[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by horatio

Yet this very right is factually countered by the enormousness of the US military. If the people wanted to overthrow the government they would have no chance at all.

This starts to get into a very big nasty gray area, which is whether or not the US military would put down a popular uprising. It's one that I hope to never have to deal with. Much of it will depend on how the officers and enlisted view their oaths which is not to the president, or congress, or the judiciary. At least not in an explicit words. The oath states to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all threats foreign and domestic. If we take into account events such as Shay's Rebellion then yes the military does have a record of putting down uprisings. The way I see it, if such a situation were to occur, the chances of it degenerating into civil war would be pretty high. As it is, short of declaring martial law, there's really no law enforcement authority granted to the US military, the only exception being the Coast Guard.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by horatio

The Wiki article claims that the weapon has been designed for the US military. Furthermore the look alone suffices, it is an assault riffle and not a small handgun which people actually use for self-defense.

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

Then the wiki article is wrong. The AR-15 was the platform that became the M-16 which is a military weapon. But the AR-15 that is sold on the civilian market is a semi-automatic version that is in no way an assault rifle. There is no debate on that, it is no different in capability than a whole host of semiautomatic weapons that are built and made for the civilian market.

It is in no way a military gun, or an assault rifle. It does not have the same capability as the M-16. I has no fully automatic or three shot burst capacity. It is a typical, civilian semiauto weapon.

Yeah, a rifle is really just a long gun with grooves known as rifling that puts a spin on the round as it leaves the barrel which increases accuracy and effective range. They're used in warfare, hunting, and sports shooting. There's not real difference in lethality. The M-16 fires a 5.56x45 mm NATO round, but I believe we have fired the civilian .223 Remington sports round from them. The only thing that really separates a M-16 from the AR-15 is precisely what CTC is saying. And honestly, full auto or even three round burst is actually not that easy to hit something with. Even with 3 round burst that gun rides up very quickly. If you actually care about where your bullets are going, you go with single round. If you're just trying to keep the enemy's heads down then auto or burst can be more useful.

To be honest, military specifications doesn't necessarily mean anything in reality, because military specifications on an item can simply mean the color or the kind of paint you put on an item. Hence the 5000 dollar monkey wrench that the Air Force insisted it HAD to have back when my dad worked customer service in Boeing. He told the mechanics that they could just go to a hardware store and get one but higher up in the Air Force said no because the hardware store wrench that can do the same job was not up to spec, meaning it didn't have a black coating on it that had nothing to do with its function. So don't get too wrapped up on whether or not something was designed for the military, especially with small arms. Some of the accessories for small arms might be a little different but, depending on what you're hunting, a lot of military weapons like a M-16 are going to do nothing but piss off a grizzly. You try hunting a grizzly with a M-16, I guarantee you're going to be in the newspaper as the first man beaten to death with his own gun by a grizzly. Better off with a plain and simple 12 gauge shot gun with slugs. I mean you have plenty of guys from the military that go out and buy personal gear because what the military issues out quite often can be crap.

Yes, there was a time years ago when I used to be a supporter of things like the "Assault weapons ban" and what not. But that was before I even held a gun let alone fired one. As I've gotten more exposure to guns and how they work and their capabilities and what the actual meaning of the terminologies were, I started to realize that a lot of those bans really don't mean much because the claimed "difference" between "assault" weapons vs "civilian" guns doesn't really exist. Throwing the word "assault" on there is a nice way to make it sound nastier, but really it's not. 3 round burst or pulling the trigger 3 times it's going to do the same thing. A single 7.62x51 mm NATO round from a M-14 or a single .308 Winchester round from a Winchester 700 hunting rifle is still going to be about the same, in fact with this example the NATO round was derived from the civilian round. It's only when you start to get into things like crew served guns and cannons that you actually have a difference.

