What makes the AR-15 style rifle the weapon of choice for mass shooters?

[billh58]

The mass murder last week at the Pittsburgh Synagogue has something in common with the deadliest massacres: the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Variations of the AR-15 were used to kill at a Texas church, a Las Vegas concert, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and Sandy Hook Elementary School. The AR-15 style rifle is the most popular rifle in America. There are well over 11 million, and they are rarely used in crime. Handguns kill far more people, but the AR-15 is the choice of our worst mass murderers. AR-15 ammunition travels up to three times the speed of sound. And tonight we're going to slow that down - so you can see why the AR-15's high-velocity ammo is the fear of every American emergency room

Mass shootings were once so shocking they were impossible to forget. Now they've become so frequent it's hard to remember them all. Last Saturday, in the Pittsburgh Synagogue, 11 were killed, six wounded.

FBI Special Agent Robert Jones: This is the most horrific scene I've seen in 22 years with the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Members of the Tree of Life Synagogue conducting a peaceful service in their place of worship were brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith.

Just 11 months before, it was a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Assistant fire chief Rusty Duncan was among the first to arrive.

Rusty Duncan: 90 percent of the people in there were unrecognizable. You know the blood everywhere, I mean it just covered them from head to toe. They were shot in so many different places that you just couldn't make out who they were.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ar-15-used-mass-shootings-weapon-of-choice-60-minutes/

But Bubba needs to have one of these obscene weapons because the NRA told him that this pretty gun represents Freedom and Liberty.

[IamFortunesFool]

1. They love it because of its association with the US Military.

Last edited Mon Nov 5, 2018, 07:14 AM - Edit history (1)

The RWNJ types have fully bought into the cultish veneration and support of all things US Military. We have been told/taught to worship the military, police, first responders as surrogate guardian angels; sacred warriors to be endlessly reveared. We are told that if we do not do this, we are not patriotic. This faux patriotism has infected out cultural discourse (the discourse of a staggeringly, frighteningly uneducated public) to such a point that the low information voters that comprise the GOP base have accepted it as gospel into their narrow and unimaginative cosmology.

Thus, the AR15, the semiautomatic version of the military's M16, is the gun version of a support the troops sticker. The AK-47 is a Russian designed weapon that is far more reliable and inexpensive, but its long association with enemy combatants from Korea, to Vietnam, the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, keeps the it safely stigmatized from the discerning scruples of an angry, bigoted nationalist terrorist.

As with so much in our stimulus saturated consumer culture, branding is everything.

[2naSalit]

3. +1

[bluecollar2]

2. Ergonomics?

It's relatively light, compact, simple to operate and very efficient.

[Paladin]

5. That's a very clean, antiseptic, technical explanation.

But as I've said a number of times over the years here at DU: you cannot ignore the emotional reasons that AR-15's are used in mass murders, rather than, say, Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifles. The AR-15's are closely patterned after military rifles, which are specifically designed to kill or maim as many human beings as possible. The Model 70 is designed for wild game harvesting. The AR-15's background appeals to a lot of people, some of whom are mentally unbalanced. But don't take my word for this---Google up one or more of the online sites devoted to the ownership and use of AR-15's or AK-47's; get into the comments sections of such sites. I rest my case.

[bluecollar2]

7. You asked a question

I provided my perspective.

Don't try to start an argument.

[Paladin]

8. Actually, I didn't ask a question. I provided a comment.

I'm not the one being argumentative, here.

[billh58]

6. Very efficient at what it is designed to do...

Kill people -- large groups of people.

[lastlib]

4. Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!

Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!
Industrial-strength killing machines should have NO PLACE in our society!!

That was an excellent segment on '60 Minutes' last night! I hope it helps people see the human cost of these machines. and help to turn the tide of public opinion against them!