Assuming proper training and ammunition, they’re perfectly capable for hunting small to medium game such as rabbits, coyotes, tyrants, wild hogs, and whitetail deer.
I don’t think some people know how much damage a pack of wild hogs can cause to crops and farmland in short order. If it wasn’t going to be an AR-15 keeping them off the farm it would be another intermediate or higher caliber semi-automatic rifle that accepts standard magazines. Everyone want’s to laugh at that excuse until the farmer has a bad season and has to sell his land to Bill Gates or Chinese investors, they don’t exactly make large margins.
The magazine capacity is an issue though. The standard 30 round mag is far to large for any realistic hunting purposes (you can also get up to 100 round drum mags). While you can hunt with an AR-15, it’s not the best rifle for the task.
I live in Canada and the government is in the process of banning semi-automatic centre fire rifles capable of holding more than 5 rounds. Given that 3D printers exist, this pretty much bans all rifles with interchangeable mags. I’m a gun owner on a rural property and I think that’s a reasonable compromise. I can still own a decent bolt action hunting rifle and a semi-automatic rim fire rifle with no mag limit.
It does suck for people who’s rifles are getting banned though.While you can hunt with an AR-15, it’s not the best rifle for the task.
It’s not the best rifle for any task. But it’s a good enough rifle for most tasks, and between real AR-15s and the various clones they are cheap, in common calibers, and have accessories widely available.
Which is why it’s the most common rifle in the US by a fair margin.
It being the most common rifle in the US by a fair margin is in turn why it’s so often used in public mass shootings, as those are usually done with weapons of convenience rather than something bought for purpose. Likely also why the guy who shot Trump used one.
If a public mass shooter wanted the best gun for the job, they’d get something closer to a PS-90 (the civilian version of the P-90 which is a military rifle designed for urban combat).
You’d really want something bigger for hogs and deer. Never known anyone who hunts deer with .223. You really want one of options in thirty caliber.
While I’m sure someone hunts rabbits with a rifle you’d really use a shotgun or a really small rifle for them.
.223 is a good coyote round though. There are better coyote rounds available and there are better coyote rifles in .223.
.300 Blackout for hogs.
You can get an AR-15 chambered for this, or easily swap a few parts if you already have one.
AR-15’s are popular because it’s an easily modifiable platform. It’s not the best for any one thing, but it’s pretty good at a variety.
I’ve taken deer with 556. Even if I hadn’t, I know people do because all the heavy loads sell out around deer season.
i was under the assumption an ar15 would explode something like a rabbit without useable trace?
Nah, it’s a small round as rifles go. “High powered military rifle” is a complete misnomer.
The likely issue there is less the size of the round and more the impact of the pressure wave on tissue. Body shots with a standard high-powered rifle round may not leave much useable meat on something the size of a rabbit.
Yeah, if you want meat. Farmers usually want to control rabbits from eating everything else.
People joke about the shooter “missing”, but at a few hundred feet away, a 2" miss is clearly within the influence of wind.
Trump got extremely lucky. I don’t think this was the result of a poor shot.
What’s that? I don’t think Trump can 'ear you.
Too soon?
Not soon enough.
I mean I think I’d say it was more the result of poor preparation than anything. I think most places are saying he had like, 3 shots or somewhere around there, and apparently his rifle had no optic on it at all, which is kind of an insane idea at that distance. Which I think also maybe lends credence to the idea that this was just some impulse decision rather than a prepared kind of thing. I don’t think it’s that hard of a shot to make in general, even given the single opportunity that you’re going to be working with, I’ve hit soda cans with .22s at similar ranges. You barely have to take into account windage or holdover and I haven’t seen any evidence of heavy wind on the day of, really.
So, I dunno, I think it’s probably just an idiot kid killing himself in like, some elaborate suicide by cop or something. or just a dumb groyper, jury’s still out.
Ar-15s are potentially ok hunting rifles for large birds and small mammals although there are better options out there.
The main argument I’ve heard for an AR besides the larp thing is that it’s easy to find compatible accessories because it’s a popular “open source” common platform.
But honestly any hunter who is serious about hunting with .223 probably has a better gun that they hunt with.
Its also cheap and can be handled by most people of all sizes. Its probably the best overall gun to own for most purposes.
They are good hunting rifles for feral hogs actually, 30 round mags included.
Plus, banning certain magazine sizes or particular models of rifle isn’t really going to fix anything, but things like universal background checks would probably help.
