The United States of America has a national bird: the mighty bald eagle; as well as a national motto, “In God We Trust.” For Republican Congressman George Santos (NY), the US should also have a national gun. Nothing fits the American character more than the AR-15. To Santos, this semi-automatic, gas-operated, rotating bolt chambered in .223 Remington or 5.56x45mm NATO symbolizes the freedom valued by all real Americans.
The bill is co-sponsored by Barry Moore (AL), Andrew Clyde (GA) who also owns a gun store, and Lauren Boebert (CO), who’s also known for her staunch defense of the Second Amendment. To prime sponsor Barry Moore, the AR-15 as a national gun would be another symbol of American rights.
“Any government that would take away one right would take away them all.”
Predictably, Democrat politicians don’t feel the same way. New York’s governor Kathy Hochul, who banned body armor from her state for fear it could be used by the next mass shooter, called the bill “outrageous and appalling” in her official statement. She went on to call the AR-15 a “weapon of war” and a tool of “white supremacist terrorism.” But then again, to people like her, what isn’t a tool of white supremacy nowadays?
To anti-gun Democrats like Hochul, the AR-15 is the boogeyman for all of America’s gun problems, and the only solution to America’s gun crime crisis would be to ban it and all the so-called “assault weapons” like it.
Sadly, Congressman Santos’s bill is unlikely to pass thanks to Democrat control of the Senate and the White House. Even though this bill is largely harmless and will have no real impact on the everyday life of the public, the liberals in charge refuse to associate it with what they perceive to be a bloody instrument of mass murder.
The AR-15 is believed to be a “weapon of war” by everyone who gets their news from CNN or MSNBC. This could not be further from the truth. While the AR-15 looks like an M4 Carbine, the standard service weapon of the modern US military, it has never been deployed in combat by any national army anywhere on earth.
Rather, the AR-15 is classified as a Modern Sporting Rifle or MSR. An MSR is nothing more than a modular semi-automatic rifle designed for sporting or recreational use. Responsible American gun owners use them to hunt, plink, and train with every day.
Politicians believe that a new assault weapon ban will lead to a decrease in gun violence, but this just shows the lack of misunderstanding politicians have for the law. Even if all so-called assault weapons were removed from the hands of the people, mass murdering psychopaths would still exist, and they would still be able to commit mass shootings with clip-fed semi-automatic weapons like the SKS used in the killing of two Innisfil Ontario police officers in 2022. In the US it was used in the 2017 Virginia mass shooting.
It is important to know that anyone who calls the AR-15 an “assault weapon” is pro-gun-control. This term is purely political and is defined by external cosmetic features that have no impact on the gun’s performance. To the average anti-gunner, an “assault weapon” is anything that goes “bang” that you can hold in both hands.
Unfortunately for the gun-hating crowd, the AR-15 is here to stay. There are millions of gun owners in the United States who would see a gun grab as a violation of their sacred Second Amendment rights and an affront against their individual liberties. The solution to America’s gun violence program is not and has never been to ban the AR-15. Contrary to what politicians believe, the AR-15 is not the gun responsible for America’s high gun crime. That dubious honor goes to 9mm pistols.
The AR-15 is America’s national gun and has been for some time. Let her keep it. Instead, politicians from both sides of the aisle should be addressing mental health concerns and turning schools, churches, and malls into hard targets with armed employees to discourage future attackers.