TTAG resident war hero Jon Wayne Taylor (above left) spent a good part of yesterday teaching a gun muggle how to shoot various firearms. Linda (not her real name) is a former New Englander looking to join her Texas-born husband in a Lone Star State deer cull. Under Jon’s tutelage, Linda shot the .308 Blaser R8 bolt gun out to 100 yards, no sweat. Marlin .22 lever gun? All, day, long. But when I brought out my FN SCAR 16, it was no way José! I asked Linda why. She couldn’t articulate a reply. But it was clear that gun was beyond the pale.
As you can see from the pictures above, Jon coaxed Linda to come to grips with the SCAR. What is it with “assault rifles” that gives gun muggles the heebie jeebies? Is it the constant mainstream media-enabled drumbeat that they’re “weapons of war” that “don’t belong on our streets”? The fact that spree killers have (infrequently) used them to create carnage? Or the name itself? Why are [some] people OK with grandpa’s hunting gun but not an AR-15?