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

Most likely a Civil War or race war. But we all know this country won't stand on how divided it is. A divided house cannot stand. Something is going to break.

 

The Apalacchee SROs responded and stopped the kid. I love the use of absolutes though.

 

This is why I should be able to have a nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapons don't shoot themselves off. People do.







Or wait. There should, uh, be like....some rational limitations on what weapons people can own? What a concept.

 

Shouldn't mountainearpatriot be down at the border protecting us all from illegals?

 

Or, more likely, gotten her killed.

 

Ah, I missed the previous comment. But that said, the world of things that are more concealable than an AR is quite large. Due to both length and oddness of the shape, you can’t easily conceal one in something like a standard size backpack. That alone makes it pretty hard to just walk around with one on an every day basis and not draw attention. Something like a pressure cooker could pretty easily fit inside a standard backpack. That’s pretty much what the Boston marathon bomber did. Same thing with a pipe bomb or other type of explosive. Much more concealable than an AR-15, fairly easy to build, and none of the components are restricted. Explosives are restricted (not illegal per se), but why would that fact stop someone prepared to murder people and knowing that will be caught?

handgun bullets aren’t as deadly as rifle bullets in general (though there are exceptions), but they are concealable where rifles are not, and either can be extremely deadly against unarmed victims. PDWs (personal defense weapons) are also a thing, like the FN PS90 or others now built on pistol chassis. They aren’t as effective as rifles but are easier to shoot accurately and almost as easy to conceal. But all that said, folks who want to kill a lot of people have a lot of effective choices, and laws won’t stop them from doing so. The bigger problem is the opportunity to shoot fish in a barrel (no pun intended).

bolt rifles (or any accurized rifle, to be more accurate) are indeed interesting. If someone was determined to kill a lot of people and knew how to use concealment and had an appropriately zeroed rifle, it is highly likely that person would be able to shoot multiple people before anyone could even figure out what was going on. With a higher velocity round like, say, 6.5 creedmoor, it’s not particularly hard to shoot very accurately out past 500 yard with accuracy. Bullet drop can be accurately predicted in any number of ballistic solver apps even accounting for altitude and atmospheric conditions, and wind doesn’t start to become a great concern until you start to get out past around 800 yards or so. That is over 8 times the distance Kennedy was killed from, and more than 5 times the distance the Trump PA shooter was firing. Add to that the fact that firing a shot with a bolt action every 1-2 seconds is entirely reasonable, that most places are not set up with counter snipers to respond to a distance shooter, and that it would not be particularly easy to locate where the shooting was coming from with any great precision and I think you can see where I am going with this. There is absolutely a reason that military snipers and dedicated marksmen are thought of as force multipliers. Had the Vegas shooter had a good bolt gun, you likely would have had fewer injuries but more fatalities.

 

And school shooters. So awesome that untrained 18 year olds can go purchase these weapons.

 

Nice response, thanks. We won't agree on much philosophically when it comes to guns, but I appreciate your knowledge. My prior point (and I think you agree) is that under the circumstances of most of the deadliest U.S. shootings (inside a nightclub, inside a school, probably even shooting from an elevated location upon a crowd of concert attendees) the same amount of deaths would not have occurred with the use of a bolt action rifle. I acknowledge the tremendous skill and advantage a sharp shooter has with the kind of weapon you describe. They just are not going to use it to kill 30+ in most settings.

 

While we're at it, I'd like to ask your opinion regarding home defense. I've been told by multiple sources, including my gun instructor who gives mass shooter trainings and endorses LEOs for their periodic firearms [certification/training]; IOW - he knows his stuff; that a pump shotgun is best for home defense. Perhaps that advice is specific to novice application, but I've read from gun enthusiasts here who prefer a rifle. Sorry if we've gone over this before, but what would be your home defense rec for someone who is less experienced with firearms?

 

...don't?

