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From military weapon to cultural symbol: how the AR-15 has defined the US gun debate
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
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politics
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I think it's based on "AR-15" being both a trademark describing specific products and a design pattern for a family of firearms where most components interchange between different manufacturers and models.
The US military M16 rifle and M4 carbine Are AR-15-pattern firearms, and military sales represented the bulk of early sales.
Of course the main difference being that AR15s are semi auto, and M16s and m4s are select fire with an option for full auto or burst, y'know, the thing that is actually functionally different but everyone wants to pretend they don't understand that to make the gun involved in .2% of gun deaths a year more scary so they can drum up support for a ban.
It's relatively easy to convert a semi-automatic AR-15 to fully-automatic. A quick web search suggests an M16 fire control group can be ordered for about $50 online, and installation in an AR-15 requires only drilling a hole. Of course, drilling that hole is illegal.
What's interesting about that is I can't recall hearing about a mass shooter doing it.
Shooting people indiscriminately in a public place is also illegal and they don't seem tp have any compunctions against that.