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David Codrea writes [via ammoland.com]

“The 840-hp Dodge Challenger SRT Demon from Fiat Chrysler is so inherently dangerous to the common safety of motorists that its registration as a road-worthy automobile should be banned,” Automotive News effectively shrieks, even while admitting “There are more powerful, and even faster, vehicles available from other automakers that are rightly street legal.”

“From its barely legal slick tires to its monstrous acceleration, the  … Demon may comply sufficiently with the letter of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to legally be registered for on-road use, but in its current form it certainly doesn’t fulfill the spirit of those standards,” the editorialist fumes indignantly.

Heavens! The slick tire loophole! There’ll be blood in the streets! Something must be done! Ban it!  For the children!

How often have gun owners heard similar hysterical “rationales” from the gun-grabbers objecting to performance characteristics, and then codifying bans into law? Hey, we can’t have “30 magazine clips” and “shoulder things that go up” and “weapons of war that have no place on our streets,” right?

Thanks to the internet, rights activists have been quick to react when industry writers, who ought to know better, side with the citizen disarmament cartel.  Sick of all the crap gun owners protested loudly and effectively when:

“The guides on our hunt tell me that the use of AR and AK rifles have a rapidly growing following among hunters, especially prairie dog hunters. I had no clue… Excuse me, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity. I’ll go so far as to call them ‘terrorist’ rifles. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing. Let’s divorce ourselves from them. I say game departments should ban them from the prairies and woods.”

“[W]ay too many gun owners still believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement. The fact is that all Constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.”

“Like we mentioned before, the MP7A1 is unavailable to civilians and for good reason. We all know that’s technology no civvies should ever get to lay their hands on. This is a purpose-built weapon with no sporting applications to speak of. It is made to put down scumbags, and that’s it.

Mike Cabrera of Heckler & Koch Law Enforcement Sales and veteran law enforcement officer with SWAT unit experience points out that this is a gun that you do not want in the wrong, slimy hands. It comes with semi-automatic and full-auto firing modes only.

Its overall size places it between a handgun and submachine gun. Its assault rifle capabilities and small size make this a serious weapon that should not be taken lightly.”

David E. Petzal

Lesser known to most gun owners, probably because it predated widespread effective internet issue advocacy, were statements published in Field & Stream by editor David E. Petzal at the time the Clinton “assault weapon ban” was being promoted. In our hour of need, he was claiming “it took tremendous courage” for his magazine to go against the NRA:

“Gun owners — all gun owners — pay a heavy price for having to defend the availability of these weapons. The American public — and the gun-owning public; especially the gun-owning public — would be better off without the hardcore military arms, which puts the average sportsman in a real dilemma … an Uzi or an AKM or an AK-47 should be no more generally available than a Claymore mine or a block of C4 explosive.”

Yeah, who needs those to hunt ducks, right? But what happened to weapons being “part of the ordinary military equipment [that] could contribute to the common defense”?

There’s a saying I can’t repeat here (that starts with “Because” and ends with “that’s why”) appropriate for self-righteous busybodies demanding we justify our “needs” to them. The bottom line, as with guns, if performance cars are abused in a way that endangers the public, there are better ways to deal with that.  Banning property that can potentially be abused has never been the answer.

I haven’t bought a Field & Stream ever since I organized a letter campaign to tell them why. If I were a car buff, I’d be telling Automotive News where to go right about now.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

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86 COMMENTS

    • No, it needs to barely survive years of brutal inhumane torture, abuse, and neglect.

      Someone needs to low-crawl up behind it, sweep its legs, knock it unconscious, throw a bag over its head, shackle it, throw it into the back of a pickup, drive 25 miles over unimproved roads, drag it out of the back of the truck, tie it to a chair, hook it up to a car battery and made to give up its voter lists.

    • Well there it is! Does anybody with any fractional intermittent cognizance left need any further proof of the rampant epidemic of horrific Totalitarianism going on in our soon to be late, once great, Free Egalitarian country?