Truly “Universal” background checks are just a way of criminalizing the overwhelming majority of “transfers” between known and trusted parties. We don’t need this sort of “universal” background check. This approach is only intended to cast FUD on ownership.
The current law basically says it is illegal to “knowingly” transfer a gun to a prohibited person. The problem is that there is no reliable, publicly-accessible means for a private individual to “know” that an individual is prohibited. NICS checks are not available to the public; they are only available to FFL dealers. So long as the recipient doesn’t disclose their prohibited status, it is basically impossible to prove a private seller “knew” the buyer was prohibited.
The solution should be obvious: establish a means of publicly accessing NICS. Have the buyer perform a check in themselves, and provide the seller with a verification code to securely and confidentially access the results of that check.
With that access in place, a seller can know, and can legally be expected to know the status of a buyer. The “knowingly” criteria can now be presumed to have been met, and willful ignorance on the part of the seller is no longer a viable defense.
This approach makes it possible to prosecute 100% of private sellers who transfer to felons, without criminalizing any innocent transfers. It accomplishes every legitimate purpose of “universal” background checks, without any of the harmful, “unintended” FUD that truly universal checks would impose.
I’ve heard a lot of terrible takes when it comes to the gun control debate. But this might be the first well thought out proposal I’ve heard.
And they’re apparently good for hunting the elusive unarmed school children in the middle of class. 30 round mags included!
So would any number of other rifles, handguns, and/or shotguns. Focusing on a single rifle is pointless.
Its a good thing the second amendment doesn’t just include a clause for hunting! People often forget it says
“A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Too many people don’t understand that “militia” and “people” are synonymous as used in 2A.
If said people are a part of a well-regulated militia, sure. I don’t know of many who are…oh wait, I know of none because militias in the terms the founders would define don’t exist anymore. The closest thing is the National Guard.
But yeah, whatever the courts say is always right and never wrong. So militias are all people, corporations are people, and a collection of cells are people. But veterans coming home from war? Nope, get a job slackers. Can’t afford a home? Live on the streets, slackers. Oh homelessness is illegal now? Time for prison, slackers.
If said people are a part of a well-regulated militia, sure
This is the exact misconception I was talking about.
The militia consists of the “whole body of the people”. We know this from various contemporary writings, including descriptions in the Federalist Papers. We know how the term was used in the constitution, and we know it was used to refer to “We The People”.
In the constitution, it is always referred to as a singular entity. It is never referred to in the plural: there are no such thing as “militias”; there is only one “militia”.
You mentioned the National Guard. In constitutional terms, the National Guard would be a “[provision] for calling forth the militia” (Article I, Section 8, part 15). The members of the national guard haven’t been called forth to the militia. They have been called forth from the militia. This becomes obvious when we look at the other major provision for calling forth the militia: Selective Service. The Draft.
Congress’s authority to institute a draft, compelling “We The People” to report for military training and service against our individual will comes from their power to “call forth” the militia. We are members of the militia, and we are called forth. We are called forth from the militia, not to it. Congress would have no power to draft us if we were not members of the militia, and subject to their provisions established under the militia clauses. Which means that We The People are, in fact, the militia described in Article I and the Second Amendment.
If you don’t feel you and your fellow militiamen are adequately “well regulated”, you should petition Congress to impose more requirements than what they currently deem necessary and proper regulation of the militia, and I’ll see you at the next muster.
What you describe is an interpretation that the courts have laid out, nothing more. And the point I make is that the courts are many times wrong. And in this case, it is wrong. One aspect is that women were not called
to(sorry) FROM militia. Yet women are afforded this right today, yes? So a single woman prior to the courts’ various opinions over the centuries would not have such a right, since they would not be a part of the militia – thus, the founders did not intend on it being every person. In fact, women were not even considered full citizens then since they did not possess the right to vote. Then there’s the subject of slaves which I have no interest in diving into since that’s an even bigger can of worms.The point is that interpretations is what has won, not original intent. You can hand-wave this as a misconception all you want, but there is logic in it. And that logic is that the Constitution was designed to change over time solely because the founders could not envision the future state of existence, only lay the groundwork for such. Therefore as the second amendment is written, women at minimum should not have this right because, even today, they cannot be drafted – by your own statements: “the militia: Selective Service. The Draft.”
You raise a very, very good point.
