Dear Dr. D.,
Why would any person need an AR-15?
-Dr. D.
Dear Dr. D.,
First, you should know that I know nothing about guns other than they are generally made of metal, are used with bullets or other tiny projectile items, require aiming, and exist to cause maximum damage on a target. So what you're about to read is really my admittedly ignorant screed about these particular weapons.
I assume you're asking about this weapon in the wake of the shooting in Orlando, now classified as the worst mass shooting incident in US history, not that this dubious honor means much. A nutjob shot up a school full of children and the sales continued, so I doubt that the death of a bunch of LGBTQ persons and their allies will garner much support among the pro-gun crowd.
Yes, I know that I'm generalizing. I'm also essentially talking to myself here, so I know that I'm a hyper-analytical person who is constantly holding various facts in abeyance while I consider the situation. You, dear reader, may trust that I am always in possession of about a million mitigating factors or qualifications on any generalization that I make.
The President is about to speak. I feel bad for Obama; he's had to make so many of these addresses, and no one seems to be listening or to actually care. We have no will to fix this situation. We are infinitely more interested and invested in policing bathrooms in this country than we are in keeping maximized killing machines out of the hands of criminals. So he's going to come out of the Oval in a few minutes, and he's going to stand in front of a room full of reporters, and he's going to say the same sorts of things we expect a President to say at this sort of time: that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and friends, that first responders have done a tremendous job, that we need to give law enforcement a moment to figure out what's behind it all before we attach a motive to the crime. Eventually he will pivot to the heart of the problem--the NRA's tyrannical control of anything related to gun issues in this country--and we will listen, we may hear, but we will not really act.
So, why don't we? Why do we tolerate the availability of this ridiculous weapon. I say ridiculous because it seems unsuitable for pretty much any of the "acceptable" uses for a gun. Handguns. shotguns, rifles--I can see the use of those for self-defense and hunting. I don't see the point of a machine that fires off 10-30 rounds on a hunting trip or, to be honest, in a self-defense situation. In either case, the combination of excitement, time to act, and potential for hurting innocent bystanders seems to outweigh other considerations. Besides, isn't control of the weapon a critical part of its use, i.e., you want to be a good, accurate shot? You should want to be one, just as I should want to be a driver who can see what's happening around me, understands traffic laws, and recognizes that the vehicle I drive has the potential to be a lethal weapon.
But since the shooter was brown and of Afghani descent and the victims were gay and potentially Latino (again--sweeping generalizations with loads of qualifiers in place in my head--it was, I believe, salsa night or something at the nightclub in question) and since the gunman is somehow connected to ISIL...well, let's just say that any conversation we might have been able to start about gun control in the wake of this senseless tragedy will be drowned out entirely by jingoistic calls for any number of horrific human rights violations against anyone who isn't white. Sigh.
So, why does someone need an AR-15? Who knows. All I know is that we can't really even get to a national conversation about that given the complexity of each individual case and our inability to apply our collective attention on any one problem past a one-two day news cycle. How do we do this? I'll think on that and get back to you next week.
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