What does an AR-15 do to a human body?
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
For anyone that says "It's not an assault rifle!" - the AR platform comes off the shelf chambered for two different types of MILITARY ammunition. It is a weapon specifically meant to fire human-killing rounds. This is not an opinion; it is a statement of fact.
So to answer the question posed by the OP's post: the AR-15 mutilates the human body, as it was designed to do.
There is nothing particularly deadly about the .223 round that isn't common to all rifle rounds, particularly larger calibers. Rifle rounds are deadly to living creatures, human or not.
The military has, time and again, dropped and adopted rounds balancing many interests, not only effectiveness on the battlefield, but also the logistics of moving ammunition from point a to point b. Sometimes the latter comes at the cost to the former. Recall that when the 5.56/223 round was introduced, it was panned as being completely inadequate for human targets. It was replacing a .30 round that had more stability in flight, more range, and more punch when it got there. Those rounds replaced a .45 caliber round before that.
The reason people say, "not an assault rifle," is because in the gun world that has a particular technical definition that the AR-15 does not meet. Using the term outside of its technical definition is nakedly an appeal to emotion for political purposes. There are more sober ways to make the gun ban argument without resorting to this language, but I'm not holding my breath. Fearmongering is effective.
Isn’t that the hardest to get a hold of these days? I figure the entire western supply is being stockpiled by militaries and/or being sent to Ukraine. Or unavailable due to sanctions (not sure how much was manufactured in Russia and making its way to North America).
Though I’d argue military ammunition is moreso built to pierce through armour that most civilian’s bodies and personal vehicles won’t have.
.223 one of the more common AR-15 rounds is cheap and most options have free or reduced shipping[1]. You can get 1000 rounds shipped to your door for ~$400.
Per comments - brain-fart. Militarize into full auto. I don't hunt, sorry, merely worked with hunters back in the early 80's.
I think you mean “militarize into an automatic”.
B) "militarize a [gun] into a semi-automatic" - yeah, that's not a thing.
C) "No need to hunt with a semi-auto" - no, there are several subjective reasons one might prefer to use a semi-auto hunting, and several objective circumstances where it makes sense. Remember that semi-auto means one pull of the trigger = one round fired.
Aside from that one sentence of common knowledge it is just a lot of fear mongering about AR-15’s.
“ The Post determined that there is a public interest in demonstrating the uniquely destructive power of the AR-15 when used to kill. “
Firstly, there is nothing unique about an AR-15 compared to other intermediate caliber rifles. There are a plethora of other rifles on the market with the exact same capabilities.
Secondly, the .223/5.56 round they use called intermediate for a reason. It is illegal to use for hunting deer in many states because it doesn’t have enough power for humane kills. The reason militaries use them is for better recoil control during fully automatic fire and so you can carry more ammo for suppressive fire.
It is nonsensical that gun control advocates hold it up as some kind of absurdly powerful super bullet and a clear indicator that they have no idea what they are talking about.
Nonsensical or not, the damage the weapon does to humans is clear. Otherwise, this wouldn't be an issue. Semantics aside, there's a reason you don't see gun control advocates arguing for banning single-shot hunting rifles or basic handguns.
There's self-defense of one's person and homestead, and then there's "self-defense" as defined by a lobbying group backed by gun manufacturers, "patriots", and Russian psy-ops.
Not sure what you mean by basic but people advocate for handgun bans all the time. DC had one until the Supreme Court overturned it in 2008.
Gun control advocates should spend most of their effort trying to ban handguns rather than AR-15s, seeing as rifles (all rifles, not just AR-15s) are only used in something like 3% of firearm homicides.
Actually, you do see that. “Single-shot hunting rifles” are “sniper weapons”. Handgun bans have been advocated since the 1960s.
The Brady organization comes from a political predecessor literally named "Handgun Control Inc." That was the push several decades ago.
Here's Gabby Giffords advocating for banning all guns just a couple weeks ago: https://time.com/6274979/gabby-giffords-gun-control/
it would be so much easier if someone who is clearly troubled and has a history of anti-social behavior not be allowed to own an excessive amount of firearms.
Most gun owners don't want to give up their guns. Most gun owners also don't want some deranged lunatic with severe mental illnesses shooting up a supermarket parking lot.
In this context, the important take away is acknowledging and incorporating the idea that the larger gun control movement didn’t start with semi-autos and it doesn’t end there.
Anyone who has been involved in this arena for enough time, or otherwise sufficiently familiar with the history of the gun control inclination, is incredulous listening to someone say, “we only want this one thing.”[1] It’s a non-starter.
[1] https://ifunny.co/picture/illustrated-guide-to-gun-control-w...
Some overweight Trump fan in the middle of Arkansas or Montana with an AR-15 has no chance against a single 5th gen Fighter, let alone an entire military with nuclear weapons, and a whole range of classified weaponry that us citizens can't even dream of conceptualizing.
Yeah! That's why the US military had such overwhelming victories in Vietnam and Afghanistan, against primative peoples who couldn't even conceptualize our advanced weaponry!
Hell, we didn't even have a plan going in there - Bush II had Osama Bin Laden dead-to-rights and ignored the intelligence briefs because he wanted to go kill Saddam. There was no objective besides spend time and waste money.
[1] - https://youtu.be/T5QNTnMO5xU?t=355 [video][ballistic dummy badly injured]
[2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbrUEBNdwGY [video][another ballistic dummy gone]