Archive for the 'AR-15s' Category

Via David Codrea, international scholar Jim Carrey has escaped from the asylum and taken a formal position on assault weapons.

Any1 who would run out to buy an assault rifle after the Newtown massacre has very little left in their body or soul worth protecting.

Says the man with body guards.

The window was open and we could see everything because they were filming right below the window 20 ft. away. We could see Jim Carrey and hear what he was saying. It was so great. After watching for an hour, they stopped for a lunch break. His bodyguard drove a big black van right below the window and opened the car door. Jim Carrey walked over to the door. I leaned out the window and yelled, “Hey Jim Carrey!!!” and he looked up at me smiled, waved and said, “Hey!” I lost it and started screaming. It was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life.

Prior:

Sylvester Stallone On Assault Weapons

International scholar, Rocky, has some brain damage.

“I know people get (upset) and go, ‘They’re going to take away the assault weapon.’ Who … needs an assault weapon? Like really, unless you’re carrying out an assault. … You can’t hunt with it. … Who’s going to attack your house, a (expletive) army?”

Well, first I’ll answer on your level, dude.  Like, assault weapons are all cool and stuff, and you’re just being, like, you know, grodie to the max.  Dude.  Gag me with a spoon.  Just be awesome and chill.  Like, you know.

The next answer may require some reading.  Go read the Federalist Papers.  Then read the constitution.  Then read about Mr. Stephen Bayezes, who is alive today because he owned an AR-15 and used it with a 30-round magazine during a home invasion.

Finally, read all about the newest trend in home invasions all across America, i.e., 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man teams of criminals to ensure the highest rate of success and safety for the home invaders, and lowest rate of successful resistance by the occupants.

Like really, dude.  Don’t be grodie to the max and stuff.

One fellow writes in simply indignant that there is such a thing as an assault rifle.

I grew up an avid hunter in the 1950s. At that time, federal law required using a shotgun with a plug limiting it to holding three shells … to hunt DUCKS.

That law still stands.

But today, we keep electing federal legislators who don’t even have the courage to limit assault rifles to holding fewer than 30 rounds … to hunt little 6- and 7-year-old CHILDREN.

I always like it when writers mention the fact that they are hunters, or former hunters from their childhood, or have served in the military – as if any of that is supposed to mean anything to me.  It’s markedly special, too, when one of those writers uses words like clip to refer to magazine.

If the perpetrator of the shooting in Connecticut had been using a revolver he would have accomplished the same horror.  He was unimpeded, and that is the problem that isn’t being addressed by any of the tyrannical laws being proposed.

The Governor of the State of New York is waxing know-it-all on hunting too.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for tougher state bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines of ammunition as part of a progressive agenda in a sometimes fiery State of the State speech Wednesday.

“No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer,” Cuomo said. “End the madness now!

Okay.  I’ll acquiesce.  No one needs ten rounds to kill a deer.  But apparently Mr. Bayezes needed 30 rounds from an AR to defeat his home invaders, and lot’s of guys hunt feral hogs with ARs, assuming that the bay dogs can bay up the hogs.  We are losing the war on hogs, and need to kill as many as possible.

Finally, there is one other thing that we might find useful about an AR that Governor Cuomo hasn’t mentioned, i.e., suppressing tyrannical dictators like him.  After all, that’s the point of the second amendment anyway.

Addressing the objection that “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes,” Kevin Williamson writes “The answer to this question is straightforward: The purpose of having citizens armed with paramilitary weapons is to allow them to engage in paramilitary actions. The Second Amendment is not about Bambi and burglars — whatever a well-regulated militia is, it is not a hunting party or a sport-clays club. It is remarkable to me that any educated person — let alone a Harvard Law graduate — believes that the second item on the Bill of Rights is a constitutional guarantee of enjoying a recreational activity.

There is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment for military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear.”

Special and protected, it is.

That the AR-15 is the single most protected firearm under the clear intention of the Founding Fathers for citizens to be armed with weapons of military utility is not up for debate or discussion. By function and role, it is the firearm of the American Patriot and militiaman.