So a single woman prior to the courts’ various opinions over the centuries would not have such a right, since they would not be a part of the militia
What you are describing are the provisions Congress has made under their authority in Article I. They have created a legislative definition of “militia” (10 USC 246) that is restricted to male citizens. Female national guardsmen are the only women that fit within this legislative definition.
I think we can agree that Congress is fully empowered to change its legislative definition. We would probably agree that the current definition is unconstitutionally sexist and ageist. Congress could change their age limit from 45 to 60, and remove their “male” limitation. They could expand their definition to include a very, very broad range of people, if they wanted to. They probably couldn’t expand it to include 8-year-old kids or quadriplegics; the court would probably rule that sending kids and severely handicapped people to war is unconstitutional, but they can certainly include far more people in that legislative definition than they actually did.
Constitutional rights do not originate from legislature, and cannot be revoked by the legislature. Congress can, indeed, change the legislative definition of “militia”, but they cannot change the constitutional meaning except through an amendment.
So, if Congress could rewrite its definition and compel women to register for the draft tomorrow, then women were members of the “Well Regulated Militia” yesterday, and 200 years ago. Congress’s failure to provide for calling forth female members of the “well-regulated militia” has zero impact on the rights guaranteed by 2A.
In fact, women were not even considered full citizens then since they did not possess the right to vote.
Like most things, this was up to the individual states. Like anything up to the individual states, it was all over the place depending on exactly where you were. For example, at the founding women in New Jersey could vote, presuming they owned 50 British pounds worth of wealth because the wealth requirement was the only requirement New Jersey had for who could vote. Ironically, the spread of Jacksonian democracy (aka universal male suffrage) actually cost women in New Jersey the right to vote in the 19th century.
I meant federally protected right to vote, since that’s apples to apples comparison with the second amendment being a federal right. Thus, from a federal point of view, women were not full citizens in many various terms.
The Constitution didn’t establish a right to vote for men in general or any men in particular. It left the question of which citizens were allowed to vote fully up to the states.
Or to go deeper: The Declaration of Independence limited voting to landowners. The Constitution set no regulations whatsoever for which citizens could vote, leaving it wholly up to the states. There are various trends in state laws over time but nothing federal regarding who can vote (other than various immigration laws about who can be naturalized). Until the 15th Amendment: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Technically, men did not have a federally protected right to vote until women did, the 19th amendment. Though state laws had expanded to give essentially all free white men the vote in every state shortly before the Civil War, but that’s not from that federal point of view you’re so worried about.
AR15’s
We don’t pluralize with an apostrophe. English harder, please.
Except when you do https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/apostrophes
Apostrophe when making a number plural is not uncommon.
okay mr dictionary…oops, did i forget a comma ?
For the record I would rather 45 lose and continue to drag the GOP down than have a quick death.
- Transporter Room 3 ( @Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website ) 6•2 months ago
I’d rather he rots in a state jail for the rest of his life, and give him the same standard of care as every other inmate. No special treatment. If he needs to be put in solitary “for his own protection” then so be it. It’s the system people like him loves to protect.
To be clear, I think the US treatment of prisoners is inhumane and bordering on criminal (and all too often crossing said border) and the whole penal system needs drastic change and made entirely nonprofit, and the constitution needs another Ammendment because the 13th was a mistake.
But that’s not the world we live in, and the people who crafted this world should be forced to live in it.
That would be so nice. Wish we focused on rehabilitation instead of retaliation in our criminal justice system. Its such an ass backwards system.
- Transporter Room 3 ( @Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website ) 4•2 months ago
I love seeing prison photos from other countries that show how well prisoners can be treated while still being in prison. Countries with extremely low recidivism.
And there are plenty of people I know who would see that and balk, because “that’s being too soft”
I’ve had people insist that stronger punishment over rehabilitation is what you need, and ignore my bringing up that there’s decades and decades of data that shows otherwise.
At best, the harsh punishments serve as a deterrent to other people doing similar things that might result in similar punishment, but that just creates new and sneaker crimes and criminals. It’s better to rehabilitate, help people turn their poor choices around, and eliminate the cause of the problems that led to the crime in the first place.
But that’s “too much work” so might as well not even try, right? As we all know, the light bulb famously was invented on the first couple tries.
Everyone’s saying the guy used an AR but given the relatively small number of shots and the fact that the bullets went everywhere except where the guy was presumably aiming my bet is he was a Socialist Rifle Club guy with an SKS.
The sketch! He indeed was stormtrooper.