- cross-posted to:
- michigan@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- michigan@midwest.social
Some days, those who would command govern represent us just make it too easy for, among other things, finding “post fodder.”
In the shadow of Michael William Nash’s demonstration of his 2nd Amendment rights on Saturday, according to The News…
Twelve Michigan House Republicans have sponsored a bill this month to the name the AR-15 “the official rifle of this state,” drawing criticism from opponents who labeled the proposal unserious and inappropriate.
For those who don’t know, the AR-15 is a semi-automatic rifle. Bear that in mind when reading the following.
State Rep. Brian BeGole, R-Antrim Township, a former Shiawassee County sheriff, was the primary backer of the AR-15 measure and said in a statement issued Tuesday that thousands of people in Michigan own an AR-15. […] “This distinction recognizes these law-abiding gun owners who are often vilified just for having a firearm as a hobbyist or to keep their homes and families safe," BeGole said.
That’s some hobby. Keep their homes and families safe. Safe from the government BeGole has represented most of his life, according to the oft-debated 2nd Amendment.
However, Ryan Bates, director of End Gun Violence Michigan, said BeGole’s bill was about “worshiping the rifle that is the preferred weapon of mass shooters.” […] Bates noted that on Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal ban on bump stocks, a rapid-fire gun accessory that was used in a mass shooting at a music festival Las Vegas in 2017.
“That shooter used 23 AR-style rifles modified with bump stocks to kill 58 people and injure nearly 500 in mere minutes,” Bates said. “We now live in a world where any deranged person can turn an AR-style rifle into a machine gun capable of firing 400-800 rounds per minute, a level of firepower that quite simply overwhelms law enforcement.”
We all know that rabbit and pheasant can get pretty mean. And who doesn’t like their venison pre-ground? To quote my favorite philosopher and thinker, myself…
It’s forever High Noon in this nation of cowboys.
Ah, almost forgot! Use it everyday!
Alt link for your convenience via archive.is
If you can’t see the crazy person on the bus, it’s you.
!detroit@midwest.social ☆ !michigan@midwest.social ☆ !music@midwest.social
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See, that’s the kind of idiot that makes gun ownership look bad.
They’re tools, not a fetish item. You start being an idiot and trying to make a “state rifle” at all, and you undermine every attempt to actually maintain the right to defense via firearms.
I see. You’d prefer a different kind of idiot, an idiot that would make gun ownership look good.
you undermine every attempt to actually maintain the right to defense via firearms.
From the linked article…
a machine gun capable of firing 400-800 rounds per minute, a level of firepower that quite simply overwhelms law enforcement.
…just in case your family is being attacked by, say, King Edward I of England or the FBI. We are talking about an assault weapon, not a Winchester 1897, perfectly adequate for your maintaining the right to defense via firearms. That is, if you must.
See, I know guns aren’t fetish items. You know they’re not a fetish item. Everybody knows guns aren’t fetish items. Every gun owner claims that they know…while slowly and methodically polishing up and down that long, metal barrel with mineral oil, lost in private thought…proudly displayed in oak credenzas or hung along the wall like so many stuffed bass or marlins. Maybe even modestly stored in a softcase just under the bed. I’d bet Anthony McRae knew, too.
And this charming fellow in Indiana just yesterday knew that guns aren’t fetish items.
Also just yesterday in Arkansas, this gun enthusiast and his “right to defense” knew that guns aren’t fetish items.
And this firearms advocate celebrating Juneteenth over in Round Rock, Texas. They knew.
And this rifle aficionado in Cincinnati, Ohio.
And this most certainly responsible firearm owner in Lathrup Village, MI, just hours after Michael William Nash’s demonstration of his 2nd Amendment rights in Rochester Hills.
This is no longer a question of the right to defend, or own firearms, or a “well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”. Rationalize and polemicize all you want. This is a sickness. Recognizing and admitting the problem is always the first step in resolving.
We are in agreement on one thing: instead of actively trying to resolve this tragic problem, Rep. Brian BeGole et al are merely clowns.
r2 FunFact™: know how many total shootings in 2023 (and 2022) there were just across the Detroit River over in Windsor, Ontario? 11, with zero fatalities in 2023.
Ffs dude, you are bonkers
“Oh come on now! How else am I supposed to play provider and protector while I assuage my feelings of inadequacy and quell my FEAR?”
/s
yeah, mass shootings where no one dies are an unexpected statistic. I guess mass shooting statistics is trying to measure the number of deranged people with access to guns?
Yes.
Seeing another comment about some other state firearms, I responded with how it’s even stupider than I thought.
