Has Anti-Gun Propaganda Made the AR15 a less viable defensive rifle?

[GEM]

If someone breaks in - does it depend?

That comes to the core issue of the good shoot mantra.

Is it a homicidal manic - clearly Jason Voorhes - no problem.

Is it ambiguous as we found - a burglar who is not offering immediate threat but you corner him and shoot him - it made a difference.

Is it clearly stupid - a teenager comes to your door to apologize for a halloween prank - you shoot him through the door (claiming he was opening it) - but you claim the gun just went off. It made no difference as it was a ceiling effect - everybody thought the homeowner was guilty and no gun type effect.

So unless you can come up with a psychophysical measure of criminal intent and the 'goodness' of your shoot - there is no dichotomous answer.

The key is to be able to explain and justify your weapons choice in a manner to defuse the weapon's priming of negative attitude. The real key is not to do a stupid 'good' shoot. But even with a 'good' good shoot, the juror's attitudes can screw you up. Let's say that most believe you but an antigunner hangs the jury - so you go through it again.

 

[zxcvbob]

BEFORE this latest wave of anti-AR propaganda, maybe 5 years ago, I chose a Marlin 1894C (.357 Magnum) for my HD carbine. I wanted a gun with good short-to-medium range firepower than didn't look "scary". Not so much for the aftermath of a shooting, but if I had to carry it outside during a period of civil unrest I wanted to reduce the chance of being shot on sight by a trigger-happy cop for having a black rifle.

I still have the Marlin, but my HD carbine now is a Mini-14 with wood furniture. If I carry it with a short magazine, it kind of looks like a hunting rifle. I can keep a 30-round mag in my pocket. I wish I could get a suppressor for it, but those are illegal here even with a tax stamp (stupid do-gooder nanny-statists)