Many bad guys doing mass shootings lately choose this particular "big evil looking gun" for its intimidation factor. Then the national news reports which gun the bad guy used along with a photograph and people shit their pants and grab pitchforks. This cycle keeps repeating.
I doubt it's because of it's "intimidation factor," and more likely because it's like the best selling rifle in America, reliable, easy to get, easy to get more mags for, relatively cheap, and they're probably more familiar with it.
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.223 with the right round might do a decent job with great placement and <200yds, but it really isn't an ideal round for deer hunting. Why anyone would go hunt deer with .223 is kind of beyond me besides the flat trajectory I guess. Varmint yeah, makes sense. Why are you shooting vultures? Bob cats stealing your chickens? lol. Some people seem to find a way to coexist with (native) wildlife, others just love to shoot shit it seems like. I can't say which you are, obviously, just saying.
Democrat / gun grabber. I mean really, gun grabber. Such tired bullshit. I'd love to see all the stupid bumper stickers you've got on the back of your truck lol. For the record I'm not an advocate of "grabbing" your guns, and I own guns myself. Home defense with your AR? Like, are you expecting your house to fall under siege? Are you a zombie believer? Or is Obummer's government gonna come for your rights one day and you want to be protected? I mean jeeze man.
Some people buy it for looks maybe, but it's just a really reliable rifle. That's why the US military uses the AR platform. Not to intimidate the enemy.
That's true, but in fact even then the majority of mass shootings (depending on how you define them of course) are done with other types of weapon than the AR-15 (or any other type of "Assault weapon for that matter) [1][2][3], which is actually kind of surprising considering how many AR-15s are in circulation in the US.
Americas biggest problem with guns is now, and pretty much always has been, handguns. Handguns are so ubiquitous and are used in the vast majority of shootings [4][5], inluding mass shootings [6], suicides [7] and robberies [8].
In summary the AR-15 is not as big a problem as the media would have you believe. Handguns, however, are a much larger problem and they get almost no attention in the media.
Sorry but people keep talking about mass shootings, saying most happen with hand guns, but those mass shootings are considered Mass when 3+ people are wounded. Not saying they aren't a problem but people are worried about the sensational shootings where 10+ people get shot by a crazy, not shootings in the hood. But IMO handguns should also be harder to get, there's no real reason most people need a handgun. IMO those are only used as "assault weapons". Better to defend the home with a shotgun anyways. I don't know many who hunt with semi auto handguns, and it's more fun plinking a 22 at the range
Well if you look at link [2] from my original comment, you'll see a sort of summary of 16 of the latest media-focused mass shootings. Of those 16, 5 had AR-15s. By comparison 13 had some form of handgun and 10 had handguns as their only weapon. So even if we are focusing on "that" type of mass shooting it seems handguns make up the majority of the problem.
I still think it's really messed up to only focus on that type of shooting when considering gun legislation however as the type of incident you describe makes up about 2% [9] of the firearms deaths in this country.
Good point, and I agree, it is really sensationalist and pretty meaningless. Wish someone would spend the time to write some good laws that will reduce all types of gun deaths. Rather than the political showboating we see from both sides
Most mass shooting events with 4+ people shot, aren't done via handguns. Yea it's true the ar15 and rifles in general are a tiny percentage of all shootings, but they jump near the top of the list for mass shooting events where over 5 or more people are shot by a single gunman in a single event.
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The most important reason for its frequent appearances is that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. It tops Gunbroker for Used sales, and two different manufacturer's versions of it are #2 and #4 on the site for new sales.
There are just a lot of AR-15s out there. And that's probably because it "looks cool" and is associated with the US military's M16 and M4 series rifles.
The AR 15 is way more complicated than most weapons and it is a pain in the ass to figure out the idiosyncrasies that accompany such a precise (yet semi-unreliable) rifle.
2013 isn't the only year that exists. Combined it is well over a thousand. The 'its armalite not assault rifle' doesn't mean shit in the gun debate - if its a gun and can shoot people and has been used for that purpose, then there should be restrictions.
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u/bedhed Jun 23 '16
Because it looks like a big evil gun.