In its amicus brief, the Department of Justice relies in part on flawed research findings as evidence that AR-15s are in “common use” and cannot be prohibited. For example, the Department cited a survey released days before briefs were due by a professor, William English, whose earlier work was criticized for — among other things — having “undisclosed ties to pro-gun interests.” English’s new research claims that roughly a quarter of gun owners own AR-15s. However, the new survey appears to suffer from many of the same flaws as his prior one; it was not peer-reviewed, does not disclose how respondents were recruited, and primes respondents to answer in certain ways.
The Department of Justice also cited figures from the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association, estimating that millions of “modern sporting rifles” — a term that the NSSF created for assault weapons like AR-15s — have been produced since 1990. But as discussed here, there is a stark difference between how many assault weapons have been made and how many are currently owned by civilians. The NSSF’s production figures do not distinguish between military, police, or civilian firearms and appear to include those in the hands of prohibited owners, such as criminals and domestic abusers, and those that have been illegally trafficked.
What cannot be argued is that assault weapons have become the weapon of choice for the perpetrators of the country’s most horrific mass shootings. Over 100 million Americans currently live in states that prohibit assault weapons, but those laws are now under attack, and the Trump administration chose to side with the gun lobby’s arguments and perspectives instead of protecting public safety.
— Greg Lickenbrock in Trump Admin Urges SCOTUS to Strike Down Assault Weapons Bans
Who needs data when you have feelings?
And why am I supposed think it’s bad or disingenuous that the industry created the term “modern sporting rifle” but not just as bad or disingenuous that the VPC manufactured the purely political term “assault weapon” in the 80’s to manufacture consent for the AWB?
If he’s genuinely an idiot I fee bad for Lickenbrock. If he’s using his platform to manipulate other idiots into doing his bidding he can FOAD.
“And why am I supposed think it’s bad or disingenuous that the industry created the term “modern sporting rifle”…”
Actually, the industry did not create the term “modern sporting rifle” as a new term, it was the original intent of the AR-15 rifle. It was actually (the original) Armalite company design focus term language for the original AR-15 design which was a civilian only design and not a military design. Armalite wanted to capture a growing niche market that wanted a general sporting rifle to market to that but with military styling cosmetically, and their concept used to do that was to create a ‘modern sporting rifle’ (one that departed from past traditional ‘wood and steel’). The rifle was to be the ’15th’ rifle in the Armalite design sequence (thus, Armalite Rifle 15, AKA ‘AR-15′), it was for the civilian consumer market. The design was done but the future production/marketing got sidetracked by Stoner convincing Armalite to go after the military market instead of marketing to the civilian market and he used the civilian AR-15 design changing it for military use and came out with a new design (same rifle but with military use the focus) but still in the same ’15th’ armalite design cycle so the number stuck. The AR-15 was literally originally a civilian market semi-auto only rifle called in concept a ‘modern sporting rifle’ – and the rifle that was put forth by Stoner and later became the M-16 for the military was literally derived from a civilian ‘modern sporting rifle’ called the AR-15.
(note: The Armalite of today is not the original company that created the AR-15. The company of today is an entity that purchased the name for their use as a company name.)
Baloney.
There was no “growing niche market that wanted a general sporting rifle to market to that but with military styling cosmetically” before the M-16 was adopted. The AR-15 was a scaled-down version of the AR-10 with many changes/improvements, and both were developed for military use. After the M-16’s adoption by the USAF in 1962, a few Special Forces units showed interest and bought some, then full adoption for all our military branches came in 1969. Colt began to make civilian-legal semiauto versions for the non-military and police markets, with advertising beginning in 1963 and availability in 1964, coinciding with the Army’s adoption of the M16, but the USAF had been using them since ’62.
There was, a growing niche of gun owners who wanted a sporting rifle with military style cosmetics. Armalite wanted to capture this market with their concept of a ‘modern sporting rifle’.
The original civilian only AR-15 design was based on the AR-10 scale down of styling feature concept to address that niche for a sporting rifle with military style cosmetics, never said the AR-10 was not involved. But after the design was done Stoner convinced Armalite to go for the military market because the military was looking around for another rifle so the civilian AR-15 did not get produced and marketed. (although a prototype did display at Armalite HQ for a long time until the company went under – previously over at TTAG I posted links to pics of this rifle prototype and a pic of memos from the original Armalite company discussing the development of the original AR-15 which was civilian only ‘modern sporting rifle’, but due to legal ‘threat’ reasons I had to remove the pics from the site I had them hosted on. I’ll post them again some day after certain legal things are resolved.)
Stoner took that civilian design, made changes to focus on military, and did a new design with his changes and it carried the same AR-15 designation because it was in the same Armalite design cycle. That’s how it became known as a ‘military design’, simply because the original AR-15 civilian design Stoners version was derived was never produced and marketed and Stoners version just happen to carry the same AR-15 designation because of how Armalite did it design cycle designations. The patent that was sold to Colt was the Stoner version. Part of the patent deal was that the AR-15 designation would be carried forth – thus when Colt did their brief redesign of the Armalite patent to produce the military M-16 they also carried forth the AR-15 designation on a civilian version of their redesign. And today, that’s the underpinning that the AR-15 was created as a military only rifle – but in reality it was actually originally created as a civilian only rifle. So Stoner is credited with creating the AR-15 as a ‘military rifle’, and that’s true but true in the context that he created his version of the original already existing civilian AR-15 design that was never produced. The AR-15 was literally originally a civilian market semi-auto only rifle called in concept a ‘modern sporting rifle’ – and the rifle that was put forth by Stoner and later became the M-16 for the military was literally derived from a civilian ‘modern sporting rifle’ called the AR-15.
I know this because Stoner himself told me many years ago.
