David Chipman was an Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco agent and now he’s being nominated by Joe Biden to head ATF. The right-wing is amassing against him as their worst nightmare, someone who is single handedly going to take away their guns and abrogate the second amendment — and all he has said is that he wants to ban the AR-15. Just another day in hysterical disinformation world.
Look who’s leading the charge. This says it all.
David Chipman, Biden's radical ATF nominee, is a massive threat to our Second Amendment #2A rights. The Senate should reject his nomination.#StopChipman Fact of the Day: During his recent Senate testimony, Chipman said he supports a COMPLETE ban on modern sporting rifles. pic.twitter.com/0v00kXMeTW
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 9, 2021
Fun Fact of the Day: Chipman never used the term “modern sporting rifles” and the AR-15 has never been classified as a sporting rifle.
— Slugbait (@Slug_B8) July 9, 2021
The only way the AR-15 is a “sporting rifle” is if humans are the game that you’re hunting. Unless you’re The Predator, hunting humans for sport probably isn’t your bag. Although, who knows, the right-wing nut jobs probably would put The Predator on the GOP ticket if they could get ahold of him.
What’s being discussed here is the GOP wanting to allow weapons of war into civilian hands, despite the mushrooming of mass murders in this country, in this year alone. The Hill:
“I support a ban as has been presented in a Senate bill and supported by the president. The AR-15 is a gun I was issued on ATF’s swat team and it’s a particularly lethal weapon and regulating it as other particularly lethal weapons, I have advocated for,” Chipman said.
“As ATF director, if I’m confirmed, I would simply enforce the laws in the books and right now, there is no such ban on those guns,” he added.
Cruz said that the AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America and that “it’s not a machine gun.”
If Ted Cruz is right and the AR-15 is “the most popular rifle in America,” then we are truly phuqued. The second amendment is geared towards protecting the home. You don’t need a weapon of war to protect the home against a break in, anymore than you need an electrical fence to kill a fly.
Americans are dying en masse from shootings in the street and the GOP is going along with it, to make the gun lobby happy. I would ask the standard rhetorical question, “how many more have to die?” but I won’t, because we’re dealing with a political party that doesn’t care if Americans die, whether from gun violence or the coronavirus. They’ve got a completely different agenda than protecting human life, namely greed and power.
They think it’s some kind of sport to target-shoot with AR15s. I’m not sure why. You’d need a mountain behind the target line for it to be even approximately safe.
Having qualified in Army basic with the M-16, I think I can explain the attraction. Basically the rifle is a beefed up .22. It has NO KICK when you shoot it. I also enjoyed the accuracy when shooting targets on the range. I also heartily agree that it is a weapon of war, like all assault rifles, and does not belong on our streets.
An AR 15 is NOT a weapon of war, nor is it an actual assault rifle. It is specifically the CIVILIAN version of the M 16, which IS a weapon of war, and IS an assault rifle.
I rather doubt Chipman was issued an AR 15 when he was in ATF SWAT; I suspect it was actually an M 16.
You don’t need a mountain behind the target line when shooting an AR 15, as Cherl+Harrell rightly says, it’s basically a .22 with some more powder behind it. A .308 rifle or a .357 magnum pistol are both more powerful.
I oh so loath having to say this, but Cancun Cruz is correct on this subject. And there are actually a lot of reasons why it’s so popular. It’s a good rifle and a versatile platform. Which means each owner can make their gun fit their body and shooting style/needs. And then there’s the “it Looks just like an M 16” which really gives all the ammosexuals a boner.
Thought Experiment for you all: go on Google Images and look up “mini 14 ranch rifle” The firearm you see shoots the same ammo as AR 15’s/M 16’s, and has the same rate of fire and general ballistics as an AR 15. But nobody’s afraid of them. Maybe cuz they’re not popular or cuz they don’t look like an M 16?
Yes AR 15’s are used to kill people. But the majority of murders, both individual and group, are with handguns.
We need to know what our enemy Really looks like. To me it looks like a domestic abuser who goes to a gun show, gets a .38 and keeps it in the cup-holder of his jacked-up Chevy pickup. A 104# housewife who wants an AR 15 cuz it’s the only thing comfortable for her to shoot doesn’t bother me.
Sigh…
For the purposes of this response I’ll stick to AR15/M16 instead of addressing all the variants. The issue is the “action”, the working parts that fire a round, eject the spent cartridge casing and load a new round into the chamber – and of course the trigger mechanism which depending on the rifle and for those that have options the rate/type of fire selector switch.
The AR15 is the civilian version because it is MANUFACTURED as a semi-auto weapon – meaning one pull of the trigger shoots one round. The M16/military version can be selected with a switch to fire semi-auto, automatic (hold the trigger down and it keeps shooting until you let up or the magazine is empty) or in some version “burst” fire (three rounds per pull of the trigger). As I alluded to different companies manufacture their own variations of the original M16/AR15. There is even a regular looking (and handling) version you mentioned made popular by Ruger – the Mini 14 which has some variations but the main one shoots the same .223 or 5.56 cartridge as the M16/AR15 assault weapons and at the same muzzle velocity. It is even designed in the basic version to use either round. (For those who don’t know in some versions of the actual assault style weapon those two rounds aren’t always interchangeable and bad things can happen with use of the wrong round due to headspace tolerance in the chamber but I’m really getting into the weeds here) The Mini 14 even has a version designed to shoot the 7.65 round that the old M14 used. I mentioned muzzle velocity of the Mini 14 for a reason and will get into that later.
At issue is what makes a rifle an assault rifle and why. It’s not as many would assume about looking “cool” or “badass” but rather some quite practical functionality. Take Cittern Sean’s mention of the Mini 14 which correctly notes it looks like a traditional rifle which is why few people freak out about it. Yes, it looks very different from what we know as assault weapons and that’s why it isn’t one.