Any attempt to strip the American citizen of the AR-15 or similar firearms is an attack on the very fabric of our Republic, an affront to the clear intent of the Founders, an assault on the plain meaning of the Constitution, and an attempted rape of Liberty.

Yes it is.  Read the entire case by Bob Owens.  He does a splendid job of developing the context and crafting the logic.  While you’re at it, read the predecessor article too.

Of course, I concur.

Some reactionary commentaries achieve little more than the following result: “A .223 caliber weapon (or an AR) killed the children in Connecticut, therefore ban those guns and this won’t happen any more.”  Or something thereabouts.

But occasionally a more technical argument is presented, and (ret.) Lt. Gen. John Castellaw has recently given us one.

The marksmanship and weapon handling skills I learned gave me a good start when I became a Marine. — But if my grandfather were alive today, he would be sorely disappointed that a major reason for gun ownership has changed from being a sportsman to being a “resistance fighter in waiting.”

[ … ]

This generation of assault weapons and ammunition weighs less than previous combat rifles, allowing more ammunition to be carried, hence increased lethality of the basic infantry unit. The wounds produced are more traumatic; the bullet tends to yaw or tumble when it hits soft flesh as it transfers kinetic energy to the body. The reason most cited by purchasers for the frenetic buying is the fear of “the government taking away our Secnd Amendment Rights,” the rallying call not for sportsmen but for aspiring resistance fighters.

This resistance fighter mentality has been stoked by those who seem to feel deeply that our country is in the hands of illegitimate political leadership. The calls for “secession” reveal an inability by a vocal group to abide by the results of our democratic process and instead call for state and local governments as well as individuals to refuse to work within our system. Extremists decry political positions other than their own on topics from immigration reform to forging a plan for government fiscal responsibility. The words used to attack and defend political and cultural beliefs are words of war, not of civil discourse.

We must stop and ask ourselves if our country has gotten to a point where a substantial portion of our citizens has a fear, and maybe hatred, of our popularly elected national leadership and our fellow citizens who may look different or worship differently or vote differently. And is willing to endure multiple Newtowns materially enabled, if not caused, by the easy purchase of combat assault-style weapons.

There are many things we can do to reduce these scenes of carnage, ranging from dealing more effectively with those with severe mental illness to improving the security in our schools to returning to civil political discourse to reducing our culture of violence. One that seems a no-brainer is to make a distinction between a gun designed to hunt game and a gun designed to kill people and act now to keep those weapons for use where they were made for, combat.

He trots out his credentials at the end of the commentary, including being retired USMC.  My son was a Marine who saw combat in Fallujah, and earned the combat action ribbon.  He knows Marine officers who are idiots, and I’ve talked to some of them myself.  His having been a Marine Lt. General means absolutely nothing to me.

My son remarked after the Connecticut shooting that a trained shooter isn’t going to choose an AR anyway.  He will going to use a bolt action rifle with expensive glass and ensconce himself in a protected, stand off position to wreak the most havoc.  But I’m willing to concede the point that a shooter may not be trained like my son.  He was a SAW gunner, but also completed some of the Scout Sniper training and was a designated marksman for his unit.

So what of the AR and its round?  I will also grant the point that I’ve called an AR a legitimate home defense weapon.  If that’s the weapon you choose to defend yourself and your family, it’s immoral to force you to choose otherwise.

But notice the equally absurd (but analogous) arguments he didn’t make.  At the place where the gun aficionados hang out, there are many folk who still (and will always) believe that the best close quarters battle (CQB) weapon every invented by mankind is the .357 magnum revolver.  But note that General Castellaw didn’t argue for making the .357 magnum round illegal because it achieves a velocity that causes hydrostatic shock.

Instead he chose to focus on the fact that it yaws when it strikes tissue.  Even in this, he is wrong.  The 5.56 mm round doesn’t just yaw when it strikes tissue.  It yaws in flight, even with boat tail ammunition.  That’s one reason that it is an effective round for CQB while being inferior to the 7.62 round at distance.

