I've always said show me an anti who's handled/fired/cleaned guns and, at the least, knows the dictionary definitions of a machine gun, battle rifle, assault rifle, and submachine gun; well, I'm not sure what I'd do if I met an anti like that, but I doubt I ever will.
The AR isn't a bad rifle in my experience. Can be annoying to clean sometimes, and it can't compare in beauty to a M1A, and then you always get into the debate on the effectiveness of the 5.56x45 vs a 7.62x39 or 7.62x51.
I've been looking for a good 5.56x45 upper for my wife's AR-15 lower that came as part of a Rock River Arms 22LR AR. I was at the store the other day and they were selling a gas piston one for $650, looked interesting till the guy told me it was a 6.8mm.
By the way, does anyone know a good autoloader 22 rifle that's not too expensive?