      And why there can NEVER be any compromise, stipulations, or deal making over the 2nd Amendment, which the Fascist juggernaut plays on and each equivocation of our rights which does nothing but feed further exercises in universal bans and disarmament of a populate which attempts to dissent or resist imminent government tyranny. Check out Venezuela at the moment, if you have any doubts about the intent of Totalitarianism. No compromise, no quarter on gun control. Shall not be infringed, Period!

      Even if you don’t like guns, you have to think about it in a pure survival mentality. a lot of us dislike bad rainy weather, but the crops wouldn’t grow and we wouldn’t eat if we didn’t have it.

      We need absolute unrestricted resistance defense against this emerging police state. Otherwise it won’t just be your high performance hot rods, it’ll be the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and soon…when Hell does, indeed, freeze over, they’ll dictate the style and type of children we’ll breed.

  3. I’ve got a Vita Mix Blender that blends so fast it should be banned because easy access to smoothies makes people fat. Seems like the same logic to me.

  4. Remember back in 1990, when a Mustang 5.0 had 225 horsepower, and a Camaro IROC-Z had 245 horsepower?

    • But they were not purpose built 9 second drag cars. Nothing wrong with that as long a the people buying them know what they are for. Other factory cars that are that fast are designed to stop and handle, The way the Demon is set up, not so much.

      This thing is more akin full auto Glock 20. I would not want to be at the range the fist time a new shooter tried one out. And I would not want to be on the street where an driver with no performance car experience, tried this thing out (especially if it was cold or raining)

      • Where is the outcry! YouTube is full of this sort of stuff and all of a sudden they’re worried about one car?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw8TOhIxgRk

        Just search “Super-car fails” or any similar wording. There’s no shortage of people with too much expendable income and too little common sense, but that does not justify making their toys illegal.

      • I’d argue it’s more like a full-auto-only battle rifle. Cool, a hoot & a half, but ultimately useless. All the less reason for thinking it needs to be banned as far as I’m concerned. Right, some guy’s gonna drop 80 grand or whatever it ends up being of his own money on the car, and immediately destroy the car through idiocy; some guy that wouldn’t do something equally idiotic with any other ‘normal’ car some other day.

        I was worried my Scat Pack six-speed would be a bit hot to handle, and it was it first; so I took my time to get used to the car’s handling before demanding anything interesting from it. Crazy concept, caution; it’s totally foreign to people who live out their lives inside the nannystate bubble with (I assume, considering their fixation on rubber baby buggy bumpers) reckless abandon. In fact, it’s seen as something of a vice (“get outside your comfort zone,” “don’t be suspicious,” “share everything about yourself,” “embrace/tolerate harmful influences,” “don’t pre-judge about anything because you might turn out to be wrong”)

      • Except that over-hyped, over-priced, piece of lard-assed 4500# 300E derivative junk is pathetically slow for the money in real terms. Sure it’s “factory”. So what?

        850HP? Whoopty-effen-do. Guys have been cranking way more than that out of 3L Toyo 6s for a decade. It’s slow in the quarter compared to about a bajillion mildly built cars, let alone something simple like a TT Viper – which will smoke it by a second or more, With less drama and more creature comforts.

      • the chances of you being harmed be either idiot are slim. Those knuckleheads tend to crash leaving the dealership (or shoot themselves in the foot at home) depending on which knucklehead we’re talking about.

      • Kind of reminds me of the first generation Pontiac GTO. It could go like hell in a straight line but couldn’t turn and couldn’t stop.

  5. Well my meeting with my congressman to get rid of the bans on these “hardcore military arms” has been delayed due to a travel problem for him (was going to be Monday). However his staff has responded positively to my list of requirements for the bill and it has been sent directly to the Congressman and the legislative team.

    Half the reason I’ve been pushing the introduction is to force these quislings to come out of hiding. That can’t be stopped with a filibuster.

  6. I want a Dodge Demon. Doing burnouts in one while hanging a black rifle out the window while smoking a cigarette might just cause nanny state leftists heads in a 2 mile area to spontaneously explode.

