My favorite kind of gun control advocates are the ones who assume the control they advocate should not extend to their own guns.
Sit back and enjoy as Michael Fanone, a CNN law enforcement analyst and former Washington, DC police officer details all the ways he's better than you.
Let's start in the middle where he explains why the reasons you want an AR-15 are "ludicrous."
Usually, the motivation for purchasing the AR-15 is simple: People want one because they want one. Most times, the person who buys an AR-15 comes into the store already knowing that they intend to purchase one.
This is the soft fascism of those who hold themselves above you. These are people so taken with their own virtue they feel untethered from from the rules they want to impose on you.
This is the cover of his book, coming out in October.
Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop's Battle for America's Soul
The scorn he has for this simple sentiment is palpable:
"People want one because they want one."
He tosses it off with the expectation that no one will challenge him. It does not for a moment occur to him how deeply this strikes at the intended relationship between the state and the citizens as envisioned by our founders.
There is simply no better example of freedom, no better illustration of the bedrock American principle that we are governed by our consent. We don't need a reason other than, "because I want to." There is no need to ask permission, because you are the ultimate sovereign.
If I were to write that on Twitter I would be swarmed by leftists and bots (but I repeat myself) reflexively asking me if that means that they can shoot me because "they want to."
No, of course not. We can assume the old adage that your rights do not extend past where your fist ends and my face begins.
I would also be accused of being childish.
"Because I wanna!" squeals the toddler.
But you know what? Think it through, and it makes sense.
Yes, a young child will make that argument, but that's the point, isn't it? The child wanting to be an adult.
Because part of being an adult is having that right to do things simply because you desire to, as leavened by your circumstances, ambition, and own judgment.
You want to listen to Abba, drink gin, and wear a loud Hawaiian shirt? That's perfectly fine and no I've never done those things that you can prove definitively.
But that's not how Fanone sees it. Not even close.
I've pressed some customers about why they want an AR-15, but no one could ever come up with a legitimate justification for needing that particular weapon.
No one could come up with a legitimate justification.
Legitimate? Who gets to be the judge of what's legitimate?
Why, Michael Fanone, of course.
Some members of the tinfoil hat brigade have come up with the reply, "We need these weapons because we want to be effective against the government if it becomes tyrannical. That's part of our Second Amendment right." Personally, I think that's ludicrous, but it has become an increasingly popular justification for purchasing a semi-automatic rifle.
And just like that, he dismisses as ludicrous the core tenet of the 2nd amendment without further argument as if none is necessary.
Since Fanone won't deign to engage the issue, here is the Federalist laying it out plain and simple.
The latest gun control hysteria being stoked by the press has revealed an enormous amount of confusion about the role of the Second Amendment as a guarantee of liberty in our constitutional system.
That role is alternately embraced in rather simplistic form or dismissed as an absurdity: how could ragtag bands of rednecks with AR-15s ever hope to take on the U.S. military, with its full panoply of tanks, helicopters, and elite troops? The same people who say this will also insist that any American military action overseas is a mistake, because the U.S. military, with its full panoply of tanks, helicopters, and elite troops, can never hope to defeat ragtag bands of insurgents with AK-47s.... and don't be surprised when a Democratic politician wanders off script and suggests that if President Trump were to "ignore the courts," then "this is where the Second Amendment comes in, quite frankly."
The whole thing is worth a read, something Michael Fanone will never do.
Returning to the beginning, this is how he starts his piece.
No weapon has been more in the public eye in America of late than the AR-15, in large part because of its tragic role in some of this country's deadliest shootings.
The statement is accurate. The AR-15 has been part of "some" deadly shootings.
How many?
About half as many as handguns have been involved in.
Handguns are the most common weapon type used in mass shootings in the United States, with a total of 146 different handguns being used in 98 incidents between 1982 and June 2022. These figures are calculated from a total of 129 reported cases over this period, meaning handguns are involved in about 76 percent of mass shootings.
The focus on the AR-15 isn't about its dominant role in mass shootings. Heck, it's not even about its dominant role in shootings of any kind, or for that matter, homicides in general, because it doesn't have one. Rifles, of all kinds, kill fewer people than hands and fists.