But it was larger caliber rounds that allowed the Texas tower shooter to achieve his nefarious aims.  Those larger caliber rounds don’t yaw and fragment like the 5.56 mm round does.  And that’s the point.  The general knows that the whole issue of the weapon pattern is irrelevant.  Magazine changeout on an AR takes 1 – 2 seconds, and even if you’re shooting a revolver, speedloaders can essentially make the weapon the equivalent of a semi-automatic handgun.  Typical (Bolt Action) deer hunting rifles can be used with great effectiveness to wreak havoc.

He knows that hating on the AR platform is a loser’s argument, so he invokes caliber and ballistics, still a losing argument because of the implications of allowing other calibers and rounds that have other ballistic (but equally deadly) performance.  The argument the general really wants to make in advocating that we distinguish weapons of war with any other is that in his opinion, only the police and military should have those weapons of war, and thus only the police should make war on the civilian population and only the military, under the control of the politicians in approved campaigns, should have the option of sanctioned violence.

But of course, the analogue is that the general also believes that you shouldn’t have the option of choosing certain kinds of weapons for your own defense.  That, dear people, is a political rather than a technical position.  The general is in over his head on ballistics, and it’s better to heed my counsel: “It isn’t the caliber of the weapon one is holding that’s the problem.  It’s the caliber of the one holding the weapon.”

So ban ARs or their round – I cannot stop you, although I can certainly stop you from confiscating mine.  But if you do it, don’t be a coward and hide behind disingenuous and silly arguments that focus on the platform, the round or its ballistics, the pattern, or the safety of the public.  We see through all of those arguments.  Do your deeds because you’re a statist and want to see the public disarmed.  Admit the truth.

As if you didn’t know it was coming.

President Obama on Wednesday urged Congress to vote on measures banning the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines and requiring background checks before any firearm sale, part of an emerging White House response to a massacre last week at a Connecticut elementary school.

[ … ]

In an effort to demonstrate the shift in political thinking since the Newtown shooting, Democrats have tapped Rep. Mike Thompson (Calif.), a lifelong hunter and gun rights activist, to lead their gun-related efforts. Thompson said Wednesday that several Democratic proposals “certainly make sense,” including the ban on high-capacity magazines.

“I’ve been a hunter all my life, and there’s no reason to have a magazine that holds 30 shells,” Thompson said.

I don’t care that he is alleged to have been a hunter his whole life.  That brings with it absolutely no authority to me.  He is a nobody.  And he is no gun rights activist.  But I guess no one who is hunting really does need 30 rounds in a single magazine if you’re hunting regulated game such as deer.  If you’re hunting feral hogs you want as many rounds as you can get,  and if you are defending yourself against a home invasion, you want the best weapon suited for the purpose, including a high capacity magazine, just like Mr. Stephen Bayezes who saved his life with one.

Here is a prediction.  The majority of shooters who are intent on harming people choose multiple firearms (including a mix of guns), or in the future will choose to fabricate their own high capacity magazine if they want it for their nefarious aims.  This ban won’t affect the level of gun violence in the least.  It will, however, increase the power and control of the federal government, and that’s its purpose.

Opening The Nation’s article on Five Assault Rifles You Can Pick Up At Walmart, I expected to be entertained just a bit over the fact that they aren’t really assault rifles.  It was even better than I had expected.  I was treated to this.

I guess you learn something every day, huh?

There is a crescendo in incivility, with gun owners being called everything from stone age vigilantes to tinfoil hat Bircher NRA peckerwood with a long gun.  This is the social media equivalent of the posturing over guns that is occurring on the political scene, but it matters because it emboldens the politicians.

Democratic Senators are threatening a new “assault weapons” ban, something openly pursued by Senator Feinstein immediately after the election.  But in addition to the known anti-firearms politicians, the movement has gained supporters from the ranks of those whom we all knew were anti-firearm, but who persuaded the electorate otherwise.

A growing number of lawmakers – including a leading pro-gun senator – called on Monday for a look at curbing assault weapons like the one used in a massacre at a Connecticut grade school, a sign that attitudes toward gun control could be shifting.

