Went to an organizational meeting for a new chapter of MDA today.

[benEzra]

94. Nope.

"AR's aren't in common use" might have been mostly true in 1989, when AR's were less common than Mini-14's and SKS's. It certainly isn't true now, and pretending otherwise only hurts your cause.

FWIW, I took my AR to the range Saturday, which was about 75% full. On the rifle side, I think every rifle but two were AR's or civilian AK's; the two that weren't were a pair of lever-actions. Yeah, AR's are popular.

I spent a couple of hours shooting paper and clay-bird fragments at 100 to 210 yards. Once I get it dialed in, I want to head to the other range near me and try various loads at 500, but that's for another day.

Have *you* shot a rifle range lately? Or to a sanctioned rifle competition?

"I have searched in vain for any reasoned arguments that pistol grips, forward grips, telescoping stocks, grenade or rocket launchers, and barrel shrouds are indispensable or even contribute to self-defense."

That's easy. Separate pistol grips make a long gun much more secure against a disarm attempt, and encourage a safer and more effective low-ready position rather than port arms or high ready. They also tend to facilitate more accurate shooting, which is why so many unlimited-class shooting sports use vertical handgrips, even on bolt-actions.

Adjustable stocks are useful in helping the gun fit the people who use it (do you and your significant other have exactly the same arm length?). They also allow the same carbine to serve both a target shooting and a defensive standby role; a fixed-length stock would be set up too long for HD or too short for shooting from a bench, so the only ways to have it both ways are either for the stock to be adjustable, or to switch the stock when you go to the range and when you come home, which is stupid and pointless.

"Barrel shrouds" were metal heat shields sometimes used in lieu of a forward handguard, but the term could be stretched to encompass any free-float handguard (whether metal or not), and *those* are certainly useful for a civilian gun. I use polymer/aluminum handguards and mount the light on my front sight tower instead, but whatever. Set up your own gun however you want, but keep your paranoid fingers out of my gun safe, please; I do plan to go to a JP or Midwest free-float tube at some point, after I upgrade to a better scope.

BTW, do you care to explain how legislating particular handguard or handgrip aesthetics, or requiring stocks be interchangeable instead of adjustable, has any relevance whatsoever to addressing either murder, suicide, or gun accidents?

As to "grenade or rocket launchers", you well know that actual M203-style grenade launchers are tightly controlled by the National Firearms Act, as are the rifle grenades made for the military 75-100 years ago. You also know that the politician pulled "rocket launchers" out of his posterior since not only are RPG's and such NFA controlled, but they are also not attached to civilian small arms, period, and you damn sure know that.

Finally, the obligatory dose of reality, to counter the "AR's are of teh debbil" mantra. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Table 20, Murder by State and Type of Weapon, there were 12,253 murders reported to the FBI in 2013 in the United States. All rifles *combined* accounted for 285 of them, and the long-term trend is *down*.