Setup AR-15 for Home Defense

[Oni_Kadaki]

Well, the M16 was a machine gun. The AR15 is not. It's not capable of fully automatic fire or burst; the very definition of a "machine gun." The AR is one trigger pull, one bullet. Machine guns are one trigger pull, more than one bullet.

Minor nitpick, the M16 is an assault rifle... the M249 and M240B are machine guns. I would know, I'm qualified on both of the machine guns, as well as the M4 carbine (the M16's little brother). I only bring this up because leftist media in the US has been throwing around the word "machine gun" in connection with police use of force lately, and I find that wording to be manipulative and deceptive as, to my knowledge, no police department regularly issues light machine guns.

 

[Steve]

That's internal remarketing designed to drum up donations from those already sympathetic. It's not intended to sway you.

It's horrifying, to be honest. Alarming.

I'll avoid anything political, and will take a look at the CDC study. I'm looking forward to seeing how they define a DGU. It's been a while since I've done any significant research on this topic, but I ended up pretty firmly in the camp that the likelihood of things going wrong with a gun are way, way higher than of things going right. Simply put, if you have a gun in your home, the chances of something bad happening (i.e., someone being shot that shouldn't have been) is much higher than you being a hero and saving the day by either brandishing or actually firing your weapon at a "bad guy."

I'm not saying the above to try and convince anyone. Just putting my cards out on the table.

 

[Steve]

Minor nitpick, the M16 is an assault rifle... the M249 and M240B are machine guns. I would know, I'm qualified on both of the machine guns, as well as the M4 carbine (the M16's little brother). I only bring this up because leftist media in the US has been throwing around the word "machine gun" in connection with police use of force lately, and I find that wording to be manipulative and deceptive as, to my knowledge, no police department regularly issues light machine guns.

Oh boy.

 

[Steve]

That's internal remarketing designed to drum up donations from those already sympathetic. It's not intended to sway you.

I'm not sure what information you're interested in. I'll try hard not to step over the "no politics" line for this forum.

I'll try to keep this short without writing a book. The empirical evidence seems to support the notion that firearms are used far more often for defensive purposes, "good," than for criminal misuse, "bad." Over the years, there have been dozens of DGU (Defensive Gun Use) studies, including several different U.S. Government bodies (specifically the annual FBI "Crime and Victimization" and a little known Centers for Disease Control study). These studies attempt to track the number of DGU's per year but due to reporting standards either admit to under-reporting the number of DGU's or having to extrapolate (both the Kleck study and the CDC study). Every year, the FBI/DOJ publishes the National Crime & Victimization Report (CVR). This report, they admit, captures the lowest number of DGU's and they miss a lot which are never reported to Law Enforcement. DGU's per year range from a low of 76,000 per year back in the mid-90's to 235,700 for more recent (~2011). The Hart study, found 650,000 DGU's per year. The Mauser study found 700,000 DGU's per year. Gary Kleck, famously reported 2.1 million DGU's per year and was roundly ridiculed for his extrapolation methods and questioned about how his number could be so much greater than the DOJ CVR numbers. Those complaints lost a lot of wind from their sails when it was found that the (unreported and apparently hidden and not released to the public until 2018) 1998 Centers for Disease Control study found an estimated 2.46 DGU's per year.

Significantly, even using the lowest estimate, 76,000 violent crimes are prevented by armed citizens each year. Currently, the annual murder rate in the U.S., by any method, is 15,498 per year. Thus, the number of violent crimes thwarted by armed citizens is about five times the annual murder rate by any means. If we use the DGU number from the CDC study, then people in the U.S. use firearms for self defense around 159 times more often then people are murdered, by any means, in the U.S.

The 2013, Obama directed, CDC study, titled "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence," also found that guns are used for self defense frequently and effectively, far outstripping their criminal misuse and, further, that mass shootings are rare.

(It is worth nothing that the CDC is not prevented from studying "gun violence" and they have published several studies. The CDC is prevented from using public funds to push an agenda. The Dickey Amendment was passed in 1996 and the CDC has published studies in 1996, 1997, 1998, 2013, and 2015, that I could find - there might be more.)

It seems pretty clear, from just the straight numbers, that negative and criminal uses of firearms in the U.S. are vastly over-represented in the psyche while the justified Defensive uses of guns are, for whatever reason, vastly underrepresented or under reported to the average U.S. Citizen.

