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
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.
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.
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.
A .223 with something like a 75 grain ELD-M bullet would be perfectly adequate for hunting deer. A number of states allow hunting deer with .223; I don’t believe that Michigan does though, and certainly not south of Lansing. (I think that’s the cut-off for rifle? That might have changed since I lived there.)
There’s no reason that you can’t hunt deer with .300AAC, or even 7.62x39, both of which an AR-15 can be adapted for.
But I’ve been shooting my whole life and I fucking hate everything related to that platform.
That’s an incredibly fudd-y attitude. I’m guess that when you say “deer rifle”, you probably mean something with a wooden stock, probably bolt action but maybe lever action, and probably chambered in .30-06, or (gag) .30-30. Or god forbid, .45-70 (because yeah, I want to use a slug with the ballistics of a mortar for hunting). The AR-15 has become popular because it’s highly modular, and can get better accuracy cheaper than you can on a more traditional rifle.
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 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?
I mean, the actual answer is that this is just another “trigger the libs” exercise, and they are choosing the AR-15 because it is the favorite of mass-shooters.
They don’t want to celebrate guns, obviously, or they would choose something native to Michigan like you say. They want to celebrate whatever the left opposes, even if it means celebrating the weapon of choice for mass murderers.
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.
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?
That’s what I was thinking, why the AR-15?
Why the AR-15? Why not the FN-FAL, the AR-10, FN F-2000, the L85A2, Steyr AUG, HK G36 or, shit, even the Keltec RBD?
Yeah, the AR-15 is a great carbine and all, but why elevate that particular rifle as a state rifle?
Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Was it designed by someone from Michigan or something?
Doesn’t seem to be. Eugene Stoner lived in Florida and California. Armalite–and later Colt–aren’t based in Michigan.
Yeah, if there was some historical reason (even a weak one) I’d be more okay with this. It’s so lazy. I’m under no false pretenses that the main point of this isn’t to “own the libs” but at least make a reason that makes sense for your state lol. Once your state has something (like a flag, state X, etc.) it is much more difficult to change it.
Like, even saying the double barrel shotgun because it represents the two peninsulas or something would be better lol.
It’s even weirder because Michigan is purple-trending-blue. I’m surprised that it’s not more blue, considering how much a part labor unions played in building the industrial base that used to exist in the urban areas. So I don’t know how they think that this is gonna “own teh libz” when they’ve already lost the state. Their own party is in tatters; it’s been run by someone so extreme in the state that no one was donating money to them.
Republicans claim to detest government waste and then do shit like this.
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.
…Are you saying that there are certain people that you don’t believe should be allowed to have a vote?
That seems like a… Dangerous path to head down.
No, i am saying we should use our vote to deny the degenerates a say in society.
And who, exactly, defines “degenerate”? Because I know there are quite a lot of people that would define “degenerate” as anyone that is non-Christian, LGBTQ+ or LGBTQ-affirming, or non-“white” (however they’re currently defining “whiteness”).
The only way you deny these so-called degenerates a say in society is by intentionally disenfranchising them, in much the same way that Republicans have made an effort to deny non-white people a say in society through gerrymandering and voter-ID laws. (Or, earlier, through “literacy tests” and the like, or simply murdering people that tried to get black people registered to vote.)
One day you’re going to grow up and realize you’re in a zero-sum game. It’s them or us. Choose.
So you’re saying my choices are either to side with fascists that want to take rights from people, or fascists that want to take rights from different people?
And no, it’s not a zero-sum game. My parents were life-long Republicans. They switched in the 2016 election, and have been voting mostly Democratic since then. I was raised in a deeply conservative religion, and was raised to be homophobic; I have changed, because I learned differently. The game, as you say, isn’t zero-sum; it’s persuasion. If you aren’t being persuasive, then you need to find better ways of reaching people, and yelling and telling them they’re terrible ain’t doing it. You certainly don’t win with circular firing squads.
Does that mean the AR-15 is a sanctioned school shooter gun?
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
Most states have shooting ranges to practice, Michigan has schools
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.”
