Are AR-15's really necessary?

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.357 Mag is still significantly louder, and 18" bbl 12ga shotgun is just as loud as a 16" bbl
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True. My one and only ND was a snub .357 indoors. That was years ago, but I still remember it well. The report was so loud it was almost not a noise. Temporary deafness followed by ringing. In contrast I've fired M-91 Mosins with no hearing protection a few times and had only very mild ringing in spite of the round being orders of magnitude more powerful. It's not a good idea to do either absent an emergency, but the point is pretty clear. The longer the barrel, the less the noise and the further from your ears it is.
 
Even though I have never liked the AR rifle since I qualified with one in 71 I think that throwing the holplophobes any bones at all would be one more step down the slippery slope. They will not be satisfied until they get ALL of the guns. And any question of why anyone would "need" an AR is totally irrelevant. The Bill Of Rights is not about what people need. It's about limiting the power of the State.
 
Look at it the way I've explained it dozens of times to rooms full of head-scratching gun owners...

The ugly black rifles are on the outskirts of the realm.
Inside the castle are your grandpa's hunting rifle he gave you, and his fine old S/S Fox double, and maybe that .45 auto he carried in the Big WW I or II.

The heathens are coming.

Now, doesn't it make more sense to stop these people on the outskirts of the realm, by not giving an inch on the Ugly black rifles, than to wait until the heathens are pounding on the castle gate to put up a fight?

That'd be my first choice.

I have learned over the years that to give these people an inch is an invitation to take the proverbial mile.

And having been insulted in the last moments of an NPR radio program today by the new head of the Brady campaign as being one of the jerks not willing to compromise...well, their idea of compromise is to tell you what they want and if you don't give it up, you're not compromising in good faith.

Their idea...if you compromise today, be ready to compromise some more tomorrow.
 
DefiantDad;

The problem with single incidents, is they are just anecdotal evidence. There's not enough of a basis to form any seriously meaningful comparisons. Not that any comparisons are really necessary, 223/5.56 has proven to be quite lethal enough to keep using it in our military for a couple of generations.

Would the guy have expired from 40 cal rounds? Probably. I mean, the guy was shot what, 17 times before he went down and they STILL had to wrestle him in to submission to get him cuffed? The fact he wasn't on drugs or alcohol and took that amount of punishment is just mind boggling. If ANYTHING came out of that report that is frightening (other than the pictures), it's what the human body and mind can withstand and still fight.

(Which lends some reinforcement to concealed carry / personal defense. Unless I get hit with a central nervous system done-and-done shot, I guarantee I'll have enough life left in me to make a decent effort at ending my assailants..)

As far as 223? All you need to do is remember, criminals can buy body armor too, and you can't pick who invades your home, or what they're wearing. Handgun rounds MIGHT not cut it. Sure the odds are slim. But if they happen, wouldn't you rather have a little too much gun, than to come up short?

Always have the most gun you can have, if you're preparing for a gunfight. Home defense is no exception. :)

I mean, I wear WAY too much hot gear - leathers, helmet, boots, etc - when I ride motorcycles. But... I'm dressing for the crash. Not the ride.
 
I do not own an AR-15... can't see myself EVER owning an AR-15. I really DON"T consider them 'necessary' for my life.

However, I absolutely am NOT going to concede my right to bear arms based on what some bureaucratic buffoon thinks I 'need'. Don't let them lure you into the 'why do you NEED it?' trap. It has nothing to DO with what you NEED, and everything to do with the fact that they have no right to tell you what you can or can't have based on their officious, arrogant, overbearing, uninformed, illogical opinions.
 
HoosierQ said:
Nonsense. Any conventional .223/5.56 round has an extremely good chance of stopping an attacker in an HD situation. This round was not designed to penetrate barriers. It's like hunting ammo for HD...dumping all its energy in the target.
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My mistake, the way I read that post it was talking about ammo loaded in a 9mm Glock.
 
Penetration proof

My agency did all the penetration test to see what rounds actually did over penetrate in real time material shooting.

The LEAST overpenetration was from the M-4 that we carried [ Bushmaster ].

The worst was the .40 S&W and then the shotgun.
 
I don't have an AR, and getting one in my current situation is pretty unlikely. I don't really feel like dumping $1K on a glorified varmint gun. I found out that my mother has odd ideas; if I get anything new, it will likely be a handgun, because she wants to shoot too. 30 cal battle rifles are not the best friends of 55 year old Tennessee gals. She thinks that rifles are only for hunting:scrutiny:.