Senator Joe Manchin, a conservative West Virginia Democrat who has earned top marks from the gun industry, said Congress and weapons makers should come together on a “sensible, reasonable approach” to curbing rifles like the one used in the killings Friday of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.

A hunter and member of the National Rifle Association, Manchin said the availability of such high-powered weapons does not make sense and called on the gun lobby group to cooperate with a reform of the nation’s gun laws.

A 10-year U.S. ban on assault weapons expired in 2004.

“We’ve got to sit down. I ask all my friends at NRA – and I’m a proud NRA member and always have been – we need to sit down and move this dialogue to a sensible, reasonable approach to fixing it,” he told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.

“Never before have we seen our babies slaughtered. This never happened in America, that I can recall, ever seeing this kind of carnage,” said Manchin, an avid hunter who once ran a campaign ad showing him firing a rifle at an environmental bill. “This has changed where we go from here.”

Historical scholarship may not be his strong suit.  In 1927, Andrew Kehoe used explosives to attack a local school in Bath, Michigan, apparently being disgruntled over paying higher taxes to fund that school.  Thirty eight children were killed, with one family losing three.  Nearly every family in the town of 300 lost a child.

The only gun Kehoe carried was used to light one of the explosive charges.  The only weapon used by Timothy McVeigh was explosives.  But the point is not to show that it can be worse.  Those poor souls who search for answers in guns, mental illness, and societal problems will search in vain.  The problem is evil, and it is one of the oldest philosophical issues known to man.

The proximate answer for those who would perpetrate violence on you or your loved ones is to respond by stopping them.  Shopping malls, schools, public buildings, parades and other activities and places are often “gun free zones.”  This means that only the criminals have guns, and thus they are unimpeded in their nefarious aims.

The Connecticut shooter, as I pointed out, could have perpetrated his evil acts with single action revolvers and bolt action rifles if he had desired.  No one could stop him, and that’s the problem.  No one could have stopped the criminals who attacked Mr. Bayezes and his wife without the use of a rifle that will be illegal under the Ms. Feinstein’s proposed ban, along with a 30-round magazine.  He emptied one magazine and retreated to find another.

Mr. Bayezes did what what we all should have done, for we all have a moral duty to defend self and family.  Sacrificing the best home defense weapon because someone may use it to perpetrate acts of evil is like being forced to return to horse and buggies because there are 40,000 vehicle accidents every year.

But along with the factual silliness of being worked up over fully automatic weapons (which were not used) and other misdirects, there are nonetheless very clear plans being deployed for sweeping bans.  The Democratic Senators want it, Obama has said that he wants it, and communist China agrees.  The voters in West Virginia who thought they were voting for a conservative or defender of the second amendment got hoodwinked.  Manchin has declared that he is no defender of the second amendment, and the Democrats are getting their support lined up.

The proposed ban may not end with guns.  Token conservative David Brooks has floated the idea of an ammunition ban.  No doubt the Democrats have included this in their plans, but it must make them feel confident to see a “conservative” agree with them.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that you can buy them now while they’re legal and keep them.  Feinstein has made it clear there will be no grandfather clause in her version of gun control.  Besides, grandfather clauses are problematic anyway.  The federal government may not need to enact confiscatory policies immediately.

For example, they may make all or some of our weapons illegal, along with their high capacity magazines, and then empower gun ranges, local law enforcement officers, and gunsmiths to confiscate any illegal component they find, while they also call the ATF.  You may end up in a federal penitentiary if you take your firearms to the range or use them in self defense.

Make no mistake about it.  There is a war on guns and ammunition.  It wasn’t stated by advocates of the second amendment, but it has landed squarely in our laps.  Obama will never have more power than he does now, right after the election, still controlling the Senate, and right after a horrible event such as in Connecticut.

Gird your loins and prepare for the battle if you care about the second amendment and your rights under the constitution and God.  Now is not the time to be weak, weary or squeamish.  In many ways the progressives and statists have been waging this war for years, while many second amendment advocates have sat on the sideline.  It’s time for everyone to play in the game.