Viral Facebook post: "More people die from hands, fists, feet, than rifles."
PolitiFact's ruling: Mostly True
When a leftist fact checker has to admit that a post that goes against the preferred narrative is "mostly true," it's true.
Statista researchers pulled data from the FBI's Crime Data explorer, which does show that of the 17,813 homicides reported in 2020, 662 of them were committed with "personal weapons" — which the site indeed describes as hands, fists, feet, etc. — and 455 homicides were committed with rifles. So strictly going by the numbers, the post's claim is accurate,...
Yeah, I mean if you absolutely insist on "strictly going by the numbers," I suppose you could say it's technically true.
... but there are important caveats.
I read it. There aren't. These are the kind of caveats you have to turn over couch cushions to find.
They really hate having to write these pieces.
The AR-15 has the dubious distinction of being America's most popular semi-automatic rifle.
Dubious?
That's an odd framing. You use "dubious" to describe something undesirable. You don't say, "Michael Phelps has the dubious distinction of winning the most Olympic gold medals," you say, "Lia Thomas has the dubious distinction of swimming in Women's events."
He could have just said that the AR-15 has the "dubious distinction of having been used in the Uvalde shooting," but no, he thinks it's dubious that it's popular.
Why? Why is this gun taking up so much real estate in leftist's head?
Because the wrong kind of people like them.
Laughably, the link he provides in that quote, the one about the "most popular semi-automatic rifle," takes you to an anti-gun site's article detailing the Stephen Scalise shooting and explaining why it was so deadly.
Because that shooter used a 7.62 AK-47, a far-more powerful caliber gun than the 5.56 AR-15.
I'll return to this later, but really, it's like he's not even trying.
I'm more familiar with the gun than most people: I own one. And one thing I know for sure is that this weapon doesn't belong in the hands of the average civilian.
The "average citizen."
Mouth breathers like you, not Falone, Falone is above average, probably way above average.
We know this because he then spends five paragraphs telling you about it. It basically reads like a resume to be a CNN contributor, which is exactly what he is, leveraging his experience at the January 6 Capitol riot into an anti-Trump, anti-gun apostate and hero to the lefty talking heads.
He tells us he's long owned mutliple firearms, is a member of the NRA, is an avid hunter, a former cop, has worked in firearms sales and so on.
See, he's just like you!
Only better, he gets to have an AR-15.
Not that he needs one.
Now that I'm no longer on the police force, my AR-15 collects dust in my gun safe.
See how much better he is than you? His AR-15 collects dust in his gun safe.
Oh, he still owns it, of course, but I don't think we were supposed to notice that.
Much of this article, in fact of much of the obsessive focus on the AR-15 is on purpose.
They are exoticizing it to the ill-informed masses, their readers who know little to nothing about guns. Fanone is a perfect vehicle for this, because he knows all about the guns.
That means he knows better, but will still lie and mislead.
He details the 1997 North Hollywood bank shootout as the impetus for law enforcement to be issued AR-15s.
The standoff was one of the most infamous gun battles in American history,... While it's an extreme example, it is in many ways the situation encountered by officers all across this country: Police simply are outgunned against semi- and fully automatic firearms.
This is a subtle but important and frequent deception.
"Police simply are outgunned against semi- and fully automatic firearms."
The conflation of semi-automatic firearms, and fully automatic firearms. The confusion is intentional. And working.
Incidentally, that's a liberal pro-gun-control source.
He then continued to exoticize the AR-15.
The bullet that comes out of the barrel of an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle can easily penetrate the target -- the intruder or whatever person you are using deadly force to defend yourself or others from.
It's a rifle. That's what they do. There is nothing special about the AR-15.
But it also will go through the wall behind that person, and potentially through that room and into the next wall. That power and accuracy are useful for military purposes, which is obviously what they were designed for.
The original AR-15 was designed for "military purposes," back in the '50s, but it was a flop, according to NPR.
ArmaLite first developed the AR-15 in the late 1950s as a military rifle, but had limited success in selling it. In 1959 the company sold the design to Colt.