In an ideal world where I lived in a better circumstances with more leeway to be spendy, I still wouldn't get an AR. I just simply don't trust the platform. It's a great fast fun gun, but I just flat up don't want it to be my life's defender. You can have em', but I'll stick with AK's. I'd love to find an AK-74, but they seem to be rather scarce. Besides, the AK is what I know. Asides from only very brief experience, I have no AR experience. It wasn't quite the right hand of God that I've heard it hyped to be. The push button mag release is nice, as is the thumb safety. But then I have to worry about not seating the mags in properly, and accidentally getting the safety wrong. I think the AK style release at the mag base makes perfect sense, as does the big lever selector switch. Also, the bolt release and changing handle seem somewhat strange to me. Why would you want to make using a weapon any more complicated than it has to be? I also don't get why you'd want such sights for HD; they're great for shooting something 200M away, but open style sights are better for bringing up to ready and then using at a common HD range like 2M. Remember that the right to choose an AR is also the right to reject an AR.

One man's "not for me" is another man's "thank providence".
 
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"I live in Dallas in a rather densely populated neighborhood..."

Okay, fine. Over-penetration is a legitimate concern. We've had umpteen gazilllion threads and posts discussing this problem. Probably forty-'leven different opinions, no matter what any evidence says, of whatever sort.

My house in Terlingua? I could use a Ma Deuce if I didn't care about the concussion blowing out all my windows. But I have an AR as a truck and varmint rifle. It's as good as any other rifle if I have to deal with an idiot bad guy.

Inside a house? Based on survivable injuries at 25 yards to a buddy of mine from a 20-gauge load of #9 Skeet (He turned his wife's parrot loose, outdoors.), that would do just fine for up close and personal social work at an expected five to seven yards.

A .223 inside a house? I'd go with 40-grain varmint bullets. They come all apart on almost anything, and would do that inside a bad guy as well. I'm sorta dubious that they'd make it past a second layer of sheetrock in the event of a miss.

I dunno. I've always figured that pre-planned tactics for the "What if...?" stuff is more important that gear, anyway.
 
most rounds in an AR not all mostly varmint rounds and i know for sure (i have them) 60 grain nosler poly tip will fragment at about 3000 feet per second which is easily achievable in an AR at close range..at worst it gets stuck in drywall if it even makes it through..thats being said i leave he HD up to my 12 gauge, 9mm and 45acp..if the closest gun happens to be my AR i have no problem using it and im in a duplex right now
 
Are AR-15s necessary? Of course not.

Are AR-15s part of a potentially necessary spectrum of firearms which are and should be allowed in a free nation especially one blessed with our Constitution and its attendant 2nd amendment?

Absolutely, unquestionably and inarguably yes!

Never forget that the U.S. Constitution and the 2nd Amendment do not exist to protect us from intruders or narco-terrorists, they exist to protect us the citizenry from potential extremes of governmental power grabbers.
 
ApacheCoTodd said:
Are AR-15s necessary? Of course not.

Are AR-15s part of a potentially necessary spectrum of firearms which are and should be allowed in a free nation especially one blessed with our Constitution and its attendant 2nd amendment?

Absolutely, unquestionably and inarguably yes!

Never forget that the U.S. Constitution and the 2nd Amendment do not exist to protect us from intruders or narco-terrorists, they exist to protect us the citizenry from potential extremes of governmental power grabbers.
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Good post.
 
I don't hear the antis complain about the carbines and they've been around since WW2.
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Felony to have an M1 carbine in New Jersey.

On the other hand, this puppy is New Jersey legal:

CIMG1026.gif

But to tell the truth, the reason I keep the Bushmaster XM-15 E2S is because the ammo is relatively cheap, the recoil is relatively low, the accuracy is relatively good, and my children and I have a great time taking it to the range.
Nothing teaches responsibility and respect like putting a centerfire semi-auto rifle in the hands of a teenager.
 
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The more rabid of the antis will never send thousands of gun owners a survey, and let us decide which guns are allowed to become illegal.

Alan Dershowitz (against all semi-auto rifles) claimed that we should ban up to about 95% of all gun types, even though he claims that self-defense and hunting is ok.
A thread in General Gun Discussions has a link to some CNN show with Alan, Piers Morgan, and the guy who wasn't allowed to finish the answers to most questions. When asked why, Piers said something like "Because your answers are rubbish!".

I have no plans to buy any AR, but most of the media will not give up their mistaken notion that a semi-auto military-styled rifle has no legitimate hunting (or self-defense) applications for civilians.

Dave Workman, among others, described the deception of the antis quite well, and in a nutshell. Their politicians hunger for much more control over everything. Guns are just the tip of the iceberg, and maybe a distraction.
 
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First, my prayers go out to all the victims of the heinous massacre in Colorado.