[omegaman]

I used to hunt with my dad many Years ago. I've seen what a shotgun (Mossberg) with a 1oz (from memory) solid lead slug can do. You do not want to shot with one of these. The exit hole is the size of a dinner plate.

I haven't fired a rifle since 1979, the year my dad died. Don't miss it one bit.

[martok2112]

When I was in Basic, they only let us fire rock'n'roll once. Otherwise, it was semi-auto all the way....which I fully agree with.

Rock'n'roll is only good for suppression...keeping an enemy's head down.

The only time rock'n'roll is of any worth is being fired from a mounted machine gun like a .30 or .50 cal, or from a man portable machine gun like the M60 or other similar weapons...and then, that's largely for terror...although someone who is good enough with such weaponry will likely get their fair share of confirmed kills.

[horatio]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

This starts to get into a very big nasty gray area, which is whether or not the US military would put down a popular uprising. It's one that I hope to never have to deal with. Much of it will depend on how the officers and enlisted view their oaths which is not to the president, or congress, or the judiciary. At least not in an explicit words. The oath states to support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all threats foreign and domestic. If we take into account events such as Shay's Rebellion then yes the military does have a record of putting down uprisings. The way I see it, if such a situation were to occur, the chances of it degenerating into civil war would be pretty high. As it is, short of declaring martial law, there's really no law enforcement authority granted to the US military, the only exception being the Coast Guard.

Coup d'etats are always a matter of power politics, not of caring about a piece of paper.
Take the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Min loved the American constitution and started off his own declaration of independence via quoting it. Yet containing the spread of communism was more important than caring about who loves and tries to follow the footsteps of the American constitution.

In such cases the world is, always has been and most likely always will be Kissingerian and not Jeffersonian.

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by martok2112

The only time rock'n'roll is of any worth is being fired from a mounted machine gun like a .30 or .50 cal, or from a man portable machine gun like the M60 or other similar weapons...and then, that's largely for terror...although someone who is good enough with such weaponry will likely get their fair share of confirmed kills.

And even with those, accuracy greatly decreases the longer the burst. They really are designed to be an area of affect weapon. Which is partly why when using a machine gun they have you say to yourself, "Die fuzzy bunny!" each time you fire. Helps keep those bursts under control and sort of "helps" keep the barrel from overheating too quickly. M2 is a pain in the *** to do a barrel change as it is.

Even firing just a regular handgun at a range of 5 feet shooting with just one hand, depending on the type of gun, it can actually be quite easy to miss. I know, I've done it with a P229R DAK, especially when shooting with only my reaction hand.

Going to town on auto looks cool in the movies (I mean in the feature film, not inside the theater itself), but in reality it's not really useful for high body counts, especially in reality when there's no unlimited ammo cheat.

Originally Posted by horatio

Coup d'etats are always a matter of power politics, not of caring about a piece of paper.
Take the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Min loved the American constitution and started off his own declaration of independence via quoting it. Yet containing the spread of communism was more important than caring about who loves and tries to follow the footsteps of the American constitution.

In such cases the world is, always has been and most likely always will be Kissingerian and not Jeffersonian.

Exactly. The very beginnings of what essentially would evolve into the 2 party system here in the US wasn't the Constitution but literally a disagreement over how far the powers granted in the Constitution go. Which is why I said for a lot of people in the military it's going to be a question of where they believe their loyalties lie based on their understanding of what their oaths mean. Much of American politics lies with trying to figure out what that piece of paper means which quite frankly there's no one prevailing thought about it.

Originally Posted by omegaman

I used to hunt with my dad many Years ago. I've seen what a shotgun (Mossberg) with a 1oz (from memory) solid lead slug can do. You do not want to shot with one of these. The exit hole is the size of a dinner plate.

I haven't fired a rifle since 1979, the year my dad died. Don't miss it one bit.