    • I think brandishing while doing burnouts with your hands off the wheel (unless you are using the same hand for the rifle and cigarette ) is likely to get you tossed in jail.

    • You’ll need to swap in a Cummins 12-valve so you can belch black smoke while you’re doing the burn-out…and the girl riding shotgun will need a shotgun.

      • Coal smoke is for bros who can’t make real tire smoke 😉

        They’re like squid blowing an ink cloud in terror before fleeing

        (this is in jest; ‘smoking the tires’ in a Challenger is rather hazardous because of a nasty propensity to wheel-hop unless you’re redlining the engine)

  7. My two hobbies are classic cars and guns. I hate that I have to deal with total fools in both camps that want to limit or destroy my hobbies.

  8. We need more AKs and ARs in the hands of the law abiding, not less. I want every man and woman to own at least 10 of each. Nothing less will suffice.

    • NOOOOO!!!!! Basic economics…..more demand drives price UP!!! I already have to look at AKs listed at $799 and up!! THE FUNK IS THAT ALL ABOUT?!?!? We need to lower demand. No damned reason I should have to pay over 400 bucks for a stinkin SKS!!!!!!

      • lower demand?!? WRONG!!!

        i say we raise supply and kick the guts out of the import restrictions.

  9. To most of the public, an assault rifle is a terrifying thing.

    To most of the public, a differential equation is a terrifying thing. No, really. My rights are not to be circumscribed by the cowardice of the ignorant.

  11. “Because America, that’s why!” is my response when the other “because …, that’s why” is unavailable or I’m just being polite.

    These are the arguments I use when I’m in no mood to argue with someone questioning my choices.

  13. That line-up of FUDD’s is impressive. I will say I saw Jerry Tsai eat humble pie after that article in Recoil. The backlash on social media was fun to watch.

    Again, FUDD’S can hurt our cause more than the far left moonbats sometimes.

  14. You should’ve had Ruth’s write this. Also, got a Tesla death watch coming? Wrong site, boy they killed TTAC.

    In defense, cars are not a right but rather a privilege, we need to remember that as the same logic doesn’t apply.

    • Actually, they are a right — part of our right to private property and self-determination. Not mentioned in the Bill of Rights, but still a right.

    • I’ve had a Tesla deathwatch going for several years now. But like the GM of old, it’s already quite dead on paper, but it has fanbois who don’t know it yet. That, and Musk is an even slicker conman than Malcolm Bricklin. He actually has some serious people sold on the scientifically insane mythos of a vacuum tube that spits you out at the other end.

      Sadly TTAC is quite dead. Bertel pretty well killed it with his pro-China propaganda, and it’s now an echo chamber of people who know sweet FA about cars, let alone finance. Oh well, the memories of arguing with yutzes about GM going tango uniform are enough for me.

  15. Don’t like the dodge demon, wait for it, don’t buy one.

    Why is this an issue? I don’t care if you’re driving a demon, a mercedes or a 200 buck hoopty.

  16. And in typical media fashion there is a glaring lack of knowledge about the subject matter.

    Drag radials are not slicks.

  18. I hate Nanny state regulations.

    That said, unless you plan to use your Demon to defend your life against tyrants and thugs, then the arguments aren’t the same.

  19. You don’t need to worry, not very many people could even afford a 80-100 thousand dollar car. Even if you could, you don’t have to buy it. You don’t have to buy guns either. Just leave this stuff in responsible hands and your good. Plus guns are a right to have, and having a license to drive is a privilege

  20. So what! It’s street legal. And it’s not like there’s no after market 840+ HP vehicles driving around already.

    • Last I heard, they were only going to make 300 of them for the US market. Anyone who buys one and crashes it street racing was going to kill himself anyway. Darwin and all.
      They are not NHRA legal, either. Anyone who wants to drag race one in the NHRA must install a roll cage, which Dodge will never do.
      The majority of these cars will go in a garage, be taken out on club weekends, and that’s it. And none of them will be sold for just sticker price, either.

