Why Gunmakers Would Rather Sell AR-15s Than Handguns
Tactical Barbie dolls for adults . . .
The popularity of the AR-15 style has been a coup for gunmakers. Not only are these firearms relatively easy to manufacture and higher-priced, they have the virtue of what Dionisio calls the “Mr. Potato Head effect,” allowing for endless consumer customization with grips, optics, sights and more—all for an additional price.
The website for national outdoor-gear retailer Cabela’s Inc. features a section devoted to AR-15 parts and accessories, listing more than 190 items. Prices range from $4.99 for a wedge that prevents rattling to $699.99 for an upper receiver, which houses the firing mechanism.
“You can add these attachments, trick them out, customize them,” Dionisio said. “Those are very high-margin.”
5 of the biggest complaints about the M16A4 — the Marines’ standard service rifle for nearly 20 years
This article is mostly a fragrant, steaming pile of horse manure. Number three is the only one with a hint of truth to it, but that goes away if you keep your rifle relatively clean . . .
The M16A4 was the standard service rifle for the Marine Corps until October 2015, when it was decided that the M4 Carbine would replace them in infantry battalions. For whatever reason, civilians tend to think the M16A4 is awesome when, in reality, it’s actually despised by a lot of Marines.
Now, the M16A4 is, by far, not the worst weapon, but it didn’t exactly live up to the expectations laid out for it. They’re accurate and the recoil is as soft as being hit in the shoulder with a peanut, so it certainly has its place. But when Marines spend a considerable amount of time in rainy or dusty environments, they’ll find it’s not the most reliable rifle.
A leading gun-control group just released nine years of NRA grades for politicians
And this surprises…who? . . .
One of the most fervent enemies of the NRA is the group Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates for legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. After our report, Everytown compiled a database of past lawmaker grades — more than 60,000 of them stretching back to 2009 — and, on Wednesday, made them available online.
The database lends itself to some interesting data analysis. For example, Republicans have consistently been much more uniform in receiving A grades from the NRA than Democrats have been in receiving F grades.
Boulder City Council decides gun stores can’t issue certificates to assault weapons owners
Doubling down on their hoplophobia . . .
Boulder’s two gun stores will not be able to issue certificates to owners of assault weapons that are grandfathered in under the city’s ban on the guns, which took effect last week.
The decision came after a brief discussion among City Council members Tuesday night as they considered tweaks to the ordinance outlawing the sale and possession of assault weapons, bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. Boulder, the council and several city officials are being sued in two separate cases challenging the measure.
Amid legal battle, Deerfield amends assault weapons ban to add high-capacity magazines
The judge who issues the TRO had ruled that the ordinance didn’t actually ban “high capacity” magazines . . .
Deerfield trustees have amended wording in their now-halted ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, a move officials say clarifies the intent of the language.
The Village Board of Trustees unanimously approved the changes termed a “cleanup” by Mayor Harriet Rosenthal in a little more than a minute and with little discussion Monday night.
In defense of self-defense
It’s a shame it’s even necessary to write a piece like this . . .
As the saying goes, it takes a good man with a gun to take out a bad man with a gun. Even the very best police departments take minutes to respond to a crime scene, so in case after case, legally armed citizens have defended themselves and others in those precious minutes against an armed criminal.
But this thinking is lost on those who continue to believe that guns, and not the criminals and mentally unstable people who wield them, are the cause of all of our violent incidents. The knee-jerk reaction to every criminal shooting is a call to control or ban firearms,
And yet, as we have seen in incidents around the world, criminals, madmen and terrorists use the means at hand, rather than a firearm, to commit acts of violence. A British comedian in his car with his 10-year-old son was attacked by a gang of thieves armed with hammers who stole his Rolex watch.
Hey snowflakes, the second amendment has no requirement that a citizen has to prove a ” need ” to own a fire arm. Try reading the constitution, bill of rights and the federalist papers so you can be an informed citizen instead of an ignorant socialist.
Come on Ed, don’t you know that’s why the first ten Amendments to the Constitution are commonly called the Bill of Needs?