Colt used the AR-15 as a basis for what became the fully automatic military M-16. They later created a civilian version and called it the AR-15.
So, no, these are not "weapons of war." They are weapons of hunting, sport shooting, and self-defense.
Back to Fanone.
But it's far more power than should ever be in the hands of the average civilian.
He really has a thing for the "average civilian."
He then continues to detail the AR-15s supernatural powers.
- The bullet fired by the AR-15 is capable of defeating the average police officer's body armor, like a knife slicing through butter.
- A person wielding an AR-15 has a range beyond 300 yards.
- A bullet fired by an AR-15 travels at three times the velocity as one fired by a 9 mm handgun.
It would be useful to pause here for a minute and reflect that we are talking about a long guns. Long guns existed long before 1789 when the Bill of Rights was adopted. We're not talking nuclear weapons or howitzers. These are long-barrelled firearms that still work on basically the same principle.
Moreover, the AR-15 is, as rifles go, at best mid-pack in terms of power. It's popular in part because the ammo it uses, NATO 5.56, is relatively small, light, and inexpensive compared to larger rounds. Lethal, to be sure, but nothing particularly special. It is a common man's gun, which is probably why they hate it so much.
But as much as Fanone and the rest of the anti-gun left try to make the AR-15 into some kind of exotic firearm of almost mystical power, it's not. Not even close.
You will find here a list of common rounds typically intended for long-barrelled firearms like rifles. There are 82 listed, including .17 caliber rounds intended for varmint hunting.
Out of the 82, where does the terrifying and mighty military-grade .223/5.56 round rank in this list of firepower?
It comes in at 71, just above varmints, with the ability to take out a coyote at 100 yards.
How about the 7.62, the round of the legendary and popular AK-47 that gets no mention other than the link he accidentally included?
That's all the way up at 35, just above mid-pack.
(Incidentally, don't put too much stock in the creatures listed as kill shots, even the authors admitted this is highly controversial and subject to all manner of variables.)
The AR-15, while obviously deadly, is eclipsed by 70 other rifle rounds, many of which are common and used routinely in hunting and shooting sports and yes, as a vanguard against tyranny. Many of these are also available in semi-automatic iterations.
Make no mistake. This is not about the AR-15. The AR-15 is just a poster boy, a marketing ploy.
It's about all the guns.
And Fanone knows this.
Banning these powerful weapons from the civilian marketplace is a no-brainer, as are universal background checks. Neither move is going to solve all the gun problems that we have, but it would be a start.
Just a start is all. Just a start.
And outlawing these AR-15s would not require confiscating them from people who already have them.
Really? How exactly would that work?
Glad you asked, because he's thought this all through.
Once you've made these weapons illegal, anyone found with one would be subject to arrest, since possession of these weapons would be a crime. I think it's likely that you would see a lot of people opting to turn them in.
See! Easy peasy. You don't have to confiscate them, you just need to outlaw them and threaten otherwise law-abiding citizens with arrest and imprisonment so they'll turn them in "voluntarily" which is nothing at all like confiscation so stop thinking that right now.
He has a backup plan, too!
If banning them outright seems like too extreme a solution to be politically palatable, here's another option: Reclassify semi-automatic rifles as Class 3 firearms.
Instead of outlawing them, he suggests making them so expensive and cumbersome to own, that people like you won't be able to afford them!
That would mean that someone wanting to purchase an AR-15 would have to go through a background check, fingerprinting and review by an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives -- a process that takes anywhere from 12 to 16 months. And since Class 3 weapons can't be purchased by anyone younger than 21, it would solve the issue of emotionally unstable 18-year-olds buying them.
He's not even being clever about it.
All of these hoops and hurdles are sure to reduce the civilian demand for these weapons.
That would be your demand.
Incidentally, who, exactly does he think will be turning in their firearms?
The criminals?
I can't overstate how dangerous it is to have semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 in the hands of civilians. Our public officials have it within their power to help make it harder for people who shouldn't have these weapons to get them.
"Semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15."
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