The same day the Rittenhouse jury began trying to figure out how to come up with a verdict in this case, The (failing) New York Times gave its readers an interesting perspective on in the form of an op-ed by a guy who usually writes about technology, but this time wants to inform the paper’s readership about the AR-15.
In case you didn’t know it, the gun that Kyle Rittenhouse used to kill two people and injure a third, happens to be the same kind of gun, in terms of design and function, that our troops use out in the field. Except in this case the gun was carried and used by a 17-year old who had never undergone the slightest military training at all.
For that matter, the op-ed columnist, Farhad Manjoo, also has no practical experience with assault rifles – I can tell that from how he talked about the AR-15.
Actually, he didn’t really talk about the AR-15, even though his op-ed says that he’s going to give his readers “the truth about Kyle Rittenhouse’s gun.” Instead, what we get is the standard, liberal response to the narrative promoted by the gun industry, namely, that owning this kind of gun doesn’t give you an ‘effective’ and ‘necessary’ weapon of self-defense, nor does it help you shield yourself from the ‘tyranny’ of the state.
These arguments are what Manjoo refers to as the “foundational tenets of gun advocacy,” and they are all wrong. The AR-15, in the hands of someone like Kyle Rittenhouse, actually engenders violence and loss of human life, rather than keeping society safe and secure.
I’ve been listening to this argument from Gun-control Nation for years and on occasion I have indulged in it myself. But enough is enough. Want to know the real reason dopey kids like Rittenhouse show up at a pitched battle between the cops and the demonstrators with their AR-15?
I’ll tell you why. And I’ll tell you based on my own thoughts and reasons which have led me to buy and own more than one AR-15.
I bought my first AR-15, the Colt Sporter model, back in 1978. I bought a second Colt AR, the heavy-barreled ‘target’ model in 1993, or maybe it was 1998. I also bought a Bushmaster in the 90’s, and at some point, I traded a Browning semi-auto, 7mm Rem Magnum for a Stag Arms AR-15.
Why did I own four AR rifles over the last forty-some odd years? Because I’m a gun nut, and gun nuts always buy more guns than they would ever need.
In fact, I never really ‘needed’ any of these guns. For that matter, I had no real ‘need’ for the several hundred guns that I have bought, sold, and traded since I paid some old guy fifty bucks for a Smith & Wesson 22-caliber handgun at a tag sale on Highway 441 in the Florida Glades back in 1956.
The difference between me and a pea-brain like Kyle Rittenhouse is that I never, ever thought that I might use an AR-15 or, for that matter, any of my other guns to shoot someone else. But here’s the dirty little secret about the gun business which someone like Farhad Manjoo would never know. And he would never know this little secret because he doesn’t really know anything about guns.
Kids like Rittenhouse want to own and walk around with an AR-15 because they enjoy fantasizing about the idea that maybe, just maybe, they’ll get a chance to shoot someone else with their gun. Of course, they never, ever imagine that such behavior is wrong. They will only shoot someone who is threatening them or someone else. After all, let’s not forget that we have a ‘right’ defend ourselves with a gun. That’s what the 2nd Amendment says we can do.
Except the 2nd Amendment doesn’t say that at all. What It says is that you can keep a gun in your home in case someone tries to break in and do you harm.
Rittenhouse claimed that he took his AR-15 with him to Kenosha to help some car dealer protect his cars. But the real reason he showed up in Kenosha with his AR-15 is that he was hoping he would get a chance to defend himself with his gun. And how do you defend yourself with an AR-15? You aim the gun not at some paper target on the range, but at a living human being, pull the trigger and the guy you hit goes down.
Guns like the AR-15 don’t get bought because someone wants to go into the woods and take a shot at Bambi or Smokey the Bear. They get bought because some of the people who buy them want to believe that walking around with that kind of gun makes you a big, tough guy.
Actually, all it really does is show everyone that you’re a self-proclaimed jerk. Unfortunately, being a jerk has never disqualified anyone from owning a gun.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 10:11:39
1. I read Farhad Manjoo’s piece in the Times and thought it was the typical NY Times far left field pablum about guns. Seems the NY Times knows about as much about guns as I do about the physics explaining the Big Bang. Maybe less. Mr. Manjoo read all his own narrative into that essay. That’s too easy.
2. I’m not convinced that Rittenhouse gave actually shooting someone much thought. I suspect he got swept along by the mob and as you say, that GI Joe mentality. When the SHTF, he made multiple rookie mistakes. Why he went wandering off the car lot is a question I’ll have to go back and read as I see that as a really dumb mistake akin to wandering off into a hot no-man’s land for a smoke. Why the bleep the so-called grownups didn’t just send him home in a car is another question. Suggesting to me there were no grownups.
3. I think we both have a carry permit, right? One doesn’t get a carry permit to go looking for trouble and we hope, I think, that trouble never comes to us. That said, if someone with a carry permit never considered what using it might entail, I strongly urge them to surrender it along with the little black plastic fantastic equalizer.
Conversely, when the dingbats went to parade in front of the Roundhouse in Santa Fe with their black rifles, I stayed as far away as possible. What could possibly go wrong, either on the street or politically (guns are now banned from the Roundhouse)? I suspect none of those Groan Men considered all the angles at their protests.
4. Yeah, I suppose some businesses in a riot zone might ask their adult friends to show up to defend it. But we don’t let 17 yr old kids loose in the military or police or that Well Regulated Militia with any kind of weapon without some sort of boot camp and training. This is Exhibit A why we don’t.
