And if the above graphic offends you, you might want to educate yourselves as to the real and only purpose for which the AR-15 was invented. Hint: It wasn’t for hunting OR for self-defence.
“Our father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47,” the Stoner family told NBC News late Wednesday. “He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more by these events.”
The inventor’s surviving children and adult grandchildren spoke exclusively to NBC News by phone and email, commenting for the first time on their family’s uneasy legacy. They requested individual anonymity in order to speak freely about such a sensitive topic. They also stopped short of policy prescriptions or legal opinions.
But their comments add unprecedented context to their father’s creation, shedding new light on his intentions and adding firepower to the effort to ban weapons like the AR-15. The comments could also bolster a groundbreaking new lawsuit, which argues that the weapon is a tool of war — never intended for civilians.
Eugene Stoner would have agreed, his family said.
The ex-Marine and “avid sportsman, hunter and skeet shooter” never used his invention for sport. He also never kept it around the house for personal defense. In fact, he never even owned one.
And though he made millions from the design, his family said it was all from military sales.
“After many conversations with him, we feel his intent was that he designed it as a military rifle,” his family said, explaining that Stoner was “focused on making the most efficient and superior rifle possible for the military.”
And there you have it.
Are you listening, Bob Fucking Zimmer & Co.? Your proposed reclassification of the AR-15 is immoral, and frankly should never pass. No civilian, in Canada or anywhere, should have a legal right to own one, because there is nothing they could lawfully require one for. It was never conceived of as a hunting rifle, and no wonder; who wants to eat a venison roast that looks like Swiss cheese? Nor was it conceived as a defensive weapon; anyone who totes an AR-15 (or M-16, as the military rechristened it) to defend themselves looks like a fucking whackjob (and invariably is, meaning they REALLY shouldn’t have the right to own a gun).
No, the only thing this gun was ever meant to hunt was other humans. And if that’s what you really want to do, you can join the army:
…which is, incidentally, just what the Second Amendment means by “a well-regulated militia”. Remember, it was written when the US was declaring independence from England, and didn’t actually have a full-fledged army yet. The Second gives the states the right to organize their own armies; it does not, however, grant that right to individuals, gangs, cults, or corporations.
We Canadians also have our own army, and so there is no need to fall back on the fallacious arguments made by the NRA and other idiots from south of the border.
And no, weekend warriors playing army in the woods don’t count. Neither do radicalized bands of religious whackjobs of any description. (Yes, even Christians, and especially Mormons. What did you think Cliven Bundy & Co. were?)
It’s time to call this gun what it really is: an assault rifle. And in the hands of anyone not in the uniform of a recognized military force, it’s a murder weapon. Or a weapon of terror, as its repeated use in massacres by various right-wing whackjobs has demonstrated all too well.
PS: Commenting is closed on this piece, because I have no desire to be bombarded with cyber-terrorist yokels trying to “educate” me. This article is for your information, not mine. I’m already perfectly well informed, thankyouverymuch.