I've collected most of the links you need at the end of an article I wrote in 2018. Here's the link:
Let The CDC Study Gun Violence

Again, as soon as this thread veers into politics, it will get shut down, so I am trying to keep it strictly to the facts and all nice & polite.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Hey, I didn't see any links to the actual CDC studies. Sorry, am I misunderstanding?

 

[lklawson]

Minor nitpick, the M16 is an assault rifle... the M249 and M240B are machine guns. I would know, I'm qualified on both of the machine guns, as well as the M4 carbine (the M16's little brother). I only bring this up because leftist media in the US has been throwing around the word "machine gun" in connection with police use of force lately, and I find that wording to be manipulative and deceptive as, to my knowledge, no police department regularly issues light machine guns.

The National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) legally defined a "machinegun" in U.S. Law. According the revised NFA a "machinegun" is defined as "Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger"

Because Assault Rifles are defined as having Select Fire capabilities (the ability to switch between semi-auto fire and either multi-round burst or full auto/fully automatic fire) they are, by legal definition of NFA, a "machinegun." M16's are a subset of machineguns. Not all machine guns are M16's but all (real) M16's are machine guns. Which is why when drop bear repeated uses the term "machine gun" in a thread only discussing AR15's he needs to be corrected. Because an AR is not a machine gun.

Ref to the BATFE on NFA/machineguns:
Firearms - Guides - Importation & Verification of Firearms - National Firearms Act Definitions - Machinegun | Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

It's horrifying, to be honest. Alarming.

I'll avoid anything political, and will take a look at the CDC study. I'm looking forward to seeing how they define a DGU. It's been a while since I've done any significant research on this topic, but I ended up pretty firmly in the camp that the likelihood of things going wrong with a gun are way, way higher than of things going right. Simply put, if you have a gun in your home, the chances of something bad happening (i.e., someone being shot that shouldn't have been) is much higher than you being a hero and saving the day by either brandishing or actually firing your weapon at a "bad guy."

I'm not saying the above to try and convince anyone. Just putting my cards out on the table.

Please understand that I'm not poopooing your concerns. However, accidents with a firearm are at a literal all time low. I mean, literally the lowest per capita number of "accidental gun deaths" since they began keeping records more than a century ago.

I know that you've been told that "if you have a gun in the home there's more chance of it killing you than a bad guy." That's what the discredited "study" from earlier claimed. But it is not actually true.

The truth is that gun owner training, particularly in safe handling protocols, is better, more comprehensive, and more spread through the gun owning population than it has ever been. And that is driving down, year after year, accidents in the home. While I agree completely that any accident is a tragedy, it is just not as common as many in the U.S. have been lead to believe. The numbers don't lie.

Ref:
Unintentional Firearm Fatalities Reach All-Time Low :: Guns.com

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

Hey, I didn't see any links to the actual CDC studies. Sorry, am I misunderstanding?

Kleck had to accidentally find the study and request it from the CDC. Not sure how much it costs. They talk about it briefly in this article:
CDC unpublished study: Over 2 million defensive gun uses every year

It made a big splash in the firearms circles when the news came out.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[drop bear]

Only two of those are actually machine guns.

The fact that you keep calling something a machine gun which isn't one is a good place to start.

I don't know, if you kept calling a Ford F150 a MRAP, might that not be misenterpreted?

To repeat; no one in this thread (except you) is talking about machine guns.

The thing is, if you have a look at my posting history. I do take issue with systems that are all image and no aplication. All the Aikidos and ninjitsus and apparently tactical gun. Where people sit from their arm chairs thinking that if they have their banter down they can convince people they are some sort of expert.

And all it winds up doing is putting the focus on the wrong thing which allowes in far too much misinformation and BS. That then everyone believes because there is no way to test.


Hence sports like MMA where the experts are actually in the field doing the thing they are advocating.

So machine gun or assault rifle or gunnny gun gun or whatever image you are desperate to create doesn't actually make a lick of difference.

Because there are no lies on the mat.

Now I understand tactical gun people have, like aikido or ninjitsu have removed the mat and have abandoned any sort of practical testing for dogma. But that doesn't really effect me does it?

So if you don't want to call an AR a machine gun you are more than welcome to. But to be an expert in home defence I think you would probably wanted to have defended your home with said AR or machine gun.