UPDATE: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

Prior:

The Wrong Way To Argue About Assault Weapons

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

No One Needs ARs For Self Defense Or Hunting?

Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?

Dreams Of International Gun Control

In a well-intentioned article, Megan McArdle argues against Dianne Feinstein’s proposed new assault weapons ban this way.

There’s little evidence that the assault weapons ban achieved its ostensible purpose of making America safer; we did not see the predicted spike in crime when it expired in 2004. That’s not really surprising, because long guns aren’t used in the majority of gun crimes, and “assault weapon” is a largely cosmetic rather than functional description; the guns that were taken off the street were not noticeably more lethal than the ones that remained. It was a largely symbolic law that made proponents of gun control feel good about “doing something”.

But we should not have largely symbolic laws that require real and large regulatory interventions.  There should always  be a presumption in favor of economic liberty, as there is with other liberties; to justify curtailing them, we need a benefit more tangible than warm and fuzzy feelings in the hearts of American liberals.  But that is not the only reason that we should oppose ineffective, or marginally effective, regulations.  There’s also an important question of government and social capacity.

Every regulation you pass has a substantial non-monetary cost. Implementing it and overseeing that implementation absorbs some of the attention of legislators and agency heads, a finite resource.  It also increases the complexity of the regulatory code, and as the complexity increases, so does uncertainty.

Similarly, the Florida Assault Weapons Commission found no evidence of increased danger to the people of Florida from any specific kind of weapon.  But while the sentiment of McArdle’s commentary is laudable, the theme and thrust of the argument is not.

In Virginia, crime rates have continued to drop as gun sales soar.

Gun-related violent crime in Virginia has dropped steadily over the past six years as the sale of firearms has soared to a new record, according to an analysis of state crime data with state records of gun sales.

The total number of firearms purchased in Virginia increased 73 percent from 2006 to 2011. When state population increases are factored in, gun purchases per 100,000 Virginians rose 63 percent.

But the total number of gun-related violent crimes fell 24 percent over that period, and when adjusted for population, gun-related offenses dropped more than 27 percent, from 79 crimes per 100,000 in 2006 to 57 crimes in 2011.

The numbers appear to contradict a long-running popular narrative that more guns cause more violent crime, said Virginia Commonwealth University professor Thomas R. Baker, who compared Virginia crime data for those years with gun-dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

“While there is a wealth of academic literature attempting to demonstrate the relationship between guns and crime, a very simple and intuitive demonstration of the numbers seems to point away from the premise that more guns leads to more crime, at least in Virginia,” said Baker, who specializes in research methods and criminology theory and has an interest in gun issues.

The ownership of weapons neither causes increased violence nor enables would-be offenders.  What McArdle misses here is that lethality isn’t the point.  Utility is the point.  Over the Thanksgiving Holidays I shot a 0.27 bolt action rifle with nice glass.  The design is intended for target shooting or deer hunting, but not (per se) home or personal defense.  The round is nice, and I like the lack of recoil compared to 7.62 mm or other .30 variants, but my AR’s sweet 5.56 mm round with its high capacity magazine makes it my weapon of choice for personal defense, or one of my several handguns with high capacity magazines if they are what I happen to be carrying or holding at the time.

Leaving aside Hamilton’s argument in Federalist No. 28 (which would only serve to strengthen my point), it is unwise to argue that the stipulations of the assault weapons ban are merely cosmetic or incidental.  Any weapon that has a detachable magazine that contains more than ten rounds is considered to be an assault weapon, and this includes handguns.  Now, it’s important at this point to rehearse the recent example of Stephen Bayezes of South Carolina.

A North Augusta gun store owner used a semi-automatic weapon when he opened fire on three men who broke into his business early Thursday, killing one and sending two others to the hospital with gunshot wounds, officials said.

The break-in occurred around 4 a.m. at the Guns and Ammo Gunsmith, located on Edgefield Road in North Augusta, said Aiken County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jason Feemster, a spokesman for the agency.

Stephen Bayazes Jr., 57, who lives in an attached apartment in the rear of the business with his wife, said he awoke to a loud bang and the silent store alarm going off.

