A group of anti-gun politicians wrote a letter and sent it off to President Biden. It was dated March 31, 2021. That letter spoke about how bad AR and AK style pistols are, and that they want him to consider taking executive action against them.
Their request is that they be added to the NFA, or National Firearms Act. The NFA is essentially an unconstitutional law that allows the government to further regulate things like machine guns, suppressors, short barreled shotguns, and short barreled rifles.
Their main argument is that these firearms are more easily concealable than their rifle pattern counterparts are. While that statement is NOT false, it is stupid. And impractical as I point out below.
Obviously a smaller gun is easier to conceal. That’s one of the reasons why I may or may not own one of them … I can stick it in my backpack and I’ve got a truck gun to get me home if the stinky brown stuff hits the big reciprocating device in the sky.
Issues with their argument:
There are a few problems with their argument. These are things that are obvious to me and anyone else with common sense. But, a lot of the time, politicians lack sense.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
First, these guns aren’t really used in crime —
The small fact they won’t admit is that these guns are still not heavily used in crimes. If they were, we’d know it. I know this is true because of the sheer number of these pistols in public hands. There are millions of them, and most of them are never used in a crime.
How do I know? Because it’s rare that we hear about crimes committed with AR-15 pistols. I’d bet my last two dollars that if this was a real problem that we’d hear about it. Constantly.
It wouldn’t just be from the politicians, though. The anti-gun media would also pick it up and run with it after each shooting. It’d be too juicy to pass up.
Because we rarely ever hear about these shootings taking place, I conclude that this is not a preferred weapon for criminals.
Do you want to know why? Because …
AR and AK pistols are popular with people who care —
What do they care about? Following the law.
Most of the MILLIONS of gun owners who have an AR or AK pistol have it set up this way to comply with law. The reason why these people have a pistol with a brace is because a short barreled rifle is illegal unless you do the NFA thing.
Law abiding citizens are generally not law breakers and rarely commit any crimes with their guns. Because they want to avoid jail, they avoid breaking the law — to include modifying their guns to a point where they could go to jail.
Your average person-hurting criminal doesn’t care about laws (because they’re criminals). So if they want a “concealable AR-15,” why not just throw a buttstock on it (which is much better than a brace) and call it an SBR?
Moving on.
They aren’t THAT concealable —
Even though they’re more concealable than your average AR-15 is, they’re nowhere near as concealable as your average handgun. It’s not like the local thug can stick an AR pistol down inside his pants and pretend it’s not there.
The only real way to conceal one is in a backpack or under a very large coat. And if you plan to kill a lot of people, it’s not the best tool for the job. It’s just not, and I hate saying stuff like that because I’m walking on a fine line.
Why? Because in order for me to say that it must mean that I’m admitting that AR-15 rifles are somehow more dangerous. Of course, going back to common sense, we know that AR-15s (combined with all other rifles) are used in murder under 400 times per year.
That number is less than the amount of people killed with knives and even bare hands or feet according to the FBI. Here is a little graphic I put together using the FBI tables for 2019:
I’ve got another article in the works for that, so make sure you stay tuned.
They’re underpowered AR-15s —
Nobody really wants to have this talk. I don’t even want to have this talk because it has the tendency to open up a different can of worms. That other can, the assault weapons ban, is something they salivate over.
They’re so fixated on the “rifle caliber” being used in a more concealable package that it’s all they see. But in doing so, they fail to realize that the gun being setup this way comes at a cost.
That cost is specifically a slower traveling bullet that, while still dangerous to the person on the receiving end, is nowhere near what it is out of a full-length rifle barrel.
Because the bullet moves slower, it also lacks kinetic energy. That transfer of energy from the bullet to the target is one of the things that causes damage to a human. But it is lower out of a shorter barrel, because the powder hasn’t completely burned, allowing the bullet to reach its full potential.
For example, your average 55 grain XM193 5.56 NATO cartridge moves more than 3,100 feet per second out of a 16 inch barrel. That same projectile out of a 10 inch barrel slows to about 2,700 FPS. An AR-15 with a 10 inch barrel is still pretty hard to conceal.
Taking it down to a 7 inch barrel, that same bullet slows even more to about 2,250 feet per second.
And, just so we’re clear on terminology, 16 inches is the minimum required barrel length to be considered a normal rifle. Anything less than that is considered to be a pistol or SBR, depending on other requirements that I won’t get into here.
Conclusion:
Here is a video from Jared over at GunsNGadgets covering the letter in more detail. I started to talk about the letter and the idiots who signed it but then went off on a tirade. I then wandered around a rabbit hole and got stuck in order to prove a few points.
This is a guy I subscribe to, and it’s probably a good idea for you to, as well, because he gets the news out quick.
I wonder if they really think backing millions of angry Americans into a corner is a good idea. I guess we’ll find out.
Stay tuned as I do my best to keep you up to date on all of this garbage. As always, leave any thoughts you have in the comments below.