Seriously, the freedoms outlined within those Amendments are only valid of the courts think you need them more than the government claims it needs to violate them. But I never found anything in the Constitution that authorizes any court to invalidate Constitutional guarantees in that manner.
If it keeps going the way it is going it will soon be called “The Bill of False Assurances”.
They want direct democracy. They refer to America as a democracy. They claim to be highly educated. However, after talking to them you can tell they have no clue about what they are regurgitating. Direct democracy requires well informed and intelligent people for it to function well. America cannot have direct democracy with its current population. The trend shows direct democracy will not work due to the populace becoming dumber every generation.
They want CONTROL, i.e. tyranny.
Because they know better than us.
Direct democracy, absent an educated population of voters=mob rule. Mob rule, as anyone with an ounce of thought can ascertain, is inherently unstable, prone to wild swings based on current fads or beliefs. Thus, those ideas or peoples who are not popular suffer.
An educated mob is still just a mob.
For it not to be mob rule, they’d have to vote in the best interest of society instead of voting for what they want. And unless they had the education and wisdom to know what was in the best interest, it would be chaos, potentially worse than mob rule.
Nobody NEEDS a Creedmoor.
The 6.5th Amendment says I can have one.
Nation states NEED 6.5CM. What if the North Koreans develop 6.5 CM? What are we going to do then? Fight them with 7.62x51mm? Our troops would be slaughtered! If just one NorK employs a 6.5CM weapon on the battlefield, adios western civilization!
If any part of the Constitution, including the 2nd Amendment, is anything less than absolute so is the 13th.
18th?
The 13th is less than absolute.
Ask any guy who was drafted after the 13th was ratified.
FedUp is correct. The 13th does not apply to conscripts (by judge-made law) or to prisoners; thus, it is not absolute.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It’s firearm, not fire arm.
Well AR15’s WERE high profit items…I’ve been around guns mebbe 7 years and they were pretty pricey
pre-Newtown. Then obscenely high…last year before all the mass shootings prices were rock bottom. Now higher…it’s no wonder rolling yer own is so popular.
That, and building rather than buying allows you to pay for only the parts you really want – Not pay for a fully-built rifle, then pay again to replace half the components on it with what you actually wanted…
I heard that on patrol their rifles would get a lot of fine sand in the action. When they were engaged they would lay down fire, after a bunch of rounds their gun would start to short stroke from the grime, eventually the gun would “quit” on them and require a cleaning to get back up (which they couldn’t do when they needed to). So it turned into bang, pull charging handle, bang, pull charging handle and hit the forward assist while cussing, continue until empty. I don’t know how often that happened.
5.56 is best served through a long barrel. M16s are way too long for in-door combat, but shortening the barrel makes them less effective. So you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. It’s as if a different caliber is needed for military operations.
My understanding is that dry and dirty = major headache
Wet and dirty (ok, leave that line alone) = keeps on goin’
My Glocks run on the dry side. My Colt AR isn’t exactly dripping but I’m not skimpy with the lube, even when it’s Rand CLP
We have a number of folks who have spent some legitimate trigger time in dirty dusty places, I’m looking forward to hearing from them.
We brought (just out of depot maintenance, but) whipped A2s to Iraq, expecting to receive A4s in country. We did, almost two months later. We were on the road a lot (the whole time) it was 140 degrees during the day a lot of that time. We never traded in our A2s. Especially our Gunners whose A2s didn’t have an M203. I was our Platoon’s Armorers and I didn’t hear any complaints, even though we did a very large amount of security dismounts.
can’t correct sh_t on phone
Never traded using our A2s for issued M4s (yes, we were issued two rifles at the same time, in addition to M9s, crew served M2HBs, 240s, M203s, and whathaveyous.
“I heard that”
Explains a great deal. The Marines are always looking for new potential jarheads.
It’s not like I can talk to them again because they kind of be dead. Maybe you saw their picture on the news when they used to do that.
The Politicians involved in the attempt to overthrow the U.S. Constitution–Bill of Rights should be dragged from THEIR public offices! Tarred and Feathered in the public square as a reminder of what happens to Authoritarians and Tyrants! Then promptly imprisoned for treason!
