I am a veteran of the United States Army. I served as a 12B (Combat Engineer) in the 37th Engineer Battalion, part of the illustrious 82nd Airborne Division
I cannot, for the life of me, understand why any civilian needs or wants to own an assault rifle. During OSUT (a form of initial training where Basic and AIT are rolled into one course), we learned that our rifles were deadly weapons, designed solely for killing the enemy on a battlefield. When we trained with our weapons, we had to shoot a "qualification" test. We were presented with forty popup targets, one after another at different distances, from fifty to three hundred meters, all in very quick succession. We had to kill at least twenty three targets to pass the test, but most of us, including those of us who never fired a gun before, easily shot thirty or more targets. All this was in the span of less than two minutes, and we even had to reload once in that time. I don't get why any civilian needs to kill thirty people in two minutes, unless he is deliberately causing carnage and mass death.
The civilian AR15 is just a M-4 carbine by any other name. The only difference is that it does not have burst capacity. That is not nearly as big a difference as the NRA makes it out to be. We never, ever used burst mode in the military, since it wasted ammo, was inaccurate, and generally useless. Besides for that difference, the AR 15 is the exact same as the M4. The M4's features are designed to kill a large number of people in a short amount of time, including a detachable magazine which allows for rapid reloading and a buffer tube and muzzle brake which dampens recoil, so that a shooter can fire off a large number of rounds with minimal affect on accuracy.
All the arguments about " I need my AR 15 for hunting" or "I need my Ar15 for self defense" are entirely ridiculous. The 5.56 Nato round, which the Ar15 uses, is designed to pierce body armor. Which deer wears body armor? And your fantasies about shooting fifteen home invaders at once is just that: a fantasy which will likely never happen. The only real purpose of the AR 15 in American society is to kill large numbers of clubgoers, schoolchildren, or innocent bystanders at a time.
And for those of you who claim that "my Ar15 will protect me from tyranny," guess what, you're wrong. In my time in the military, I saw that no civilian rebellion would ever stand a chance against us. We have M1 Abrams tanks which can survive multiple rocket hits. We have drones which can bomb your house while being controlled by a person a thousand miles away. If worst came to worst, we have nuclear weapons which can quickly bring a seceding city or state into the stone age.
The right wing claims to respect veterans, so please listen to the words of a former soldier. I trained with assault rifles. I carried an assault rifle as part of my job. I can tell you that the military M-4 and the Ar-15 are nearly identical, and that no civilian needs a weapon designed to kill dozens of people in a matter of minutes.