  22. Curtis and Binder have some sense. The rest of you not so much where this topic is concerned. David Cordrea is grasping at straws to make this argument connect. There’s a pretty huge difference between an assault rifle and a car that shouldn’t be street legal. The first isn’t going to hurt someone unless a bad person is pulling the trigger. But used appropriately at the range, in the woods, or in someone’s gun safe, it’s a perfectly innocent piece of machinery. The second could very easily hurt someone, even in the hands of an operator with the best of intentions. I sure as hell don’t want a car with slick tires and that kind of acceleration driving next to me and my kids on wet pavement. We have safety inspections to prevent cars with bald tires and other defects from endangering other motorists on the road FFS.

    Yes, we know that opponents can argue that both are safety issues. But the rifle has the Bill of Rights on its side. The Demon has no constitutional protection and has legal precedent working against it.

      • Let me put some drag radials on your car in 40 degree rain and see what happens. Have you actually see tires like that? Have you ever been caught in the rain with them? The tread on them is for looks, and not much else.

        • bald tires have a larger contact patch than treaded tires. even on wet roads.
          hydroplaning is a thing however, so govern yourself accordingly.

    • Cjstl, Actually MO no longer has a minimum tread depth for state safety inspections. As long as there is no cord showing, completely bald tires are perfectly legal.

    • Tell you what, Snowflake: Come ride in a Demon with me and learn about responsible use. FFS! Just because you CAN drop the clutch and redline it doesn’t mean you are FORCED to.

  23. The Dodge Demon is a silly car. But I support your right to free speech, your right to keep and bear arms, and your right to own a silly car!

    I won’t be buying one, but I’m sure that Fiat is loving all of the publicity. lol

    Charlie

  24. It’s a 85,000 to 100,000 dollar car and only 3000 of them being offered to the US and 300 to Canada. so most if not all of you will be lucky to ever see one in person.and just to add a side note the fastest car that was sold to the public in 1969-1970 the super bird 230 mph and that was 47 years ago. Not to mention the 409s,428’s and max wedge ?

      • What was sold to the public? Very true, they went around 175-ish with the 426 and the right gearing. But most were 440 slushies. With short finals. But to be fair, there is a grain of truth in there. The Superbird (believe it or not) had a cd of only .29. Which is quite good, especially for a car made in ‘Murica at the time. It was a nudging 200 MPH car under the right conditions (track, mildly tuned hemi). There are stories of the time a fully-built, swiss cheese lightened, hemi was turned loose at the factory track, and achieved the fabled 230. Personally, I know the math basically works, I just haven’t spoken to anyone involved in that program – and they’re dying off fast so that becomes less likely every year.

      • At Talladega they sure did go 200+. But those 426’s were tuned up to the 800-900hp range. Also I once watched a show about how the big 3 lied soooooo bad on their horsepower ratings in the muscle car era because of insurance. They built a 426 hemi, a 429 CJ, and an L88 427 with NOS parts from the ground up. The 426 was originally rated at 425hp but their mill was turning just north of 800…….

      • less weight for acceleration, but top speed? seems that power and gearing will have the last word there, as long as she’ll pull redline in top.

  25. Oh boy. 2010 kg with 70 kg driver, and just 840 hp? 0.418 p/w ratio?

    Fully fueled, S1000 RR will be 270 kg with the same driver, having 160+ on rear wheel. And it can corner, making it twice more dangerous. Okay, where is much-demanded sportbike’s ban?

      • Of course! Somebody might aim this thing and kill a dozen of 10y old Mensa members on their way to church!

        The rhetoric might be ridiculous, but the whole affair is. Damn it, does Automotive News care above SUV vs compact collisions? Y’now, Q7 or one of those Caddy pimpmobiles against Fiat 500? I doubt so; however, I am pretty sure that per traffic accident, the toll imposed by supercars will be less than impressive compared to “normal” cars with “normal” drivers.