Second, I absolutely hate the AR15 platform. But I don't like Fords either. Does that mean I dictate what YOU choose to own?

Third, we cannot be divided on the issue of Second Amendment Rights. All "they" have is divide and conquer. And "they" WILL do whatever it takes to stir the pot. It's their job.

Fourth, if we become willing to give up our guns, we better be prepared to stare down the barrels of them. The criminals will be the only ones who have 'em.

I pray for a mourning nation and ask that sensibility prevail. God Bless.
 
A conversation with a co-worker the other day where he was asking them same question as the OP.

He was asking why we should have ar15's,AK's, SKS, etc. Why we should have magazines with more than 15 round capacity ? Why should be allowed to buy cases of ammo at once ?

Now he is a gun person as well , so I thought carefully, and knowing that he is a gearhead I decided to turn the tables.

I asked just why he bought that Hyabusa that is capable of going 180mph+ since the speed limit is a max of 75 here in Nevada and he could do just as well with a 250cc motorcycle , and that his Mustang GT as well he doesn't need as it has a higher top speed than allowed on public roads.

I then asked why he had a 4 bedroom house for just him and his wife, and how he would feel if the government told him since he is not currently raising a family, he does not need a house that large and must move into a 1 bedroom house.

I asked why he shopped at COSTCO and bought food in bulk, since he could easily go to the corner grocery store daily and get food.

Argument being, be careful what you willingly give up today, that may not be important to you, as tomorrow, once sliding down that slope, the next thing may be important to you, and who will you have to blame but yourself for allowing it to happen.

In the end , I know he saw the light, not sure he is ready to walk towards it, but the choice is his, when the light gets dim, it will be too late to see.
 
JTW: I like those analogies. The performance bike/car one is one I have used before. And the kicker is always that the RKBA is an inalienable, Constitutionally protected right where the others are not.
 
Here is an example of why AR15s can be excellent for home defense; particularly for novices with little firearms skill. This is something to keep in mind when addressing the "Why does anybody need one of those?" crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UauxacnFA4

As to Sgt. Murtaugh's fears... currently, there are 250+ NRA A-Rated members in the House of Representatives. 218 votes are needed to pass a ban (assuming everyone votes). So at a minimum, more than 32 NRA A-rated members will have to defy the NRA (or the NRA will have to support an AWB). I do not find either of those fears very credible and the fact that the Brady Campaign is once again changing its name and "rebooting" tends to suggest that the latest squealing is more likely the death throes of the anti movement, rather than their return to power.

Get out there and have conversations with people. The easiest way to explain that the AR15 is not some especially dangerous machine of death is to show them, not tell them. Take someone shooting. You can make more headway with a 30 round magazine and an AR than you can with 2,000 well-written words on the subject.
 
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And if the co-worker had agreed about the bike, or car, or house...that those talking points were true; you would have said...what?
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He did admit that they were true, however he insisted there was no way government was going to tell him what he could have just because of their views of it.
 
YankeeFlyr said:
And if the co-worker had agreed about the bike, or car, or house...that those talking points were true; you would have said...what?
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Ask him why nobody has seriously suggested anything of the sort.

Ask him how many other people in this country he thinks would agree with that.

Perhaps asked him why he wants to live in a country that cannot even pretend to be free, or maybe asked him what benefits to society he believe those laws/restrictions would bring. Go from there.

Every once in awhile you ask a question like that and get a truly lost and helpless soul. Some people cannot be convinced. Identifying them can help you to keep from wasting time. I have a co-worker who is a lost and helpless soul. I have asked some questions that you would expect nobody to ever answer the way he did. But...he did!
 
Sgt.Murtaugh said:
I guess what I am saying is that I am preparing to have to concede something to new gun legislation and I would rather it be my AR's than my handguns. I have even heard Brady folks talking about the need to ban combat shotguns but I really don't see that happening.
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After sifting through this a few times and drafting various responses, I think i've hit upon the crux of your point and the inherent flaw in its reasoning-- Your focused on using the right tool for the job and its necessity therein.

Simply put, one does not equal the other.

You obviously know what the correct tool for the job is and list them in order of primacy, then question the need for your ARs as a self defense platform. You're half right-- Your AR is probably the poorer choice for the average home invasion scenario you'll face. It may over penetrate more, it will probably deafen you in an enclosed environment without hearing protection. But here's the thing...

...Your AR is nessisary, just not for the average self defense encounter; like the second amendment isn't there to simply justify your actions during that encounter. Both serve a greater purpose, IMO.

There's no reason to be conceding anything, especially to the entities 2A is supposed to protect against and the real answer is the education of that document, not squirreling it away like like some tempting forbidden fruit.
 
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