Because otherwise you are making things up and pretending that you are not.

As I said. Aplication is the king of the conversation when it comes to practical matters. Terminology is for pretenders.

 

[Steve]

Please understand that I'm not poopooing your concerns. However, accidents with a firearm are at a literal all time low. I mean, literally the lowest per capita number of "accidental gun deaths" since they began keeping records more than a century ago.

I know that you've been told that "if you have a gun in the home there's more chance of it killing you than a bad guy." That's what the discredited "study" from earlier claimed. But it is not actually true.

The truth is that gun owner training, particularly in safe handling protocols, is better, more comprehensive, and more spread through the gun owning population than it has ever been. And that is driving down, year after year, accidents in the home. While I agree completely that any accident is a tragedy, it is just not as common as many in the U.S. have been lead to believe. The numbers don't lie.

Ref:
Unintentional Firearm Fatalities Reach All-Time Low :: Guns.com

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I do plan to take a look. But to clarify, when I say that, I have in mind things like kids shooting their friends, relatives shooting each other, accidents and non-accidents where drugs or alcohol are involved, collateral injury and death from criminals AND cops, and things like that. Kind of spills out of the home a bit in some of those situations, but all are related to the idea of guns for "safety".

 

[lklawson]

The thing is, if you have a look at my posting history. I do take issue with systems that are all image and no aplication. All the Aikidos and ninjitsus and apparently tactical gun. Where people sit from their arm chairs thinking that if they have their banter down they can convince people they are some sort of expert.

I don't care. You are simply wrong.

And all it winds up doing is putting the focus on the wrong thing which allowes in far too much misinformation and BS. That then everyone believes because there is no way to test.

Stop deliberately using the wrong terminology, even after corrected, and the problem goes away.

So machine gun or assault rifle or gunnny gun gun or whatever image you are desperate to create doesn't actually make a lick of difference.

Wrong again. It makes a HUGE difference. 10 years in Prison, $250,000 fine, a Felony Record, and permanent (legal) Disability from firearms rights. THAT is the difference between a "machinegun" and an AR. So, yeah. Use the right d@mn term. It makes a difference.

Because there are no lies on the mat.

You can explain it to the ATF.

Now I understand tactical gun people have, like aikido or ninjitsu have removed the mat and have abandoned any sort of practical testing for dogma. But that doesn't really effect me does it?

First, that's laughable and shows you don't know much about what is going on in the "training community" and second, it doesn't make any difference to the fact that you kept using the wrong term and are now desperately obfuscating, hand-waving, and crying about ninjitsu or some such bullsqueeze. You were wrong. Just admit it.

So if you don't want to call an AR a machine gun you are more than welcome to.

Yeah yeah, go tell the United States Congress and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that they can't get a definition right and some rando in Australia bitching about ninjitsu needs to school them in correct terminology. Please. And video that. I haven't had a good laugh in seconds.

As I said. Aplication is the king of the conversation when it comes to practical matters. Terminology is for pretenders.

Words matter. You hosed it up and are too scared of looking silly to nut up and admit your mistake. Grow a pair.

 

[lklawson]

I do plan to take a look. But to clarify, when I say that, I have in mind things like kids shooting their friends, relatives shooting each other, accidents and non-accidents where drugs or alcohol are involved, collateral injury and death from criminals AND cops, and things like that. Kind of spills out of the home a bit in some of those situations, but all are related to the idea of guns for "safety".

OK. But, quite honestly, those things are all (statistically speaking) very rare occurrences. The places where they do occur more often are frequently associated with tighter government controls on firearms rights, which were put in place supposedly to try to curtail those things.

Violence, it turns out, is not about what tools are available but rather a factor of social issues and relative economic issues. To be overly abbreviated, the poor and those in poverty relative to the rest of their society, are far more likely to engage in criminal violence and those who's social structures are designed around violence as a norm are more likely to engage in violence. As an example, the recently lowered murder rate in Britain & Wales is (according to google) 11.2 per capita (down from 15.7 per capita) whereas the murder rate in the U.S. is roughly 5.0 per capita. Even accounting for differences in reporting methodologies, the murder rate in Britain & Wales is higher than the U.S. despite very stringent gun and knife laws. Availability of the tools doesn't matter near as much as other factors. So when someone throws out that trite sounding byte that "guns don't kill people; people kill people" it turns out that there's more truth to it than is comfortable for some people.

