What is the use you would have for owning an AR-15?

[better]

105. I should start by confessing...

that I have not read the hundred previous replies, so please forgive me if I cover topics already addressed, but in the interest of providing an objective, non-combative answer to your question, here is one....

Continuity of operational principles and controls across caliber/application.

One of the main advantages of the AR platform is that it is a modular design, consisting of an upper and a lower assembly, the latter of which is the actual regulated firearm. You can have a single lower that can be mated to uppers of many different configurations, which can be suited to different applications. Yet across these possible applications, the operational and safety controls remain identical. And furthermore, I could in theory possess the capability to do target shooting, pest elimination all the way up to big game hunting, yet only be able to do one of those things at a time, as opposed to having three or more completely and independently functional weapons.

The wiser question to be asking, in my humble opinion, is what use one would have for owning an AR-15 (or other similar weapon) with high capacity magazines and/or without features making them take longer to reload.

Personally, I don't see any valid reason to ban AR-15's, but I DO see a valid reason to bad high capacity magazines and make swapping magazines take longer to replace. Those two things, capacity and speed of reloading, are the things that actually matter. Ban AR-15's without addressing those things, and wingnuts will just use other rifles of the same caliber with available high capacity magazines, and you'll still have the exact same danger.

Again, just my humble opinion, but I think that instead of banning models of weapons, we should ban capabilities, specifically related to capacity and speed of reloading, since those really do apply to the kinds of mass shootings we have been witnessing.

There are, however, plenty of valid reasons to own an AR-15 that do not require high capacity magazines or lightning fast magazine replacement. And at the same time, there are NOT many valid reasons to allow high capacity magazines or lightning fast magazine replacement.