(again, I’m not attempting to incite violence, nor intend to engage in any myself.)
Alright gun community, it’s your turn.
I’ve gotten a crash course in lying this last year. One of the most insidious things about lying is that when you do it enough you believe it yourself. Another trick is to get another person to tell your lie for you; it makes your lies more palatable and fell less like, well, lies.
In the gun community, one of the favorite lies to tell is the, “these are just cosmetic features” lie.
Listen, these aren’t mere cosmetic features. Yes, an AR15 (the civilian equivalent of the M16) and a mini-14 shoot the same round and use the same magazine. Yet for some reason the military has chosen the M16 instead of the mini-14 to take into combat. Why? Well, because those “cosmetic features” have certain applicability to the weapon’s lethality. Let us count the ways:
Pistol grip — provides greater control of the weapon, especially for follow up shots (in my experience) / allows the user easier access to the fire control group / provides a superior grip angle for prone shooting (in my experience)
Front broomstick — same thing
Collapsable stock — allows fitting the weapon to a smaller shooter, or to body armor to a lesser extent
Handguard / Barrel Shroud — allows putting many more rounds through the weapon without burning yourself
Hi-cap magazines — allows putting more rounds downrange in less time, lessening mag changes when a less well trained shooter might lose sight of targets
Now let us leave this lie and go into the general deception and disinformation of the gun community. I’m well aware of the difference between an “assault rifle” and “assault weapon”. But you need to stop pretending that the difference is of any practical value. I would have much rather taken my AR15 into Iraq than my M16. The principal difference is that the M16 can fire in a 3-round burst or semi-automatic mode. The AR15 fires only in semi-automatic.
During my 5 years in the Corps I’ve found 2 circumstances when you would place the weapon on burst. 1) During what we called a dump-ex, and 2) on ACCIDENT when you flipped the selector too hard.
A dump-ex is what we call a situation where you have had too much ammo brought out into the field and the powers that be don’t want to fill out the paperwork to turn it back in, nor want to have to answer why they are asking for X number of rounds for training when they only seem to use Y number of rounds. The end result is that you make an assembly line of Marines filling magazines and passing them to others firing those rounds into a berm without aiming.
I’m no Richard Marcinko and I haven’t seen the thickest of combat, but there is almost NO legitimate use for 3-round burst. You can fire exceptionally fast in semi-auto and have much more control of the weapon. This is why Marines are taught to fire a “hammer pair” instead of burst fire.
So stop referring to your assault weapon as anything but. It is not a modern sporting rifle.
Does this mean we give in and let the gun banners take our weapons? No! Quite the opposite. The Second Amendment does not exist to protect your hunting rifles (but yes your sniper rifles). The Second Amendment doesn’t protect hunting. It doesn’t even protect your ability to protect your family from criminals. It protects your weapons that serve a military purpose. Recall in United States v. Miller, it was a short-barelled shotgun in contention. The court held that the gun was unlawful without the stamp because it was not a weapon in common use with the military. The flaw in that argument is that when one looks at the makeup of the militia, it was men bringing what arms they had. Truth be told there is a valid military purpose to every weapon, properly employed. The court did not grok that.
So the gun community needs to stop trying to skirt the facts about their weapons. They cry Molon Labe’ and wave their Gadsden Flags, but shrink from the government and gun controllers by asserting that their weapons are Modern Sporting Rifles. Sunshine Patriots is what I see.
These are weapons designed as tyranny defense weapons to be used for a military purpose. Charlton Heston popularized the “cold dead hands” battle cry. I have no interest in dying, and neither should you. That’s why you should own an assault weapon. And instead of begging like a slave to be allowed your arms or attempting to place the blame on a scapegoat, each gun owner should defiantly say, “If you come for my guns, I will fucking kill you. And when I’ve killed you, I’m going to kill the motherfucker that sent you.”
Here’s a little Stone Sour for you. I’ve been waking up this for weeks. Damn it rocks socks.
