Firearms Chimera: The Counter Productive Campaign to Ban the AR-15 Rifle

36 Pages Posted: 18 Oct 2019 Last revised: 16 Nov 2020

Date Written: October 8, 2019

Abstract

This paper examines claims about military-style semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, such as the belief that pistol grips and hand guards facilitate mass murder by enabling shoots to spray fire from the hip; that certain features are useful in combat and crime but not in sporting applications; and whether such firearms are “commonly used” for lawful purposes. Examining the history of civilian and military firearms design; U.S. Army marksmanship doctrine; military doctrine respecting infantry combat; prior research on topics including the impact of magazine capacity on casualty rates in gun crime, the efficacy of various calibers of ammunition in the self-defense; and other topics, this paper concludes that the AR-15 is not a military weapon; that it is useful for and used in all legitimate civilian shooting applications; that it is not deadlier than other firearms in criminal assaults including mass public shootings; and the misleading claims about the AR-15 by control advocates undermine efforts to develop effective proposals to reduce gun violence.

Keywords: Second Amendment, firearms, AR-15, Assault Weapons

Suggested Citation

Chapman, Dennis, Firearms Chimera: The Counter Productive Campaign to Ban the AR-15 Rifle (October 8, 2019). Belmont Law Review, Volume 8, Issue 1, 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3466567 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3466567

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