, people are injured and often killed. And if they both shoot about the same amount of projectiles in about the same amount of time, with similar end effects, getting drawn into a technical discussion about the clear but irrelevant differences between a laser rifle and a photon rifle is a distraction from the larger point. It's a red herring. I just made up two fictional weapons, but there's enough information in there for us to all understand what I mean.

So, when we talk about actual non-fictional weapons, one doesn't need to know the difference between a "clip" vs "magazine" to understand that bullets come out of both into some kind of gun. If you're talking to someone about gun control from the results back (i.e., People are being killed and we need to do something about it), and he starts trying to educate you on the finer points of an AR-15 vs some other kind of gun that fires about a bullet per second in semi-automatic mode without a bump stock, you're being distracted.

Personally, if I can use the right terminology, I will. But I completely understand when people will avoid being manipulated into using jargon to appease the folks who are using that jargon to justify maintaining the status quo. It's a natural reaction.

i mean, earlier in this thread, I was literally scolded for using the term weapon and not "tool." Give me a break.

 

I just googled AR-15 vs Ruger 10/22, and you're right. I don't see a lot of difference between the two. They're both touted as easy handling weapons, inexpensive, widely available, with sufficient stopping power, and are well suited for "primary offense" and "go to survival preparation." Good lord.123