Maybe the Best Article on ARs I've Ever Read... ...from WIRED Magazine, no less!

Maybe the Best Article on ARs I've Ever Read...
...from WIRED Magazine, no less!

from: http://michaelbane.blogspot.com/2013/02/maybe-best-article-on-ars-i-ever-read.html

Now that the post-Newtown nation has suddenly woken up to the breakout popularity of the AR-15, a host of questions are being asked, especially about who is buying these rifles, and why. Why would normal, law-abiding Americans want to own a deadly weapon that was clearly designed for military use? Why are existing AR-15 owners buying as many of these rifles as they can get their hands on? Are these people Doomsday preppers? Militia types, arming for a second American Civil War? Or are they young military fantasists whose minds have been warped by way too much Call of Duty?

Preppers, militia types, and SEAL Team 6 wannabes are certainly represented in the AR-15′s customer base. But fringe groups don’t adequately explain the roughly 5 million “black rifles” (as fans of the gun tend to call it) that are now in the hands of the public. No, the real secret to the AR-15′s incredible success is that this rifle is the “personal computer” of the gun world.

In the past two decades, the AR-15 has evolved into an open, modular gun platform that’s infinitely hackable and accessorizable. With only a few simple tools and no gunsmithing expertise, an AR-15 can be heavily modified, or even assembled from scratch, from widely available parts to suit the fancy and fantasy of each individual user. In this respect, the AR-15 is the world’s first “maker” gun, and this is why its appeal extends well beyond the military enthusiasts that many anti-gun types presume make up its core demographic.

Read more at: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/ar-15/

The Gun as Gadget

Gun Salesman of the Decade

All of the AR-15 and accessory makers I talked to told me that their business had grown steadily from about 2000 until 2008, at which point it went supernova. But not even the 2008 panic can compare to the post-Newtown frenzy, in which some gunmakers claimed that their orders went up by 1,000 percent.

In bringing new, non-”tactical” shooters to the AR, the twin panics of 2008 and 2012 have also done much to heal the aforementioned schism between the black rifle and hunting crowds. For every hunter like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who shares the NRA old guard’s hostility for all things tactical, there’s another who hates the idea of the government banning the black rifle even more than they dislike the gun itself. Some of these hunters have gone out and bought an AR-15, and when they shoot their new toy, they’re most likely hooked for life.