Steve Spurrier decries sale of AR-15s after Georgia high school mass shooting

He stated the case wonderfully!

 

“Old man suggests you should get a six-shooter to protect yourself” is at least an interesting change from the normal “old man suggests protecting yourself with a double barrel shotgun” take.

Of course I’m not an 1870s Arizona Ranger riding into the town of Agua Fria to bring in Texas Red, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t take either of those pieces of unsolicited advice.

 

Spurrier is right. Definitely not a person I'd expect to say this. I'm sure the gun nuts won't appreciate it, but there's no need for people to have AR-15s.

 

I wonder if and when the OP gets moved to THFSG. I hope it doesn’t.

 

So you need an AR-15 to defend yourself?

Also good to know you view SOS as nothing more than “old man”.

 

It’s not something I’m going to carry to defend myself while I’m out and about, but yes, my home defense gun is 100% a rifle (mine personally actually isn’t an AR, but it’s another rifle that would be covered by essentially any assault rifle ban ever proposed).

And for purposes of a gun discussion? Yeah, he might as well be any other random old man. Nothing about him suggests any particular qualifications to offer an opinion about what kind of gun someone “needs” that should be entitled to any weight. But if that offends you, I will also assure you that I don’t care at all what a famous painter, or guitar god, or celebrity chef think about what kind of gun someone “needs” either.

 

So why do you feel you need an assault style rifle (or whatever we want to call it) to defend youself? I’m just curious.

 

You’re not wrong, but I bet you wouldn’t have this same energy if he spoke on a topic important to you in a favorable viewpoint.

 

Easier to shoot accurately quickly than a handgun, and just better suited for home defense. If you want to run a light and suppressor (both of which are pretty good ideas, assuming you’re willing to learn to use them, if you’re designing a platform around possibly having to shoot it in your house at night), you’re going to be hard pressed to find platforms that can accommodate those things as well as “assault weapons.”

 

It is an odd statement. First people offer opinions for which they have varying qualifications all the time, including on this board.

Two, it conveniently limits the debate participants to those who are experts and owners of such weapons. People like me aren’t allowed to participate and the fact that our kids in school could get killed by one is apparently not a high enough bar for me to offer an opinion.

 

Never know when you'll need to stand guard at the top of the stairs with your AR-15. It could be the neighbors drunk teenager stumbled into the wrong house, and you need to blast him.

Or some naughty neighborhood kids could be egging your house mistakenly, instead of a classmates, and you could need to light them up while in a rage.

Your point is well taken; there's very few times when a homeowner would have the time and means to get to an AR-15 and appropriately use it, at least better than a more accessible handgun.......but there's that infinitesimal possibility that, well, you may find yourself in a war or something, and a handgun just won't do. Yes, those events are multiples less likely than that the gun would be stolen or otherwise misused, whether by choice or by accident.

But we can't take that chance. These guns need to be allowed to be proliferate. People need to die - kids need to die, and do lockdown drills- just in case there's ever that one-in-a-million time where a home owner needs an AR-15 to defend themself.

 

He is, like anyone else, welcome to have whatever thoughts on it he wants. I’m just not real clear why anyone would care what Steve Spurrier’s opinion is as to what kind of gun is sufficient to protect yourself.

 

Do you think there is a balance between the level of theoretical incremental benefit of a weapon vs the harm they can bring to society? How many kids should die to make people like yourself a bit more comfortable so that you can shoot with your suppressor - god forbid we disturb anybody when we are killing home intruders.

If a gun were developed that could easily kill 20 people in a few seconds, but might give you marginally more protection at home - should that be legal too?

It’s really sad that people like yourself live in such a level of fear that you think you need that level of protection.

 

Don’t feel bad… I’m a Soldier who has carried that weapon in Afghanistan and even I have been told I’m wrong about the AR-15 by people here. I’ve been shooting it for 25 years in a professional capacity. Most notably they try to tell me the AR-15 isn’t a combat weapon like the M4 because it’s not fully automatic… even though I explain to them that the M4 wasn’t fully auto until well after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were in the stability phases. The wars were fought with M4’s in semi-auto mode.

 

Steve Spurrier is probably more capable on a littany of issues than Donald Trump. We elected a reality TV star as president. A football coach can’t have a valid opinion?

 

So can you think of a plausible scenario where an AR-15 provides materially more home protection?

 

To the majority of people in our country, it's not that he is contributing a decisive opinion - because they are intelligent enough to know that the facts are in and the case is closed; proliferation of weapons of war in America is an absurdity and a grotesquery that makes us collectively far less safe. So it's not that he's added heft to either side of a debate. The issue is pretty much clear and solved.

The relevance of his statement is the positive value of a well known and highly respected person getting off the fence and taking the time and effort and risk to say something that might make America a better place.

 

I want a suppressor to limit the hearing damage I’m causing to myself if I have to shoot inside, not to avoid disturbing others (a suppressed gun - other than a .22 - is still quite loud, the way they’re portrayed in TV shows and movies isn’t realistic).

I personally think the 1986 machine gun ban should be overturned, so I may not be the best person to ask that question of.