Hi, there. I'm a gun owner. I have in my house, right at this moment: 2 pistols, 2 rifles, and 3 shotguns. Which is a lot, especially considering that my wife has never touched any of them. I'd like to talk to you about why America's obsession with AR-15s is just so damn odd.
For decades – as far back as the ATF hands out statistics on the website – Americans bought about 3 million firearms a year. Which seems like a lot. These aren't paper napkins. They're not disposable. Every gun I own is over 40 years-old. One of the shotguns was made in 1908.
Around 2008, the number of new guns bought each year started going up rapidly. After decades at around 3 million a year, it jumped to 5, then 6, then 8, then 10. What happened? What happened was a whole new category of gun.
Up until around 2008, the majority of rifles sold fell into one of two categories: .22 rimfire 'plinkers' used for holing paper targets or hunting small game, and larger centerfire 'deer rifles' used for pretty much anything bigger than a ground hog. Many were lever or bolt action.
Guns like the AR-15 were out there, of course. I saw plenty of ads in my Sports Afield or Field & Stream when I was a kid (and I'm old). I just never knew what the hell I would do with one. They were expensive to buy, expensive to shoot, and kind of useless.
An AR-15 is worse, and a lot more costly, for shooting at targets than a .22. You certainly can't use it on small game. When it comes to deer, or elk, or antelope, it's not nearly so good as guns purpose built to knock down those targets. For decades, most gun owners agreed.
When people talk about the AR-15 as "America's favorite rifle," what they leave out is that this is an extremely recent phenomenon. Go back a couple of decades, and these guns were a tiny percentage of gun sales. Even for gun owners, they were kind of a rarely seen item.
It wasn't until 2005 that sales of AR-15 style rifles, from all manufacturers, exceeded 100K in a year. By 2008, they had jumped to 300K. In 2012, they exceeded 1 million. They topped 1.5 million just one year later. The AR-15 *became* "America's favorite rifle" in just a few years.
In the last few years, deer didn't suddenly become smarter. Rabbits didn't stage an uprising. Woodchucks didn't discover flack jackets. What did happen was a national epidemic of fear, one that allowed expansion of a new category: rifles for hunting people.
That 3 million or so annual demand for plinkers, deer rifles, shotguns, and target pistols is still there, as it always has been. It's just that now it's topped by 6 million+ a year in AR-15s and ugly Glock-style pistols (guns for hunting people, pocket edition).
Which means that in the last two decades millions of Americans purchased guns that really aren't much good for anything other than shooting millions of other Americans. And that "America's favorite rife" is a gun few gun owners cared about until very recently.
But of course, everyone has reason to care about AR-15s now. And to worry about people who are SO DAMNED SCARED that they paid out large sums to buy a machine designed for nothing else but killing people. In large numbers. Quickly.
Mark Sumner
11 comments:
Very good summary of the craziness going on.
Excellent. I'm very comfortable with guns. I spent 10 years in the ARMY and I own a gun, but I am 100% opposed to the NRA nutcases and their ammosexual desire to see America awash in high powered weaponry. News flash; We're already there! Nobody needs a semi-automatic weapon, nobody. You can't properly hunt with one and, despite the semantics the radical right loves to play on the topic, everyone knows what a high powered, multi-round weapon is used for -- killing people.
Sure the 2nd Amendment is important, and nobody is calling for all guns to go, but we also have a right to feel secure sending our kids to school (and arming teachers is a frickin stupid idea) and we have the right not to be murdered by some NRA loving nut with 100 rounds and an AK47.
If only more firearm enthusiasts were blessed with Mr. Sumner's common sense and understanding. I guess the America many of us beleived in is gone. Gone for good if the NRA and Q-GOP ultimately have their way.
This is where I go super left. I think all guns should be banned. I think we have proved that we cannot have guns in our society without killing about 50,000 people a year. If there were no guns, we wouldn't need the excuse to have a gun to protect our selves. If we need to cull herds we already have a system to do that. I'm not afraid of some foreign invasion on our land and we have the biggest military in the world to protect us. Our military makes a civilian militia unnecessary. I find it illogical to defend all these killing machines (guns). I'm aware an American society without guns will not happen, so we will just keep killing each other.
Watching people with their war-guns always reminds me of the Heinlein quote they keep parroting, of which, like the 2nd Amendment, those people leave out half.
"Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. For me, politeness is a sine qua non of civilization. That’s a personal evaluation only. But gun-fighting has a strong biological use. We do not have enough things that kill off the weak and the stupid these days. But to stay alive as an armed citizen a man has to be either quick with his wits or with his hands, preferably both. It’s a good thing."
And the addition (can't remember from where): Mankind has no predators. We have nothing to fear ... except each other.
Sad.
Jerry I'm with you on that, but I also realize that it's too late. We are a country saturated with guns and sick with a gun culture. The only solution is to live in a state with strict gun laws and hope any surrounding state without good gun restrictions won't have its nuts come across state lines and massacre fellow citizens.
I'm for registering every gun that's bought and having the owners carry insurance. Just like a car.
KanaW, I didn't know that quote came from Heinlein -- one of my favorite books, Stranger in a Strange Land -- by him.
Also your last sentence reminded me of this: "We have met the enemy, and he is us!"
"We have met the enemy and they are ours," part of a message from American naval officer Oliver Hazard Perry in 1813 after defeating and capturing Royal Navy ships in the Battle of Lake Erie. We have met the enemy and he is us, Pogo creator Walt Kelly's 20th century parody of Perry's quote.
Well, there are RESPONSIBLE hunters, RESPONSIIBLE competetive shooters, RESPONSIBLE plinkers tarket practicing, RESPONSIBLE firearms collectors that no doubt would disagree with you Jerry. I among them.
Some of these comments actually sound a bit like an attack on responsible hunters and sportsmen as well as domestic terrorists. Not advisable methinks.
If we want less push back against the agenda of firearm restrictions we (congress & the senate) need write into law a uniform national standard that blankets all 50 states. Any such law would need uniform restrictions and regulations as well as uniform responses for violation of any aspect of the law.
This can be rationally and intelligently accomplished. Without banning firearms and screwing millions of responsible sportsmen and hunters who are responsible law abiding citizens.
What RN said...... :)
I get your point RN.
But don't forget about the gun accidents that happen in homes with responsible gun owners. Mad men who do these multiple murders are a small percent of the gun deaths in America. Thousands of children die from gun accidents in homes who would be considered responsible gun owners. Passion leads people to grab a gun and kill people. If that gun wasn't there maybe their passion would subside without a murder. There are many other reasons why the unavailability of a gun would save a life. Most gun deaths are accidents, not intentional killings.
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