 

In my opinion, a rifle is a bad choice for home protection for most people. They are absolutely terrible at close range. Too hard to maneuver for the average person and to easy to control by the bad guy if he can get close to you. If you have a ranch, and are worried about protecting it from folks coming at your house, a rifle is the way to go.

But if they are in your house, a pistol would be the way I'd want to protect myself. But I'm a decent shooter.

The advantage of a shotgun is 1) the intimidation factor. It makes a very big boom when you fire it, and 2) accuracy isn't that important - point it and blow a foot sized hole in what ever is in front of it.

And in my opinion, unless you are dealing with someone that is truly there to kill you, your best defense is an alarm. Some crackhead breaking into your house is going to high tail it as soon as that goes off.

 

If the government needs to be able send armed agents anywhere for protection in a minutes notice, it is already under performing and failing in its duties. Cities spending like half their budget on police isn't a policy win. Instead of addressing the conditions that cause crime, they've successfully programmed many people to think "well I just have to protect myself then." Instead of demanding better, people just go buy a gun and do their work for them, and the status quo persists. This applies to both the people that government has most failed, the urban poor, and the ones it has least failed, gated neighborhood gun enthusiasts. The first is understandable as policing is designed to keep the poor in line, not protect them. The second is the least understandable, because the gun guy in his McMansion in the nice part of town couldnt be more safe and protected by the government treating the poor like a terrorist insurgency.

 

Absolutely not a shotgun, for a few reasons. While Clint Smith says it best about their effectiveness (“pistols put holes in people, rifles put holes through people, shotguns at the right range with the right load will physically remove a chunk of s*** from your opponent and throw that s*** on the floor"), they have some quirks that make them less than ideal for home defense.

first of which is they are typically lower capacity. I have a defensive/competition shotgun with an extended tube and the most I can fit is 10 total rounds. Each of those rounds is super potent but 10 is not a lot when you start factoring in misses (which will happen) and the possibility of multiple attackers. You can address this somewhat through a sidesaddle but getting that ammo into the gun is another matter, which brings me to…

should you have a malfunction (which does happen) or run dry of ammo, they aren’t particularly easy to feed. Inserting a round in the tube is significantly harder than inserting a magazine in a gun, especially if your hands are shaking and your fine motor skills aren’t working very well under stress. You have to turn the gun over with one hand and with the other you have to shove a round into a fairly small opening and shove it up into a narrow tube. You can feed the ejection port directly but you’ll be doing that one at a time.

third, and probably most important, is ammo. If you want ammo that reliably stops a human being, you are looking at buckshot or slugs. Depending on your setup, buckshot will spread out anywhere between fist size and dinner plate size at max home defense distances. That is both a plus and a minus: you can do a lot of damage but you also have to get all of that on target or you have liabilities. 00 buck is usually between 8-12 pellets all the same size and packs similar energy to a 9mm bullet. Slugs are about an ounce of lead. Either way, if you don’t shoot enough to be familiar with it, you’re going to be dealing with significant recoil and a miss (whether some/all pellets or a slug) is going to go through whatever type of construction you have on your home. You could use something like birdshot or #4 buck but you significantly lowering your effectiveness and increasing the number of pellets and, generally, the spread.

so all that said, shotguns are tremendously versatile and can be extremely effective in the right role. I have a couple set up for just that, but they generally wouldn’t be the first thing I would grab out of my safe, and if I were limited to one gun for defense, this wouldn’t be it.

for my circumstances, I have a couple of options: primary would be the handgun I have easiest access to. I have a red dot and a light on it and 37 total rounds with a spare mag. It gives me the option to have a hand free because I have small children should I need to grab or physically direct them. That said, my other go to would be a short barrel suppressed AR platform. As Ben mentioned earlier in the threat, guns indoors (and especially rifles or shotguns) are LOUD. You’re going to have permanent hearing damage if you shoot indoors. I already have tinnitus in one ear and have no desire to make my hearing situation worse. I also want to be able to communicate with my family and not damage their hearing should I need to defend their life. As @GatorBen referenced earlier, suppressed gunshots are still loud, but you can avoid/mitigate pain and any permanent damage and the immediate ear ringing of unsuppressed fire.