The AR-15 is an absolutely shitty rifle unless you were going to kill people with it. The selection is also completely oblivious to what most residents use for hunting deer. So these repubs are posers that know shit about guns. As a liberal former deer hunter I’d recommended the .308 Winchester or the 30-06 Springfield. Actual rifles people use in this state for anything but the mass killing of children.
Ignoring the confusion between caliber and platform, .556 out of an AR-15 is still a great choice for anything roughly cat-to-human sized. Prairie Dogs, antelope, goats, sheep, foxes, coyotes, that sort of thing.
See my comment above. 450 bushmaster and 350 legend are both cartridges developed the for AR platform that are lower range, lower velocity, larger bore projectiles meant to limit effective range and still have deer stopping energy.
.223 / 5.56 is illegal to deer hunt with in Michigan because it isn’t a reliable caliber for a kill, and is more likely to wound. Your .308 or .30-06 flies way, way farther in the event of a miss, creating a concern of striking unintended targets far past your line of sight. Which is why it’s illegal to hunt with below the lower peninsula rifle line.
So I’m terms of popularity, an AR-10?
Wow! Where the hell did you pop up from?! Finally, as anti-firearm as I am, a statement I can reasonably get behind! 👏 👏 👏 Thank you.
The 2nd isn’t for hunting…you sound like a FUDD.
It absolutely is for hunting cause that’s what everyone was using in the 80s. Probably outdated now but so is Michigan
The 2nd amendment is not for hunting.
And reading comprehension is not for you.
Yea wasn’t commenting on if an AR15 chambered in 556/223 is good for deer hunting. I was commenting on your “AR15s are for killing”…no shit.
Yes, it was for slaveholders.
And its now for everyone. An armed minority is harder to oppress. You know why the LGBTQ+ and minority communities have the largest increase ever in gun ownership? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not because the 2nd was for slaveholders…
I am way too privileged to tell you how to protect yourself. With that said you can look at it two ways
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Read what Patrick Henry said about it. The second amendment was to stop revolts and at the same time provide a non-federal way to have a military. Which was required because he noted that blacks who served in the revolutionary war were made free afterwards. The goal was to keep the black population enslaved. You can also read federalist paper 46 and understand that a well regulated militia is not a dude with a gun. It means an organized fighting force.
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The second way you can go about it is work backwards. States wanted a legal way to raise their own armies in an emergency. Well what kinda emergency were they planning for? You don’t need a guy with a musket to deal with a flood. The emergencies we are told are revolts. Who is going to revolt the white population non-slaves or the black slave population?
The 2nd amendment existed to allow slave patrols to function. Even people who argued it was for a national guard type thing weren’t thinking of random people with guns.
- Justice Story had a better take with consideration of the historical roots of the recognition of the right:
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
- There’s other types of emergencies that were very pressing at the time. Namely attacks from the Iroquois Confederacy and the Crown of England (once the War of 1812 broke), just to limit it to the early republic period.
This 1619 type revisionism not only portrays the period in an inaccurate shade but diminishes the accomplishments of men, like Peter Salem, and ignores facts agreed upon universally by academia like that at the time of founding miltias were composed of ordinary men.
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AR15 is very popular for wild boar hunting. Not in its original caliber, though. See, one of the advantages of the platform is that it’s highly modular, and can put out 6.5 grendal just fine by switching the upper.
Everyone is ignoring the fact I was talking about the official gun for Michigan. You can’t hunt deer like you hunt boars. The AR-15 is a stupid rifle to associate with this state. A deer hunting rifle is a better choice. But I’ve been shooting my whole life and I fucking hate everything related to that platform. I don’t think about boar hunting when it’s mentioned, I think about the San Bernardino slaughter.
The state of Michigan has no historical connection to the AR-15, to my knowledge. Why don’t they pick something that is actually native to Michigan like the Johnston Muzzleloader?
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Indeed. I think that my questioning was more rhetorical but explicitly spelling it out can be helpful.
For the curious
This just makes it even dumber. Some of these at least have some interesting ties to the state’s history. Eugene Stoner isn’t even from Michigan, and ArmaLite was based in California and now in Arizona.
If people REALLY gave a shit and just couldn’t stand for not having a state firearm, I’d argue the M1 Carbine would be a far better choice given the historical ties to our automotive manufacturing base and its transition to wartime manufacturing, with General Motors being the single largest producer during WWII.
Alternatively, Hi-Point has some manufacting here, so I’d be willing to consider making the Yeet Cannon the official state firearm.
It pretty clearly has nothing to do with any sort of ties to manufacturers or state history though, and is 100% a “tRiGgEr tHe LiBs” move, which makes it incredibly frustrating as someone who is actually interested in firearms for their history and engineering, instead of as an inadequacy compensator.