Stoner and C. Reed Knight (of Knights Armament) had created a prototype pistol. Colt bought the production rights to it, and named it the Colt All American Model 2000 pistol. Colt introduced this pistol at SHOT Show 1990. Stoner was at the show to help Colt promote the pistol. I was in college at the time working on a project for a class and that was about the firearms industry. I thought going to shot show would yield some interviews for my project. I interviewed Stoner, recorded our conversation. He filled me in on how the AR-15 came to be. I have the tapes (back then it was tape), have them converted to MP3 files. One day I will post these, but can’t right now due to legal reasons dealing with Stoner family members and some of the entities Stoner mentioned. But its not an unknown thing just not a widely known thing, its peeked out everyone once and a while in reference, for example, the left wing Politifact fact checking entity Poynter mentions it with this:
”
…
The origin of the AR-15
First developed in the 1950s for civilian use, the AR-15 rifle was named after its manufacturer, Armalite. The letters ‘AR’ do not stand for ‘assault rifle’ or ‘automatic rifle.’
… ”
ht * tps://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/20t22/what-is-ar15-rifle-history-of-firearm/
disregard the above link. Somehow I inserted a ‘t’ into the year ‘2022’ in the link. The correct link is here > ht* tps://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/what-is-ar15-rifle-history-of-firearm/
And actually it was not even Stoners version of the original civilian AR-15 design that made it to military service as the M-16. So its not even true that the Stoner design was designed ‘for military use’ even though he focused his design version of the original civilian AR-15 design on military use because the Stoner version never made it to military use.
After Colt bought the patent to Stoners design version of the original civilian AR-15 design, Colt did a re-design and its the Colt version re-design that made it to military service as the M-16 and was designed for ‘military use’.
So in reality, the Armalite AR-15 was never a ‘weapon of war’ or a ‘military weapon’ to the U.S. military like the anti-gun claim. It was originally designed as a civilian market firearm, a version of that design was done by Stoner who added a military focus but that Stoner design rendition was never adopted by the U.S. military. It was only the Colt redesign of the Stoner rendition of the original civilian AR-15 that was adopted and put into service by the U.S. military as the M-16 and even then that Colt military version was no longer the AR-15 because once Colt bought the patent it became two different things, one was a redesign for the military and the other the original intent of the AR-15 as a civilian market rifle that carried forth the AR-15 designation per the patent sale agreement.
Everytown is inherently dishonest and it shows in their stupid brief, and their inherent ‘confirmation bias’ lets them miss the point completely.
Even if the numbers used by the DOJ were reduced by 50%, A-15’s would still be in ‘common use’. Even if every AR-15 actually legally owned by a person were physically counted A-15’s would still be in ‘common use’.
And this is a lie also > “What cannot be argued is that assault weapons have become the weapon of choice for the perpetrators of the country’s most horrific mass shootings.”
“What cannot be argued is that assault weapons have become the weapon of choice for the perpetrators of the country’s most horrific mass shootings.”
I think that’s a clumsy way of saying it’s not true that assault weapons have become the WOC for perps of mass shootings. Handguns are used in more mass shootings than rifles. Not hard to understand why . . . handguns are more easily concealed, have relatively large round capacities and are easily reloaded.
Most states with an ‘Assault Weapon’ law define various pistols, shotguns and non semi-auto rifles as ‘Assault Weapons’. It’s a legal term not a technical one. If SCOTUS only rules on rifles, expect states to add more pistols, shotguns and rifles to the list as on f’ you to SCOTUS and the people.
These clods believe their mission is so righteous, they don’t even need to be honest or show their work. Any designation for a firearm is intended as a tool to disarm law-abiding individuals. Everything they do is to obscure the truth and convert the law-abiding into criminals. This is all while their politicians enjoy armed security, paid for by the same people whom they intend to disarm.
Where do you think all the ARs are going to? The same couple thousand people have a few thousand rifles each tucked under the bed?
Hmm, I’m not finding any corroboration of the claim that the AR-15 started out as a civilian-market rifle.
https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/the-evolution-of-the-colt-model-601
read further back up
and in the many places writing about the AR-15 you will not see “corroboration” because its not known because although the design was completed it never saw production/marketing and the design was shelved until Stoner used it to derive his version and that’s what gets written about.
This happens in companies. Things are designed for a purpose but company focus changes and the design gets put aside and never produced – then someone else takes that original design and changes it some producing a ‘new’ design and it gets produced and marketed and that’s what gets written about and the public never hears about the original design or knew it ever existed.
Is Shooting News Weekly actually referring to AR-15s as “assault weapons?”
Did you miss the scare quotes in the title?
There is no standard definition of ‘Assault Weapon’ since it is a legal one, not a technical one. It varies between states that choose to define it. Most used California’s law as a template they modified slightly if at all.
So- let’s use California’s definition of an ‘Assault Weapon’ and include anything that can readily be turned into an ‘Assault Weapon’, in which case the DoJ is drastically understating the number of ‘Assault Weapons’.
1. They’re only referring to a few specific types of rifles, the ‘Assault Weapon’ definition includes a number of pistols, shotguns, and non semi-auto rifles by specific model, feature, or caliber (for example- anything chambered in .50 BMG)
2. Every semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine can be turned into an ‘Assault Weapon’ with a simple barrel swap. Put a barrel threaded at the end to accept a suppressor and it becomes an assault weapon. Which would at least double the DoJ estimate, the referenced study estimated ~40 million AR15 type rifles, the ATF estimates 52.4 million semi automatic pistols produced for the US market.
A concern is- if SCOTUS only rules on the semi-auto rifles, the other firearm bans won’t be affected and you can expect states to continue to define additional firearms as ‘Assault Weapons’, other than those specifically ruled on by SCOTUS.