Assault weapons, in addition to being able to fire fully automatic (and the semi-auto civilian versions can readily be converted to do so, or as the Las Vegas mass murderer proved nearly so with a “bump-stock”) the pistol grip isn’t there just to look cool. It’s there so the user can easily control the weapon both while firing rapid fire or automatic and ALSO during magazine changes which relates to another feature. The pistol grip allows the user to keep the weapon “in shoulder” (aimed at the target and ready to fire once reloaded) or pointed at the target if for some reason someone is shooting “John Wayne” style from the hip. (Something I always thought was stupid when I was on active duty but that’s how they wanted us to do a final assault in training at least) I mentioned magazine changes because that’s another crucial feature of assault weapons that differentiates them from regular rifles including Mini 14s. A magazine well that extends well down below the action of the rifle. It’s also slightly (only slightly) larger than actual magazines but it’s just enough that with a little practice one can learn to feed in a fresh (loaded) magazine without looking.
The pistol grip and extended magazine well are what makes the difference. It allows a shooter that’s practiced (and not all that much in case you’re wondering) to be able to keep the weapon pointed AT THE TARGET and reload in less than a couple of seconds. They don’t have to look down. They can keep their focus on where their next shots are going. You simply can’t do that with traditionally styled rifles of the type designed for hunting, or even with a great military rifle like the old M1 Garand, or early versions of the M14. With a lot of practice you can do okay, but not anywhere near as efficiently as with a true modern assault weapon.
I spoke earlier about muzzle velocity so be prepared – this will get graphic. Prior to the M16/AR15 and the .223/5.56 NATO round muzzle velocities of both hunting rifles and military rifles topped out at 2800 feet per second. The astounding thing about the M16 was its muzzle velocity was much higher – 3250fps and in some versions (and variants) even a bit higher. Why does that matter? That extra four to five hundred foot per second speed combined with a smaller round that immediately starts to “tumble” when it hits something (like a big game animal or a human being) AND the extra velocity creates significant cavitation along the wound track. At 2800fps damage is appalling but confined pretty much to the track of the bullet, and the larger (and heavier) rounds of the older rifles could even hit some bones and not vary their track all that much if they were still traveling at close to peak velocity.
As I said, the .223/5.56 rounds are smaller and lighter in addition to traveling at a much higher speed, and they tumble when they hit. It doesn’t even always have to be bone to cause them to tumble. But, and this is important their speed creates that cavitation that EXTENSIVELY damages tissue including in major muscles across a four inch track. That’s why ER docs hate them so much. Any gunshot wound is bad enough but the damage from assault weapons whether they be true military ones or civilian versions shooting the .223/5.56 rounds is appalling and significantly reduces their ability to save limbs and even lives if someone makes it to the ER alive – and I should note there is plenty of literature on the difference in these wounds vs. those from even extremely powerful handguns like Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum.
All that tissue damage means someone using their “Look at me! I’m just like Rambo!” GUN for hunting is a dickhead that wastes meat that could have gone into the freezer. And for “big” big game hunting like for elk, caribou or moose where shots might need to be taken from hillside to plain or hillside to hillside by which I’m talking six to eight hundred yards then the M16/AR15 just isn’t up to the job. In the Corps back in my day when I learned to shoot it the maximum effective range was 460 meters – about five hundred yards. Since I was out west where ranges were in meters we had to do part of our qualification from five hundred METERS. Beyond the actual effective range of the damned thing. At leas the “bulls eye” wasn’t the traditional one, but an outline of an average sized person kneeling. Still no easy task to hit but not anywhere near the precision needed to pull off a good kill shot on big game which even if you hit it but didn’t place the shot so it shattered the heart would allow the animal to run away. And think about in the mountains at elevation trying to track an animal that ran off with only a small entrance wound (leaving little blood trail) when you were to hell and gone from where it was when you shot it!
Even for deer hunting in the lower 48 a lot of deer that aren’t put down by the shot aren’t found when hit with an AR15. And if it is in fact a crippling shot a lot of meat is ruined.
Call me crazy, or an old fashioned fuddy duddy but if I was still physically able to hunt I wouldn’t want to waste a significant portion of the meat that would have gone into the freezer just so I could pretend I was back on active duty in the Corps. Or RAMBO!
I hope I’ve addressed why I think you are wrong. It’s sickening how many of these goddamned weapons are out there and why. People can rationalize all they want and in all to many cases to cove their bullshit RAMBO fantasies but whether it’s the civilian AR15 version (which can still deliver a helluva lot of firepower and as I explained easily reloaded with devastating effect) or a converted to auto capability one these things are designed quite specifically for ONE purpose and one purpose ONLY.
To rapidly kill other human beings.
They have no place outside of the military.
Damn … Denis, your articulate and accurate explanation has been one of my biggest gripes about the the so-called target/hunting, jerk’s claims … Cruz, as usual, who, by-the-way has cooked bacon wrapped around his AR-15 barrel as he fired repeatedly into a hopefully 100% effective bullet trap …
His lack of intelligence speaks loudly about why our country needs more clean-ups along the way by Biden and crew … given ANY opportunity to vote-in Democrats over Republicans in virtually ANY State office OR our Congress Proper, will be a given as it seems the complicity with Trump and all his lies, the general swing to controlling the votes at state level and the ignorance shown by Republican voices of 01-06 was just like tourists having a great day if you did not know it was a Trump-sent mission … to destroy Democracy AND our precious Capitol building …
Thanks again for the detailed report on man-killing weapons … during the ban on AR-15 type weapons before, I understand there were fewer mass shootings …