That used to be the idea. However, people are less likely to risk their lives these days to do that. Back in the day it was much worse to allow tyrants to run things; you would rather die fighting them than live under their rule. Today people have it pretty good even though they are much less free than previous generations.
“Everytown for Gun Safety, a terrorist organization that advocates for legislation aimed at infringing on natural born, Constitutional Rights, are bonafide domestic enemies”. FIFY. Also, it is exactly these people our Founders warned us about and gave us remedies to deal with.
What is this ‘certificate’ Boulder refuses to issue?
I think it’s a sort of paperwork that identifies the rifle or accessory that is already owned, so they can show that it was grandfathered.
Either way, we should be pushing preemption in this state. Boulder is a massive land spot of dirty hippies with dreads and homeless camps full of drum circles and stoners. On the other half, it’s full of spoiled trust fund brats like David Hogg, and rich white liberals who think they know best by helicoptering their kids.
Every sheriff in this state (with a couple of exceptions) refuses to even acknowledge the fact that there is a high cap mag ban. I can walk into any number of local shops and buy 30rd pmags without any issues.
Basically if you live in Boulder and own a now banned “assault weapon”, your “assault weapon” can be grandfathered in if you owned it before the “ban”.
Doing so requires a certificate that you owned it pre-ban and to get said certificate you need a background check. That BCG has to screen for felonies, domestic violence and active warrants.
So there was an argument as to who should be allowed to run the BGC. On the table was the option to let a gun store run the BGC and issue a certificate of pre-ban ownership. The city council, under the advice of Boulder PD and others, concluded that ONLY the cops should be able to run the BGC because of the LGS’s ran the check it would miss active warrants and DV stuff.
So, Boulder decided that an LGS (there are two in Boulder) cant run the BGC, you have to do it through the PD.
Draw what conclusions you may.
NO > = PIGS
In college, liberal fuckers taught Orwell, like they weren’t the problem.
Nothings changed.
“…concluded that ONLY the cops should be able to run the BGC because of the LGS’s ran the check it would miss active warrants and DV stuff. ”
Soooo, the cops have their own secret dirty deeds list??
Yep… its called NLETS and its restricted to law enforcement for law enforcement purposes. If a cop runs his daughter’s boyfriend in NLETS to see if he’s a scumbag, then the cop gets fired and charged with a federal crime. I suppose legislators could pass a law that would make criminal and NICS information available to the public so it’s not secret (I’m not sure what you’re implying with your statement about “secret dirty deeds list”), but that means our ideological enemies will have access to our private information, which I really don’t want. Obama already weaponized the IRS and DOJ to spy on and crush his political opposition, but he had to jump through hoops and leave a paper trail to do it. Declassifying that information would give Shannon Watts an orgasm.
Guys I’m going to piss some of you off. I believe that one of the reasons the AR platform is so popular today is:
1. It’s about the only thing available to you.
2. It’s affordable.
3. (?) It may be the only thing you have any real experience with.
When I was issued an M-16A1 I, and most of my fellow troops had anything from a mild distaste to a gag reflex when we handled them. At least those of us that had any experience with a rifle did. Of course, in those days you walk into almost any gun store and buy an H&K, FN, M1A, etc. Real rifles. And before you piss and moan, an M-4 is nothing more than a chopped and channeled M-16. You can buy better magazine now, but that was less than half the problem with the AR platform. Are you going to bet your life on a rifle? Save your pennies and buy a real one. Don’t forget at least 10 spare mags, (you want to rotate your load out) and support gear. And a stockpile of ammunition. You know, just in case the zombies attack.
So you’re saying even if you didn’t handle a rifle you had a mild distaste to a gag reflex?
I’m saying the damn things don’t things don’t work. I was issued several M16A1s during my four year enlistment. I maintained them meticulously. They would all malfunction after a couple of hundred rounds. At one time I was issued a brand new one. “Finally!” I thought. Nope. Same thing. After my discharge I bought an AR, or two over the years. Same thing. After the North Hollywood shootout, when law enforcement thought “Hey! Maybe we should carry rifles!” (I kept a rifle in my patrol car from day one.) I took a patrol carbine class sponsored by the Florida S.W.A.T. Association. They only allowed ARs so I borrowed a department issued M-4 from one of the other investigators. I was shooting from prone and, and clearing yet another malfunction, when one of the instructors asked, “What’s wrong with that rifle?” I looked up over my right shoulder and said, “It’s a fucking M-16! That’s what’s wrong with it!” He walked on without comment. As an aside, I wasn’t the only one who experienced malfunctions during that class. I’ll take my HK, Galil, M-1 Garand, even my ’03-A3, over an AR any day. Thank you very much!
