The NRA Claims the AR-15 Is Useful for Hunting and Home Defense. Not Exactly.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

5. That rifle in the picture is not a .223 or 5.55mm... it's just a scary looking .22lr

If you're going to rally against AR15 assault weapons, you should probably use a picture of a real assault weapon instead of a dressed up .22 rimfire. That rifle is no different than a common Ruger 10/22 in terms of caliber, capacity, or rate of fire.


To address your last point, police reports indicate the Newtown shooting event lasted approximately nine to ten minutes. That's about 3 people per minute. Pretty much any revolver, handgun, or other repeating firearm from the last century is capable of such firepower. Why point the Newtown shootings as prrof of extraordinary leathality when it is in fact very typical lethality? What confuses me is the desire to expend great deals of political capital to ban a weapon (military style rifles) that comprises literally a fraction (probably about 1%-2% based on FBI stats) of our national gun homicides. (?)