    • maybe lobby groups exist already to limit the peak power, top speed and decibel levels of motorcycles.
      who’s joan claybrook?

  26. Some other classic quotes:

    “No honest man needs more than 10 rounds in any gun.” – William B. Ruger Sr.

    “I personally believe a weapon should never have over, as far as a civilian, over a five round capacity.” – Joaquin Jackson (while a member of the NRA Board of Directors)

  28. Back in the day, late 90’s, my dream car was a Dodge Viper. I mean I LUSTED after one, I wanted one more than oxygen. Then a friend of mine bought one and after the first ride I wanted one EVEN MORE!!! This friend was also a very good friend of my best friend so we all three spent a lot of time in that car. It was incredible. The car was like riding in a space ship. Maybe not so impressive for someone like John Force or Tony Schumacher but to the average person it was awesome. With that kind of power it’s extremely easy to go out to some seldom used back street and push it, especially among folks who were kind of adrenaline junkies. We didn’t do it often but we did it.

    Then I got the call, it happened. My friend who owned the car and my best friend had gone out to that same street that evening and for some reason the driver lost control. There was no alcohol involved and both were wearing seat belts but at those speeds seat belts mean absolutely nothing. The car spun, rolled end over end multiple times and landed upside down in a tree. My friend was driving and was killed instantly while my best friend, who was riding shotgun, was alive but badly injured for an estimated 20 minutes after the crash. He also died before extrication. The injuries were so horrific that both were closed casket funerals.

    It was a good 10-12 years before I could even look at a Viper on the road or in a photo without losing it. It took a long time but I can finally admire the car again and even would still love to own one. That accident wasn’t the fault of the car. It was the fault of the person driving and undoubtedly of my best friend was loving every second of it because the driver would never have done it without both of them consenting. It wasn’t the car, it was just two young Americans who loved the rush and made the decision to drive that fast knowing full well that a crash would likely be fatal to both. I made that decision several times riding shotgun in the same car. It could have been me as easily as it was him.

    My point being, ANY object with the potential for causing injury or death, is as safe as a kitten until the person operating chooses to take it to an unsafe or dangerous level. A car, a gun, a hammer, a potted plant or a fallen tree limb have no will or ability to hurt anyone but each one has the ability to kill if that is the intent of the person wielding it. It just isn’t possible and zero blame can be attributed to any inanimate object used to injure or kill.

    • When High performance car meets, Low performance driver. Bad things happen. Sad, but true. Even James Dean had a bad day….. Sorry about the friend.

  29. Dick Metcalfe of all people should know that the 2nd ammendment does not GIVE us the right to keep and bear arms, it just states that our God given right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon.

  30. I’ve said it here on TTAG recently, warning against buying Guns & Ammo Magazine AND the other magazines owned by its parent company, Outdoor Sports Group.

    Follow the Shit Trail:
    *Guns & Ammo and Firearms News are run by The Outdoor Sports Group (OSG)
    *OSG is owned by Intermedia Outdoor Holdings
    *Intermedia is owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, based in Denver
    *Among other holdings, KSE owns the Los Angeles Rams and Denver Nuggets
    *Kroenke Sports is owned by billionaire asshole Stan Kroenke of Denver, an elitist leftist who is a Democrat and supports Democrat politicians and leftist causes…including AstroTurfed radical gun control groups

    There’s a lot of things that deserve the People Of The Guns active opposition.
    But to me, the most disgusting despicable thing is when printed and online publications such as Guns & Ammo are owned by gunrights hating elitist assholes like Stan Kroenke.

    My Dad had a great saying, “just like shit always rolls downhill, so do bad attitudes in companies and organizations. If you get treated badly by some company’s employee, I guarantee he learned that attitude by example from that company’s owner”

    So Guns & Ammo and everything else owned by elitist leftist asshole Stan Kroenke does not get any money or attention from me. I boycott them. Kroenke can go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut

  31. They don’t have much to worry about. Since it’s a Fiat Chrysler vehicle, it will spend most of it’s time in the shop anyway.

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