Assuming proper training and ammunition, they're perfectly capable for hunting small to medium game such as rabbits, coyotes, tyrants, wild hogs, and whitetail deer.
I don't think some people know how much damage a pack of wild hogs can cause to crops and farmland in short order. If it wasn't going to be an AR-15 keeping them off the farm it would be another intermediate or higher caliber semi-automatic rifle that accepts standard magazines. Everyone want's to laugh at that excuse until the farmer has a bad season and has to sell his land to Bill Gates or Chinese investors, they don't exactly make large margins.
The magazine capacity is an issue though. The standard 30 round mag is far to large for any realistic hunting purposes (you can also get up to 100 round drum mags). While you can hunt with an AR-15, it's not the best rifle for the task.
I live in Canada and the government is in the process of banning semi-automatic centre fire rifles capable of holding more than 5 rounds. Given that 3D printers exist, this pretty much bans all rifles with interchangeable mags. I'm a gun owner on a rural property and I think that's a reasonable compromise. I can still own a decent bolt action hunting rifle and a semi-automatic rim fire rifle with no mag limit.
It does suck for people who's rifles are getting banned though.
We cleaned about 250 boar out of our farm over a four year period with the same 3-5 shot rifles we hunt deer and moose with. They mill around long enough you can reload. I have an SKS but I don't bother, I'd rather sneak over a hill and pop half a dozen slowly and cleanly with my .338. And I can do it from far enough away that they don't really get upset until 3 of them are lying on the ground, kicking.
Actually, are we allowed to shoot coyotes in the city limits? Alligators are mostly chill and will just take off, but coyotes hunt around at night here.
Most people using an AR buy cheapo 115 grain FMJ to shoot from their $600 AR. Cheap ammo from a cheap AR will group at 5-6 inches shooting with a bipod from a bench with a minute between shots with no wind at that range.
Throw in wind, stress, sub-optimal support, and rapid fire and it's a very difficult shot.
Which is good and bad. Good in that assassinations should fail. Bad in that it means this asshole was shooting up a crowd.
I mean I think I'd say it was more the result of poor preparation than anything. I think most places are saying he had like, 3 shots or somewhere around there, and apparently his rifle had no optic on it at all, which is kind of an insane idea at that distance. Which I think also maybe lends credence to the idea that this was just some impulse decision rather than a prepared kind of thing. I don't think it's that hard of a shot to make in general, even given the single opportunity that you're going to be working with, I've hit soda cans with .22s at similar ranges. You barely have to take into account windage or holdover and I haven't seen any evidence of heavy wind on the day of, really.
So, I dunno, I think it's probably just an idiot kid killing himself in like, some elaborate suicide by cop or something. or just a dumb groyper, jury's still out.
Ar-15s are potentially ok hunting rifles for large birds and small mammals although there are better options out there.
The main argument I've heard for an AR besides the larp thing is that it's easy to find compatible accessories because it's a popular "open source" common platform.
But honestly any hunter who is serious about hunting with .223 probably has a better gun that they hunt with.
They are good hunting rifles for feral hogs actually, 30 round mags included.
Plus, banning certain magazine sizes or particular models of rifle isn't really going to fix anything, but things like universal background checks would probably help.
Truly "Universal" background checks are just a way of criminalizing the overwhelming majority of "transfers" between known and trusted parties. We don't need this sort of "universal" background check. This approach is only intended to cast FUD on ownership.
The current law basically says it is illegal to "knowingly" transfer a gun to a prohibited person. The problem is that there is no reliable, publicly-accessible means for a private individual to "know" that an individual is prohibited. NICS checks are not available to the public; they are only available to FFL dealers. So long as the recipient doesn't disclose their prohibited status, it is basically impossible to prove a private seller "knew" the buyer was prohibited.
The solution should be obvious: establish a means of publicly accessing NICS. Have the buyer perform a check in themselves, and provide the seller with a verification code to securely and confidentially access the results of that check.
With that access in place, a seller can know, and can legally be expected to know the status of a buyer. The "knowingly" criteria can now be presumed to have been met, and willful ignorance on the part of the seller is no longer a viable defense.
This approach makes it possible to prosecute 100% of private sellers who transfer to felons, without criminalizing any innocent transfers. It accomplishes every legitimate purpose of "universal" background checks, without any of the harmful, "unintended" FUD that truly universal checks would impose.
Nope. Because you can know and trust that felon white supremacist militia man all day. The rest of us would very much like to prevent them from getting a gun ever again. And the honesty system obviously isn't working.
Hoping people just use the system isn't any better either.
Requiring an FFL to be part of all transfers and keeping the records solves this. And black helicopter paranoia isn't a good reason to not do it.
TBH, I would not trust a .223 to take down a hog intent on fucking me up. If feral hogs were a threat, I'd want a semi-auto .308 or similar larger more powerful round.
10mm carbine would be good too if they aren't too far, but most farmers tend to hunt them from relative safety in a stand or even from a helicopter sometimes: 5.56 is a popular choice but that might be in part because it's pretty ubiquitous in the states.
Which arguably makes the AR-15 one of the most protected guns, if we're using the wording of the second amendment as the only justification for firearms rights.
I'd rather he rots in a state jail for the rest of his life, and give him the same standard of care as every other inmate. No special treatment. If he needs to be put in solitary "for his own protection" then so be it. It's the system people like him loves to protect.
To be clear, I think the US treatment of prisoners is inhumane and bordering on criminal (and all too often crossing said border) and the whole penal system needs drastic change and made entirely nonprofit, and the constitution needs another Ammendment because the 13th was a mistake.
But that's not the world we live in, and the people who crafted this world should be forced to live in it.
I would prefer Trump to have a long and miserable life in prison. Preferably in an underground cell in SuperMax somewhere. For his own protection of course.
let's be honest, it was designed as a lightweight emergency carbine made of space aged materials. 60 years later we're arguing if the founding fathers meant bump stocks and cmags when they said well regulated militia.
Y'know, this is in this weird spot where it's right between canon and as seen (which, by the way, can be explained even with canonical things). If it was truly as seen, the shots would have gone way wide. If it was truly canon, the Reps would be scrambling for a new candidate now.
The explanation for Stormtroopers' shoddy marksmanship on screen in A New Hope is because Vader wanted Leia & company to escape, but by the skin of their teeth, so that they would basically drop their guard the instant The Falcon took off from the Death Star and not realise there was a tracker bug installed. If Vader just let them fly off unopposed, that would probably be hella sus, and they'd probably pull over at the first asteroid to find and chuck said tracker bug. So the Stormtroopers were specifically instructed to shoot to thrill, not to kill.
When faced with opposition without plot armour and reasons to keep them alive, Stormtroopers are fucking brutal, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back - Hoth was somewhere between a decisive Imperial victory and an Imperial Curb Stomp
When faced with opposition without plot armour and reasons to keep them alive, Stormtroopers are fucking brutal, as seen in The Empire Strikes Back - Hoth was somewhere between a decisive Imperial victory and an Imperial Curb Stomp
Their shooting was also terrible on Endor. Maybe those were the flunky storm troopers that got put on the imperial guard due to nepotism or corruption?
Everyone's saying the guy used an AR but given the relatively small number of shots and the fact that the bullets went everywhere except where the guy was presumably aiming my bet is he was a Socialist Rifle Club guy with an SKS.
No... it was an AR with no scope fired from the prone position by someone who definitely was not trained to land shots precisely at that range from that shooting position in a highly tense unsurviveable situation again all without a fucking scope
Tmz had a video of the moron opening fire and getting counter sniped