 

We can do two things at once (unlike our football coach). On the one hand, crime isn't going away so folks do need to pragmatically be prepared for that. All the policy failure discussion in the world won't help when you have a drug addict breaking into your house, and police will still be minutes away. But yes, I fully agree we need to address the underlying causes, even realizing we won't be able to reach/help everyone. There is a lot we could do to make things better, and that isn't a right/left thing.

 

Hard disagree that rifles are terrible at close range. Depends on barrel length, optic selection, etc. Our troops use them at close range and so do police, even when they have access to pistols. The additional stopping power is almost always worth the tradeoff.

Also hard disagree with accuracy not being important with a shotgun. That is a terrible point of view as you are still accountable for everything that comes out of the end of your barrel. At HD distances, you are looking at fist to dinner plate sized holes. When I shoot a shotgun for defensive purposes, I want my group as tight as I can get it and I want to know where the center of that pattern is going to be in relation to where I am aiming. We're not shooting skeet or birds with birdshot in an open field. We are putting rounds on a target that is probably shooting back in an environment where there may be innocent people involved.

 

My point is that people buying guns for self-defense is letting the government off the hook. The more people are inclined to do that, the less responsive they will be, because they dont have to, they've even liberalized self-defense laws - further erosion of their responsibilities and outsourcing to vigilantes. Of course, that is sort of by design, that's the whole point of the gun movement as we are told from the right-wing. Its just that the gun people are either fooling themselves or just being dishonest about the "tyrannical" government they need their guns to prevent, which is the type of government that would be responsive to all its citizens, attempt to eradicate poverty, achieve some sort of equality beyond mere formalism, etc. So like I said, gun owners are arming themselves to keep the status quo. The people they are really going to shoot are people protesting police brutality, wars and other government abuses, not some feds in a black helicopter taking them to a FEMA concentration camp. That's why all the gun nuts have to invent conspiracies, about who's controlling the protestors or about some secret 'deep state,' or whatever. TL/DR, you buy a gun for "self-defense," you are signing up to be an unpaid cop, not some revolutionary.

 

I'm sure there are some gun owners that have that belief, but that actually isn't the majority. Many are far more libertarian than right wing. They may vote republican because the left pretty consistently wants to take away their gun rights, but that doesn't mean they agree with all of republican policies and positions.

 

For rifles, I said "most people". Joe six pack isn't likely trained, and Mrs Six Pack is even less likely to be trained with rifles in close quarters.

Regarding shotguns, I said accuracy isn't that important. You still need to point them in the right direction. But you shoot someone in the arm, leg, gut, etc. They are most likely down. Not true with most pistols and a bit less true with a rifle.

 

Depends how close your quarters are and the ability of Joe or Mrs Six Pack to manage recoil. If you're talking about hallways and lots of doorways, then yeah, it might be tough to not bind yourself up. If you're talking about open floorplans or a situation where you're barricaded behind a door at the end of a funnel, having the third point of contact of a rifle stock could be the difference between the bad guy being down and having a bunch of holes around the target and in the ceiling. Pistols can be hard for someone inexperienced to shoot fast and accurately. If you don't believe me, go look at the ceiling of your local shooting range. It's another one of those "choose your hard" situations, but if I give someone with zero training an AR and a handgun, they're going to be more effective with the AR, and in close quarters you still need to learn how to negotiate that even with a pistol.

If you're hitting center of mass, sure. If you hit someone in the leg or arm with a shotgun, you've probably still got a handful of pellets traveling beyond the target that didn't hit. To your point, it's going to be a more devastating hit, but people can still shoot back when an arm, leg, or gut is wounded, even by a shotgun. You're relying on them bleeding out or choosing to discontinue resistance. The former can take a while and the latter is not guaranteed.