I suspect, finally, that young people might miss the important lessons here since both left and right are seeing things through their own looking glasses.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 10:46:04
“…Except the 2nd Amendment doesn’t say that at all. What It says is that you can keep a gun in your home in case someone tries to break in and do you harm.”
Where does it say that? The Second Amendment doesn’t specify Where We (The People), can Keep and Bear Arms…Only that the Right Shall Not be infringed.
…As for Kyle Rittenhouse, He seemed to do pretty well with his AR-15 without ‘some sort of boot camp and training”, and he’s probably had way less Negligent Discharges than Mike “the can’t make up his mind which side of gun control he’s on this week guy”.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 10:55:15
There is a rich literature on the history of bearing arms in America and on what the 2A may or may not mean. I suspect we will know more about its breadth after the Supremes rule on NYRPA v Bruen. But the body of literature makes good reading for anyone who wants to offer an opinion. You can start with Adam Winkler’s book “Gunfight” if you have not read it already. Its a good overview, albeit a tad dated. Here is another source.
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/lcp/vol80/iss2/
Yep, Rittenhouse shot people at point blank range. Let’s see if he does “pretty well” after the jury comes back. I think the murder 1 charges are over the top but given how long the jury has been out, I don’t think he is out of the woods.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 15:44:39
Khal, thank you for pointing out the above link to Law and Contemporary Problems. It appears to be a good resource. I just finished reading a paper on “Preface: The Second Generation of Second Amendment Law & Policy,” by Eric M. Ruben and Darrell A.H. Miller.
Here is a quote I found interesting:
“Building on the contributions of Saul Cornell and Darrell A. H. Miller, Levinson offers an erudite and fascinating postscript to close the symposium. His final line highlights the urgency of continuing to grapple with what counts as legitimate violence in America: “[E]ven those of us who are onlookers, so to speak, neither directly inflicting the violence nor bearing its brunt, have reason to be concerned about the circumstances of its occurrence given both the moral questions surrounding them and the sheer political and social consequences for the societies we live in.”
That’s just it, so many of us who think we are the “so called experts” are simply nothing but onlookers.
Do you live in a crime-ridden neighborhood? Are you worried every day when your child goes out for school or play that they may not come home? (rhetorical question)
There are so many people who sit so comfortably in their nice homes, low crime neighborhoods, expressing their opinions in a way considered annoyingly pompous and dogmatic about guns and crimes committed with guns. Some of these people even get paid for their pompous writings.
It would be nice for those who express their negative feeling about the 2nd Amendment to live and work in a crime-ridden neighborhood for, let’s say…now this is hypothetical, 6 months. I’m sure some would not have their feeling/opinion changed, but my money would be that the majority would now have a new appreciation for the 2nd Amendment and self-defense.
There are so many who are still living in the first generation of the Second Amendment. It’s past time for many to enter into the second generation. Afterall it’s been around since the 1970’s. We may now be entering into the third generation after SCOTUS rules on the New York case. …Possible?
Nov 19, 2021 @ 11:51:22
“Yep, Rittenhouse shot people at point blank range.”
Would you be happier if he was firing indiscriminately into crowds from 50 feet away? He only shot the people who were physically Attacking him (which happened at close range). It was obviously Self Defense… Although whether or not the jury sees it that way, will be the question of the day. There may be some Burn Loot Murder supporters among them, and the last thing those Criminals want is Citizens fighting back.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 12:43:57
If it were obviously self defense, the jury would not still be deliberating.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 13:18:45
NOT GUILTY ON ALL CHARGES!!!!
Nov 19, 2021 @ 13:38:00
Yep. Not surprised.
Nov 19, 2021 @ 12:50:27
I watched most of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and I don’t recall any evidence of Rittenhouse mishandling of the Ar-15, except for the failed attempt by ADA Binger showing a photo of Rittenhouse pointing the AR at Grosskreutz just prior to shooting and saying that it was improper. There wasn’t even evidence that Rittenhouse had seven or more unintentional discharges, and for that matter even one.
As for being able to handle a firearm and training…I think you might be onto something. That is when you mention undergoing military training and possibly suggesting that one needs that military training to carry a gun. That just may be a good idea. But there would be one exception, and that is deserters would be disqualified from carrying a gun.
There is one thing that I have a question about. That is when you say “I never really ‘needed’ any of these guns.” Why is it then you carry a Glock 17 with 16 rounds? I’m sure you’ve never thought about shooting someone else. Do you carry it to shoot Bambi? Or could it be that you carry it for the same reason Rittenhouse did…self-protection?
Nov 20, 2021 @ 11:23:31
My suggestion about training was not a criticism of how Ritttenhouse carried his rifle but his behavior in a riot. For example, how he got separated from the other people guarding the car dealership and caught up, dangerously, in the riot. To wander off that way alone left me scratching my head. I suspect no police officer would be wandering alone in that mess, for example. Things are just too unpredictable.
When Rittenhouse was chased and attacked, I think he had a right of self defense. Apparently the jury agreed. Still, this is not a story that either the right should gloat over or the left lose its sh*t.
Dec 01, 2021 @ 14:33:50
Mike, I too bought an AR-15 when they first became available to civilians in the 1970s and was an NRA member then. I kept it for a few years & decided I had no use for it and sold it. Really see no use for them unless one plans on a new civil war that QAnon/MAGA wants.
Read your essay on the Know Nothing Party of 1856. I been calling the GOP the Knownothing party for years b/c of its lies & ideology of the wealthy that encouraged fascism’s authoritarian BS.
By-the-way, my wife is Ukrainian and quite disappointed with what she’s found of the U.S., it’s not the progressive nation she was expecting. We’re closer to the time of the 1856 no nothings.