Further, although no one would know it, crime and violence in the U.S. has been down trending for a generation and may be reaching an "all time low." Even Bloomberg's paper admits it. But, you know how it works. "If it bleeds, it leads" and that creates a false sense of the actual violence levels in the U.S.

(bloomberg ref: Pssst: Crime May Be Near an All-Time Low )

I suspect that the recent riots in the U.S. will put a major blip on that chart, but I think an argument can be made that the riots are a different type of criminal violence from the drugs, gangs, etc. we were talking about above.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Steve]

OK. But, quite honestly, those things are all (statistically speaking) very rare occurrences. The places where they do occur more often are frequently associated with tighter government controls on firearms rights, which were put in place supposedly to try to curtail those things.

Violence, it turns out, is not about what tools are available but rather a factor of social issues and relative economic issues. To be overly abbreviated, the poor and those in poverty relative to the rest of their society, are far more likely to engage in criminal violence and those who's social structures are designed around violence as a norm are more likely to engage in violence. As an example, the recently lowered murder rate in Britain & Wales is (according to google) 11.2 per capita (down from 15.7 per capita) whereas the murder rate in the U.S. is roughly 5.0 per capita. Even accounting for differences in reporting methodologies, the murder rate in Britain & Wales is higher than the U.S. despite very stringent gun and knife laws. Availability of the tools doesn't matter near as much as other factors. So when someone throws out that trite sounding byte that "guns don't kill people; people kill people" it turns out that there's more truth to it than is comfortable for some people.

Further, although no one would know it, crime and violence in the U.S. has been down trending for a generation and may be reaching an "all time low." Even Bloomberg's paper admits it. But, you know how it works. "If it bleeds, it leads" and that creates a false sense of the actual violence levels in the U.S.

(bloomberg ref: Pssst: Crime May Be Near an All-Time Low )

I suspect that the recent riots in the U.S. will put a major blip on that chart, but I think an argument can be made that the riots are a different type of criminal violence from the drugs, gangs, etc. we were talking about above.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Believe me, you're preaching to the choir where self defense is concerned. In this case, maybe we see the same data and come to different conclusions. I see the real risk of being the victim of a violent crime and think that there are things we can do to further mitigate the risk, but learning to fight (or carrying a weapon) are not likely to be helpful. Like, let's work on opoid addiction, let's address mental health and homelessness, let's talk about poverty. Because these things put people at risk. I don't think, let's arm everyone.

We can talk 2nd amendment or what have you. But if we're speaking strictly self defense, I'm not convinced that carrying a gun is effective. Maybe if we're talking home invasion protection, but I'd like to see some data to suggest that that's more effective than having a St. Bernard for deterring crime, because, I'll tell you what, my St. Bernard scares the s**t out of anyone who comes near our house, and she can hear them from the street.

Like I said, it's been a while so I plan to take some time to look at current statistics. But I've looked into this and related data before, and posted a lot of it on this site, and I think, at best, it's just not clear so each side creates a self serving narrative (at least on the gun topic).

 

[EdwardA]

Growing up, my uncle, an MD and Hunter had lots of weapons of all types (locked up at all times)...a Frenchman, in his late 20s he was in the French underground, captured by the Nazis twice and escaped twice. Around 4 to 6 years old, he took all the kids out in the country a few times and taught us all gun safety and how to shoot.

That works.

 

[drop bear]

Well, the M16 was a machine gun. The AR15 is not. It's not capable of fully automatic fire or burst; the very definition of a "machine gun." The AR is one trigger pull, one bullet. Machine guns are one trigger pull, more than one bullet.

The AR is functionally no different from the Winchester Model 1905 of Teddy Roosevelt's era which Whitney used for hunting on his Arctic expedition. The AR just has more black plastic.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Fully auto is what defines an assault rifle sort of. The fire selector switch.

Which is contentious here because of the A1L1 which is an assault rifle and I will punch any man who says different.

 

[drop bear]

Oh boy.

And he is right.

 

[drop bear]

I don't care. You are simply wrong.

Stop deliberately using the wrong terminology, even after corrected, and the problem goes away.

Wrong again. It makes a HUGE difference. 10 years in Prison, $250,000 fine, a Felony Record, and permanent (legal) Disability from firearms rights. THAT is the difference between a "machinegun" and an AR. So, yeah. Use the right d@mn term. It makes a difference.

