Surprisingly unbiased article on AR

Nitpicking facts aren't important to the antigunners or, frankly, to the bulk of the American people. What are important are "perceptions." If we get pedantic about facts, we exceed the attention span of most of the public. The antigunners know this, and that's why they keep plugging the simple message that AR-15's are "killing machines." The antigunners have us beat at the propaganda game.

Pretty unbiased, which is doubly shocking from Newsweek of all places, but it, like the article from The Atlantic it references, which claimed that the AR-15 was deadlier than other guns, also misses a blatantly obvious point.

Wounds inflicted by 5.56mm NATO bullets fired from an AR-15 are deadlier and more damaging than those inflicted by handgun bullets not because of the AR-15 being particularly deadly versus other guns, but because of the vast gap in lethality between any centerfire long gun and a handgun.

The Atlantic article was superficially true but came to the wrong conclusions. The wounds the physician who wrote the article saw as a result of the Parkland shooting were much worse than the gunshot wounds she ordinarily sees, because she ordinarily sees bullet wounds from handgun shootings.

And the article starts with a short video, showing people taking their guns to church to be blessed. I'm sure that NW placed that 1st to gather firearms support, and freedom of speech (religion).

The numbers of readers who clicked that vid 1st, and thought 'kook', and didn't read any further is how many do you suppose?

Past that the writing is good though, and appears balanced

I think the article misses the mark.

It focuses on nitpicking what an AR is or isn't, but still portrays the AR as some kind of mystical death stick that's superior at killing because it's an AR.

My first thought is that they should have cut to the chase and stated that centerfire rifles/shotguns cause more devastating wounds than handguns, and that platform is secondary to that distinction. My second thought is that this would only provide more targets for ban lists. For example, a recent proposed piece of legislation in Washington state was listing shotguns as well as rifles with certain features, labeling them assault shotguns or something similar. (This was a while back, and I believe dead at the moment. I don't recall the number on it.)

WestKentucky said:

but a few more articles like this might just help the left leaning folks to understand that a $500 AR15 is not an m16 or m4.

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I think it's good for people to be more educated about pretty much any subject, but I'm not really sure why it matters whether people in general understand the exact differences between an AR15 and an M4, regardless of it's retail price. As American citizens, we have the Constitutional right to own and train with M4's. If you focus primarily on explaining the differences between the AR and M4, you give the impression that it's ok with you that we can't legally own M4's. You're essentially admitting that some infringement of your 2A rights is ok, so now it's just a matter of figuring out how much infringement there should be. Since no government ever voluntarily decreases it's own power, some infringement simply leads to more infringement.

Sadly, I rad that as NW trying to be "centrist"--a "reach" over to the right to show how "fair" it is.

Antis are not swayed by facts.

Antis are not satisfied until more people are under more control and have less freedom. (They foolishly operate under a presumption that "they" will be the controllers and not the controlled.)

The article skates along the notion that "military style" = "scary," and takes no effort to examine the "why" of that.
It also fails to follow its own conclusions and speculate on whether kids are using "scary" guns to scare people, or if they are just a convenience as they act out their final social maladjustment. This latter is a very key point. The Florida murderer would have done just as much damage with a halberd or assagai, and that whatever is broken in that child would have been just as "happy" with the results either way.

Jesus, the comments from the people who think they are gunny trying to correct are much more uninformed than the article. Insisting SKSs come with removable box mags, could have just as easily bought an "AR-73," etc.

CapnMac said:

Antis are not swayed by facts.

Antis are not satisfied until more people are under more control and have less freedom. (They foolishly operate under a presumption that "they" will be the controllers and not the controlled.)

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AlexanderA said:

Nitpicking facts aren't important to the antigunners or, frankly, to the bulk of the American people. What are important are "perceptions." If we get pedantic about facts, we exceed the attention span of most of the public. The antigunners know this, and that's why they keep plugging the simple message that AR-15's are "killing machines." The antigunners have us beat at the propaganda game.

Click to expand...

+1 on both of the above.

To many on the left, the facts are irrelevant and want private firearms and the NRA gone. While this article didn't do the best job it could have, for those willing to read it this article did point out that not everything reported by the MSM is as it really is. I'll save it in case I need a reference some day.

It doesn't matter for the general population. I was driving to work today and on the radio, they are where talking about the orange day.
Antigun movement people paraded and talk about how easy it is to buy a gun on a gun show or internet - no background check or FFL needed. Just select what you want, pay and it will be shipped directly to your address. And people believe it. Because they want to believe, no matter if that complete twisting of the real process.