M1 isn’t a bad pick. I feel like if the list gets filled out more the AR will become like the cardinal is for state birds.
Yep. That’s a long rifle.
Why are we letting these backward degenerates have a say in society?
Why, that’s easy. They were voted into their roles of representation. Not by me, of course. I’m in a different district.
Go on and put AR-15 on your flag, be like Mozambique with AK-47 on their flag.
Books, guns and hoes. Mozambique knows what’s up
Just need some black jack and Mozambique while be hitting all the right notes.
I’m a gun owner. I have an AR-15. I don’t want to hurt anybody, just to be able to defend my home against these very same lunatics. If anybody is going to get guns banned in the USA, it’s gonna be these people doing it to themselves by their unsafe, insane, hateful practices endangering everybody else.
Shout out to California’s gun laws only existing because of the Black Panthers.
Well, only because Republicans, the NRA, and cops were terrified and absolutely beside themselves at the idea of black people arming themselves and organizing for community support and defense.
I’m also concerned why they want to pledge allegiance to a company (Armalite). Is Kansas going to have Coke as their state drink next?
Wild, ain’t it? They don’t know how to like something without worshipping it.
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Thank you for your assertions. It’s always good to hear from an expert. You’re right. It could never happen here. Everything is fine.
The choice to have a gun at all actually increases your risk of being victim of a violent crime, and that’s just the odds for you. Having a gun in your house at all greatly increases the risk that you or someone in your home will die accidentally, or by suicide. Those odds are greater than those of any violent lunatic breaking into your home and murdering anyone in it.
Aside from poking fun at the notion a violent home invasion is something to contrast with violent crime, there’s a serious problem here. In the study of criminal justice (and many social sciences) it is nearly impossible in most cases to separate correlation and causation. This is due to the difficulties in setting control groups and the many possible factors that may influence these events.
A person cognisant that they are at increased risk of violent crime might feel inclined to acquire a firearm. This doesn’t necessarily mean the purchase caused the victimization. That is like saying doing chemotherapy increases your risk of dying of cancer. And someone experiencing suicidal ideation might purchase a firearm to commit the act. Putting this notion once again on its head.
Lol, i need a gun to protect myself from others with guns
Aside from a ban meaning you don’t need one anymore. If you’re ever in a position where you need a gun, then it’s already too late to protect yourself
Yeah, maybe you’re right. The cops will keep us all safe from fascists.
Too bad about Ukraine and how they fell in 3 days when the Russians invaded. After all, if you need weapons to defend yourself, it’s already too late. Everybody knows that. The best policy is always to immediately surrender and hope they decide to be nice to you.
Ukraine and Russia were fighting for a decade before that
If you think your easy bake rifle is enough to prevent a foreign invasion that overwhelms the US military then you’re ignorant enough to be a gun supporter
Oh thank you, what an excellent point you’ve made. Truly, you have destroyed the argument for self defense.
I never suggested we would be invaded by foreigners. Nor did I suggest fighting cops and the military, did I?
I said fascists. Yup, I sure did. Reading is fundamental.
I figured you would want to come up with an actual point
Woosh
Not really, you edited your comment
Does that mean the AR-15 is a sanctioned school shooter gun?
What kind of connection does Michigan even have with the AR15? The only think I can find is the wife of the designer died there decades after he died in Florida. They couldn’t name it after a gun that is produced there? Are they are so obsessed with identifiable firearms that they can’t give their own designers any spotlight?
Republicans claim to detest government waste and then do shit like this.
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When I was younger, hunting with an ar15 was illegal. Apparently that has changed? Or maybe it was always legal in Michigan. https://thegunzone.com/are-ar15s-legal-for-deer-hunting-in-michigan/
It was never illegal to hunt with an AR. Hunting restrictions are based on caliber (5.56x45mm being too small kill a deer reliably) and magazine capacity.
Modern Michigan compliant hunting rifles based on the AR platform have low capacity magazines and utilize straight walled case and larger caliber, higher weight and lower velocity projectiles like .350 legend and .450 bushmaster, resulting in a round that effectively knocks down a deer while having a much shorter effective range (less likely to shoot far beyond its intended target in the event of a miss)
So yeah, a modern AR using a purpose specific medium game cartridge is in fact safer than a bolt action rifle with a faster longer distance round.
Source: lefty gun owner that wants some reasonable and effective gun control measures and is tired of people who know fuck nothing about firearms having uneducated opinions.
Thanks for the update. It’s been 20+ years since I’ve deer hunted so that’s good info
It all makes sense when you realize his other proposal is to change their state nickname from “The Wolverine State” to “The Mass Shooting State.”