You can explain it to the ATF.

First, that's laughable and shows you don't know much about what is going on in the "training community" and second, it doesn't make any difference to the fact that you kept using the wrong term and are now desperately obfuscating, hand-waving, and crying about ninjitsu or some such bullsqueeze. You were wrong. Just admit it.

Yeah yeah, go tell the United States Congress and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that they can't get a definition right and some rando in Australia bitching about ninjitsu needs to school them in correct terminology. Please. And video that. I haven't had a good laugh in seconds.

Words matter. You hosed it up and are too scared of looking silly to nut up and admit your mistake. Grow a pair.

I don't think you understand the subject.

I hose it up on purpose. Because actions are more important than words.

You remind me of Sean Bean from Ronin.

You think you sound like a high speed guy. But you really kind of don't.

 

[lklawson]

Believe me, you're preaching to the choir where self defense is concerned. In this case, maybe we see the same data and come to different conclusions. I see the real risk of being the victim of a violent crime and think that there are things we can do to further mitigate the risk, but learning to fight (or carrying a weapon) are not likely to be helpful. Like, let's work on opoid addiction, let's address mental health and homelessness, let's talk about poverty. Because these things put people at risk. I don't think, let's arm everyone.

We can talk 2nd amendment or what have you. But if we're speaking strictly self defense, I'm not convinced that carrying a gun is effective. Maybe if we're talking home invasion protection, but I'd like to see some data to suggest that that's more effective than having a St. Bernard for deterring crime, because, I'll tell you what, my St. Bernard scares the s**t out of anyone who comes near our house, and she can hear them from the street.

Like I said, it's been a while so I plan to take some time to look at current statistics. But I've looked into this and related data before, and posted a lot of it on this site, and I think, at best, it's just not clear so each side creates a self serving narrative (at least on the gun topic).

Probably the most convincing reference currently comes from the Obama ordered the CDC study (prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council) which says, (quoting)

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”
CDC study, 2013​

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/18319/p...reduce-the-threat-of-firearm-related-violence​

I would point to the DGU numbers. Using the 498,000 number of DGU per year according to a 1994 Centers for Disease Control study, that far outweighs the number of accidents and criminal misuse. (ref: Estimating intruder-related firearm retrievals in U.S. households, 1994 - PubMed )

While it's a little bit dated now, the Justice Department found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. But when a woman was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes were actually successful. (Ref: U.S. Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Rape Victimization in 26 American Cities, 1979, p. 31.)

Really, the numbers are pretty clear. Accidents and criminal misuse of firearms are greatly outweighed by the lawful defensive use of firearms and that the defensive use of firearms in the U.S. is both highly effective and comparatively easy.

That said, I think a lot of it has to do with your comfort level. I certainly am not going to tell you that you must carry a gun for self defense. While the numbers are pretty clear that using a gun for self defense is particularly effective, if you just aren't comfortable with it, then you shouldn't do it. Naturally, I have problems with someone who wants to tell everyone else that they can't.

What I would strongly recommend is to get training. Honestly, find a reputable firearms instructor in your area and take a basic course or two. The first thing you're going to find is safety and safe handling is, literally, the first rule. In NRA courses, there is a HARD rule that during classroom work there is no live ammunition in the classroom. The 3 Rules are observed and enforced. Safety safety safety.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[lklawson]

Fully auto is what defines an assault rifle sort of. The fire selector switch.

Which is contentious here because of the A1L1 which is an assault rifle and I will punch any man who says different.

None of which applies to the AR15, which is what's being discussed here. Double check the thread title if you're having a hard time.

 

[lklawson]

And he is right.

No he's not. The legal definition of a "machinegun" applies to an Assault Rifle. It's in the clear language of the National Firearms Act of 1934 and linked to in the BATFE regs.

 

[lklawson]

I don't think you understand the subject.

I understand it perfectly; you keep attempting to conflate an AR15 with a "machine gun" and it isn't. A "machine gun" is any "firearm" which "shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger" If you can pull the trigger back and spits out 2 or more bullets, then it's a "machinegun." This clearly includes Select Fire Assault Rifles and clearly excludes AR15's.

AR15's are not machine guns. Stop implying that they are.

Nut up and admit that you were way off base. Or at least stop posting wrong info.