Man that sucks. Ive been shooting AR15’s and M16’s (sorry but M4’s came after my time) for almost 25 years now. I’ve never had the problems you described. The military, Colt, and FN worked out a lot of the problems with the early guns and I would assume the SWAT team gave you a loaner that was probably beat to shit or not broken in. Re: magazines being “half the problem”: magazines are statistically 90% of the problems with AR pattern rifles. USMC “green follower” mags with SS or CM spring (when I first started shooting them) were a step in the right direction. HK mags from the OICW project were the Cadillac of magazine reliability (heavy and made out of steel just like a Cadillac). Then Magpul married reliability and cost effectiveness….. i always thought his was odd, because the Russians have been producing tough, cheap, reliable, steel, anti-tilt follower magazines since 1947….. I hear the guns that used those mags were pretty reliable too, but I can’t for the life of me think of the rifle’s name…
California, my first experience with the AR platform was in 1978. My last was last week. The loaner was from my own agency. Maybe, maybe, a 1000 rounds through it. New Colt manufacture. If you haven’t had problems with an AR you don’t have much experience with them. Not trying to be condescending, but I’m talking about thousands, no 10s of thousands of rounds through them. Compared to many other military rifles out there they are just not very good rifles. Well, actually carbines. On the plus side, they are lightweight, and when they work, accurate.
Yeah right. This site has reviewed lots of AR rifles; depending on the manufacturer and the model of the rifle, there are some great rifles in the AR group.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/ttag-reviews/?c=D1
I think I understood what was trying to be conveyed here…
I like the AR rifle, when built with quality parts, a low budget slap job handed to grunts, not so much.
But like you said, if I were to bet my life on it, give me a battle rifle. The M14/M1a platform is a tank, it was built with low maintenance in mind, swap the wood stock for a composite and it will serve well.
But something to consider, if I was going to deploy to a lone area with just one rifle an limited supplies but a ton of ammo, give me an M14
If I have parts support, the AR platform is great, if there is an issue, just pop the thing apart, throw a new bolt or whatever on it and keep running.
On the civilian side here, you can have stock piles of spare parts, try that with an M1a and you better have deep pockets.
And for those who are going to say it, “but the battle rifles were heavy…”
Man up, this baby is saving your life.
So, upon reading the 5 complaints about the M16….
Holy crap!
What a group of babies!
Man up and take control, clean the damn thing, stop gripping the firearm like you’re holding a butterfly and get a little dirty.
Also I have NEVER caked up an AR on a single magazine of ammo even with the WORST cheap rounds you can find.
Wow, I feel bad for DI’s today, it must be like trying to train infants.
And the punishment for non compliance is?
Regarding the AR/M16/M4, every weapons platform will have weaknesses that military service will expose. As long as humans are designing/producing them, it’ll always be that way. Of course, one of the initial problems with the M16 was somewhat self-inflicted; assuming the rifle was self-cleaning, and thus not issuing cleaning kits.
“But this thinking is lost on those who continue to believe that guns, and not the criminals and mentally unstable people who wield them,”
wow. in the same day on the same page. no integrity here WHAT SO EVER.
I for one am surprised that so many Dems (representatives of a party with gun control as one of main parts of its platform) were graded so highly by the NRA. Does their voting record really show that they consistently go against their own party’s program?
Cabela’s is not the best place to look for AR stuff. Last week I helped my friend to build his first evil black rifle and we didn’t spend much time or any money on Cabela’s site. The stores in Hoffman Estates, Il. and Hammond In. are even worse. Very few AR parts except for the Magpul line, but even that was mostly sold out.
$700 upper receiver the most expensive item? We spent $1200 on his upper alone. At Brownells.
Btw. fire control group lives in lower receiver.