Police said he got out of bed, grabbed his AR-15 weapon and found three men inside the store.

The men crashed a vehicle into the business and were smashing display cases and taking guns when he said he heard one of the men shout, “kill that (expletive deleted ).”

He told investigators he emptied a .223-caliber 30-round magazine and then retreated to his room to reload.

When he returned, he said he saw the vehicle pulling out from the business.

Note again.  He emptied a 30-round magazine and then had to go for another.  In Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?, I have also noted 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-man home invasions all over the country that could have been stopped with weapons and high capacity magazines.  Unfortunately, Mr. Bayazes’ experience isn’t unique.

The utility of a light recoil weapon firing with a high capacity magazine saved his life.  It is immoral to relegate any law abiding citizen to the use of a weapon that doesn’t have the features he needs to defend himself or his family.  But for Feinstein it isn’t about self defense or morality.  Nor is it important to her that Virginia statistics don’t lend support for the notion that her proposed controls would reduce crime (Here the point isn’t about correlation and causation.  In order to demonstrate that gun control achieves its “purported” purpose, one must find evidence that it reduces crime, and it is the absence of this evidence that is remarkable).

Gun control at its root has always been about gun control.  Feinstein is a statist, and her laws and regulations will always and forever increase the power of the state.  Feinstein sees through McArdle’s argument on cosmetics, which is why her proposed ban includes semi-automatic weapons.  There isn’t anything cosmetic about the aims of the gun control advocates.

Arguing that their bans don’t adequately distinguish between weapons leads them to refine their ban.  Arguing that there is equivalent lethality between weapons denies aspects of utility and design, and only causes them to ban weapons that have specific utility for home and self defense.  And arguing that their regulations were ineffective only embarrasses them to pass even more onerous ones.

The correct way to argue against Feinstein’s proposed assault weapons ban is to argue that there is no constitutional basis for such a ban, and any new assault weapons ban would be at least as immoral and obscene as the last one was.

UPDATE: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention.

UPDATE #2: Thanks to Michael Bane for the attention.

UPDATE #3: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention.

UPDATE #4: Thanks to Mike Vanderboegh for the attention.

I’ve previously documented how an AR can be useful for entertainment and the study of the science of firearms, defining it this way.

While ATF lawyers might disagree, for something to have a “sporting purpose” means nothing more than it can be taken to the range and operated by the owner to his or her entertainment or training.  The shooting skills – whether for official competitions such as IDPA or 3-Gun, or for unofficial activities such as regular range visits for the purpose of betterment at the science of firearms operation – are sports.  All of them.  Period.  This is non-negotiable.  If it is a firearm, it has a sporting purpose.

Then again, ARs are useful for hunting as I’ve also shown.  I’ve also documented two-, three-, four- and five-man home invasions in which an AR was either used or could have been in self defense.

But that isn’t all.  Feral hogs have become a blight on the landscape and terrain of much of America.

What do wild hogs do that’s so bad?

Oh, not much. They just eat the eggs of the sea turtle, an endangered species, on barrier islands off the East Coast, and root up rare and diverse species of plants all over, and contribute to the replacement of those plants by weedy, invasive species, and promote erosion, and undermine roadbeds and bridges with their rooting, and push expensive horses away from food stations in pastures in Georgia, and inflict tusk marks on the legs of these horses, and eat eggs of game birds like quail and grouse, and run off game species like deer and wild turkeys, and eat food plots planted specially for those animals, and root up the hurricane levee in Bayou Sauvage, Louisiana, that kept Lake Pontchartrain from flooding the eastern part of New Orleans, and chase a woman in Itasca, Texas, and root up lawns of condominiums in Silicon Valley, and kill lambs and calves, and eat them so thoroughly that no evidence of the attack can be found.