You can actually stop a 18 wheeler with one of those. Not something really intended for use against humans. Most for engine blocks or really big game like a grizzly. Keep in mind that the exit wound generally will always be bigger than the entrance wound. This is because a bullet tumbles and depending on the type of bullet and how what it hits, it will deform. This especially true with something like a shotgun slug which as far as my experience says is not a jacketed round. Non jacketed rounds deform a lot because they have no hard copper shell. This is why American Civil War gun shot wounds are still incredibly lethal by today's standards. It's generally illegal for the military to use rounds that aren't fully jacketed or have hollow points because they do a lot more damage to the body (though I'm not entirely sure how those laws apply to shotguns if at all). Civilian world they're accepted partially because in same places for hunting or culling because it kills generally faster and theoretically reduces the animal's suffering (not to mention you're less likely to have a pissed off animal trying to kill you after the first shot), or in self defense and law enforcement such rounds are less likely to over penetrate a target or a barrier and cause collateral damage.

[Captain Tom Coughlin]

The main point that I was trying to make in terms of the AR-15 is that there is nothing that seperates it from a whole host of semi automatic rifles designed for the civilian market. It's a civilian gun, that's what it's intended for. Horatio kept trying to paint it as some military weapon, it's not.

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by Akula2ssn

And even with those, accuracy greatly decreases the longer the burst. They really are designed to be an area of affect weapon. Which is partly why when using a machine gun they have you say to yourself, "Die fuzzy bunny!" each time you fire. Helps keep those bursts under control and sort of "helps" keep the barrel from overheating too quickly. M2 is a pain in the *** to do a barrel change as it is.

Even firing just a regular handgun at a range of 5 feet shooting with just one hand, depending on the type of gun, it can actually be quite easy to miss. I know, I've done it with a P229R DAK, especially when shooting with only my reaction hand.

Going to town on auto looks cool in the movies (I mean in the feature film, not inside the theater itself), but in reality it's not really useful for high body counts, especially in reality when there's no unlimited ammo cheat.

Agreed on all points.

I own two nine mm pistols, and when I go to the range, I still use both hands.

One day, I decided to run through a gamut of "action movie" scenarios....under strict self-control of course, but since there was no one else on the range at the time, I thought it the best time to do it.

I only tried single hand fire once, and I always prefer to fire at the full length of the range. I think, out of all 15 rounds fired at a fairly fast (not Hollywood fast) pace from the mag, I may have hit the target (somewhere on the target) about five times.

Then I tried my preferred two hand hold, but at rapid fire, and again, at full range. Most of my bullets hit the target, but were so scattered on the target, well...if it were a person, it would've been shredded meat....I use ball ammo on the range, but I always have hollowpoints for home- defense.

Then I tried off-hand, (two hand hold) but at a more casual pace of fire. Hey, I did pretty durned good in off-hand...tighter group than I expected.

Then I tried "guns akimbo". Firing both pistols at once from each hand. There was a target? Where?

[omegaman]

Man, talk about lucky!

BATMAN MASSACRE SURVIVOR SHOT IN HEAD IS SAVED BY BRAIN DEFECT

http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/w...-brain-defect/

[Akula2ssn]

Originally Posted by Captain Tom Coughlin

The main point that I was trying to make in terms of the AR-15 is that there is nothing that seperates it from a whole host of semi automatic rifles designed for the civilian market. It's a civilian gun, that's what it's intended for. Horatio kept trying to paint it as some military weapon, it's not.

Yeah. Looks aside, there's nothing interesting about it and even there it's not all that interesting. The front sight post it just that, a front sight. The hand guard around the barrel isn't anything special. Just there to keep you from burning your hands on the barrel just like any other rifle. The butt stock is just a butt stock. The carrying handle with the rear sight is just another way to carry it around. There's really nothing terribly special about it that makes it military. There is only one component of the AR-15 (that I'm aware of) that separates it from the military M-16 and that's the lower receiver, the rest is just gravy. And even among the military derivatives of the AR-15 like the M-16A1 and M-16A2 it's that lower receiver that is the difference.