The AR-15 was never meant for civilians, inventor’s family says

[LuckyTheDog]

The AR-15, or America's rifle — as the National Rifle Association (NRA) likes to call it — was never intended for average Americans at all. That's according to the family of the assault rifle's inventor, who spoke to NBC News about the subject in an article published Thursday. The inventor died before it became a popular civilian gun and the weapon used in many mass shootings.

"Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47," the Stoner family told NBC News. "He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more by these events."

Stoner designed the gun in the 1950s. His surviving children and adult grandchildren talked to the news outlet through phone calls and emails, but opted to speak as a group in order to talk openly about a controversial subject. Some gun control advocates have argued that assault rifles were never intended for civilian use and should be banned. A national ban on certain assault rifles expired in 2004 and wasn't renewed. The family did not make any policy recommendations.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/ar-15-never-meant-civilians/

[Marengo]

1. Any comments on record from Stoner himself?

[tallahasseedem]

2. Very interesting...

However, they are profiting off their sales. I would like to see them stand in unity with the Dems on regulating these fire arms.

[Hoyt]

3. Of course, gunners disagree. "They are so much fun to shoot, make you feel like George Zimmerman."

[bighart]

4. What?

Zimmerman used a handgun so I don't get your statement

[Hoyt]

5. Not talking about what he used -- talking about training to shoot or intimidate people. Quit reading

pointing at, and mouthing, each word.

[pintobean]

12. It was a ridiculous statement.

AR-15 type weapons were popular long before anyone knew who Zimmerman is. It's just the usual hyperbole - throw the name out there to try to stir emotions.

[Hoyt]

15. The person I responded to said gunsare so much fun. Christ, I know you guys love you lethal weapons

Last edited Thu Jun 16, 2016, 02:36 PM - Edit history (1)

but lets be real -- the fact you have so much fun with your darn gunz is no reason to keep helping folks kill and intimidate people with the damn things.

Here's some more yahoos having fun with their so-called "assault rifle:"

[pintobean]

16. I wouldn't know.

I don't have one. If he is legally having fun with his, good for him. I don't know why anyone would think that that's helping someone else abuse them. That's like saying that if I enjoy driving, I'm somehow helping someone drive recklessly and/or impaired.

But, your post was a dodge from my reply to your Zim comment.

[Hoyt]

24. No we are talking about guns, not driving.

[linuxman]

6. How about word straight from one of the horses' mouths?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/31/jim-sullivan-ar-15-designer-accuses-hbo-of-decepti/

[TwilightZone]

7. I don't think it says what you think it says.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not pleased to see AR-15s sell on the civilian market. It just means I didn’t realize they would 57 years ago,” he said."

He didn't think they would be sold to civilians, either. That doesn't invalidate anything Stoner's family is asserting.

[linuxman]

8. I don't think my post says what you think it says.

I'm simply giving perspective from a firsthand, living, breathing designer, not his family.

The designers of of the jerry can, cargo pants, duct tape, the microwave, etc likely all didn't have the civilian market in mind when they designed those items either. If you want an even more relevant comparison, revolvers and bolt actions were orginally military arms as well, but like in all of history, firearms used by the military are soon adapted to and then adopted by the civilian market. It's been happening since the matchlock.

[Crepuscular]

9. The rifle

that Stoner designed, which was labeled the "AR15", was a selective fire rifle, not the semi-automatic version that was subsequently marketed to civilians under the same name. Substantial difference between the two.

[Dem2]

10. LMAO

I love the hair-splitters, perhaps you've just pretending to be naive.

[Marengo]

11. Perhaps you're pretending to be knowledgable

[LuckyTheDog]

18. And? So?

Rocky Mountain Mike
The Gunsplainer

https://soundcloud.com/rockymountainmike/the-gunsplainer

[Crepuscular]

19. and so

the basis of the comments included in the OP are essentially meaningless.

[LuckyTheDog]

22. If terrorists have to shoot less than 30 rounds per second...

... freedom dies.

[Crepuscular]

23. ...

Hyperbole much?

[uponit7771]

13. ANY device DESIGNED to kill a lot of humans efficiently isn't meant for civilians at all

[Igel]

14. Of course what he designed wasn't intended for civilians.

He designed a selective-fire rifle with some useful features to improve reliability, portability, etc. When he designed it, it made no sense to think of civilians using it. Civilians still have a heck of a time legally getting a selective-fire AR-15 or its offspring, the M16.

It was redesigned a bit a few years later to make it semi-automatic only. As such, it's generally as lethal as any other semi-automatic. Semi-automatics have been around and been fairly common for a long time.

I don't know what "Some gun control advocates have argued that assault rifles were never intended for civilian use and should be banned" means.

On the surface, it's a trivial statement: Compare "Tanks were never intended for civilian use and should be banned." Perfectly true. But it's pretty much the (de facto) case with assault rifles for the last 80 years, if by "assault rifle" we mean "selective-fire rifles."

Under another reading, it's pretty meaningless: "Scary looking, military-style weapons were never intended for civilian use and should be banned." Fine, ban aesthetics. Here "assault rifle" just means "scary, military-style" weapons--not "military-function" weapons. It's saying form is more important than function, a common failing these days. Perhaps if the AR-15 were robin's egg blue or some other nice pastel it wouldn't be as objectionable, even if its function was the same. Now, there are scary looking, military-style toy guns that should be banned, but in that case because they're so realistic they can get a kid killed if he points it at a cop, but if a kid's killed doing that it's assumed to be the cop's fault. Because in the split second the cop decides, all he can see is form and from that has to infer function. Both this reading of the quoted sentence and the cop's misjudgment put form over function, but one has the luxury of time to get past that.

In yet another reading, it rewrites over 100 years of history and misses some big points: "Anything more than single-shot weapons were never intended for civilian use and should be banned." I don't know that the inventors of semi-automatics had any intentions as to civilian use and doubt that the producers of that statement do, either. Semi-automatics have been around for quite a while. Some of the earliest ones were produced for civilian use, but the invention had been around for a decade or two before that: In the absence of an on-going or imminent war and given other technical issues, some manufacturer designed and produced semi-automatic shotguns.

Note that even rifles with bolt action were originally designed for the military, but that's what gun-control advocates fall back to--a military design repurposed for civilian use. Rifling was also for the military, too. Military is the single biggest customer for firearms. You make a new product on spec, you can try to sell 5000 to a single buyer or you can come up with an advertising campaign, distribution network, put in the money to produce stock that you store until you can ship it.

[LuckyTheDog]

21. I am going to go out on a limb here

I'd be perfectly happy to either ban civilian ownership of semi-automatic firearms (including semi-auto handguns) or limit them to a designated rate of fire and capacity. The "right to keep and bear arms" doesn't mean a right to as much lethal firepower and you can afford.

What if civilian semi-autos were not magazine-fed, but had to be designed to hold, say, six or eight shots (after which the user would have the load the cartridges one at a time)? Would freedom die? Is your "right" to empty a 100-round clip and then quickly slap in a fresh one just like it really that essential -- or even consistent with what the Founding Fathers had in mind?

[Rex]

17. And the gun nuts buzz with anger!

Their Precious is telling them to post angry excuses and of course they do what The Precious tells them to do.

[Crepuscular]

20. ...

and yet more meaningless gibberish from someone who lacks any substantive contribution to add to the discussion. But hey, if it makes you feel good, have at it.