And eat red-cheeked salamanders and short-tailed shrews and red-back voles and other dwellers in the leaf litter in the Great Smoky Mountains, and destroy a yard that had previously won two “‘Yard of the Month” awards on Robins Air Force Base, in central Georgia, and knock over glass patio tables in suburban Houston, and muddy pristine brook-trout streams by wallowing in them, and play hell with native flora and fauna in Hawaii, and contribute to the near-extinction of the island fox on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California, and root up American Indian historic sites and burial grounds, and root up a replanting of native vegetation along the banks of the Sacramento River, and root up peanut fields in Georgia, and root up sweet-potato fields in Texas, and dig big holes by rooting in wheat fields irrigated by motorized central-pivot irrigation pipes, and, as the nine-hundred-foot-long pipe advances automatically on its wheeled supports, one set of wheels hangs up in a hog-rooted hole, and meanwhile the rest of the pipe keeps on going and begins to pivot around the stuck wheels, and it continues and continues on its hog-altered course until the whole seventy-five-thousand-dollar system is hopelessly pretzeled and ruined.

They have run farmers in Georgia and Texas completely out of business and threatened men, women and children with injury and loss of income.  But now comes an account of the use of ARs to address the problem.

Quite simply, what used to be vast tracks of empty land has filled up with people. The wilds where hunters once roamed now sport tract housing and double wides. It’s a big reason gun ownership is declining in America — down 40 percent since 1977.

But here on Campbell’s big farm is a little piece of what once was. And like many of his peers who came of age in the ’70s and ’80s, Campbell saw no reason for his daughters to be excluded from the rituals he grew up with.

[ … ]

At his farmhouse, Campbell goes to his gun safe.

“It will hold about 40 guns, and I’ve got about 25 in there. But I’ve got some really neat guns,” Campbell says. “I’ve got my grandfather’s .22. I have an STW. I have an AR-15. I have a Smith & Wesson .22-250.”

Some of the rifles are for deer. Campbell has many beautiful shotguns because he is an avid duck hunter. He uses the AR-15, which is essentially the military’s M16, to hunt feral hogs. We go out back, and the judge lets fly with the semiautomatic.

“I’ve got a night vision scope on it. And the hogs only come out at 2 o’clock in the morning. There are certain spots they come out at. I drive up very quietly. I’m normally only 200 yards out, and I turn on my little trusty night vision scope and I smoke ’em. All of ’em,” Campbell says. “I can shoot 30 shots in eight seconds, and I’ve killed as many as 26 out of 30 shots at night with that gun.”

As for any willingness to compromise on something like limiting the size of ammunition clips, Campbell says if Democrats could be trusted not to ask for more and more, he’d consider it. But he says you can’t trust Democrats in general, and you certainly can’t trust Obama. And he says liberals mistake gun owners’ enmity toward the president for something it’s not.

“It’s not a black thing, it’s a liberal thing,” Campbell says.

Well, first in order to correct some misconceptions, it is simply a farce to claim that gun ownership is declining in America.  Second – and let me be clear about this – magazine capacity is a non-negotiable.  But third, note the use of the AR to save the terrain, protect indigenous species, protect the plant life, prevent erosion, and save the farmers.

It’s like the health benefits of red wine or coffee.  Is there anything an AR can’t do?

UPDATE #1: Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the attention!

UPDATE #2: Thanks to David Codrea for the attention!

UPDATE #3: My friend Joey MacRae, one of the premier quarter horse trainers in America, hunts feral hogs a different way down around Anderson, S.C.  He releases his bay dogs to bay up the pigs.  When they do he releases his strike dogs, and when the strike dogs get the pig, Joey goes in with a long knife and kills the pig himself with a strike to the heart.  Thanks, but if I go hog hunting I’ll stick to a gun.

UPDATE #4: Thanks to New Jovian Thunderbolt for the attention!  Maybe Benjamin wants to loan me his M-14 for a while?  I’m cool with that too.

UPDATE #5: Thanks to Michael Bane for the attention!

UPDATE #6: Thanks to Bill Quick for the attention!

UPDATE #7: Thanks to Say Uncle for the attention!

UPDATE #8: Thanks to Ace for the attention!

Prior:

Happy Assault Weapons Ban Sunset Provision Day!

No One Needs ARs For Self Defense Or Hunting?

Do We Have A Constitutional Right To Own An AR?