My little baby. When I go to bed at night my AR-15 is always in the room and ready to go just in case. Luckily I've never needed to use her.

@freemo
what situation will that enormous gun improve?

@dantheclamman Quite a few. It would be far safer than a handgun for example due to improved accuracy (and relatively weak bullets for a rifle). There is a reason it is the most common gun, it performs very well.

@freemo
you need a scope for home defense?

@freemo
I really am not attacking you and its your call but this looks like a weapon for long distance offensive combat.

@dantheclamman combat? no one uses weapons for combat. Its for participating in a sport (shooting is a sport at ranges). In all liklihood it will never be used against a person, just like most guns.

Moreover if the scope was ever used outside of a shooting range most AR-15 are used for hunting (mostly small game) due to its excellent design and small caliber bullet.

@freemo
I mean you said you keep it with magazine ready where you sleep. Sounds like not for sport.

@dantheclamman It has a great many useful purposes, sport, decoration, defense, hunting, science experiments (of which i did a few with it). Defence is certainly one aspect where it can play a role, and i am prepared should it need to play that role. But in the end that is truely the least likely role the gun will ever actually play. All the others are far more applicable .

@freemo
I understand non emergency uses you mention, but it doesn't seem like having it avail for action helps for those uses. Meanwhile accessibility of a gun is directly associated with dramatically increased odds ratio of death by homicide. http://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/1814426/accessibility-firearms-risk-suicide-homicide-victimization-among-household-members-systematic

@dantheclamman Odds dont tend to apply for individuals.

Ig you wanted to know *my* odds then youd have to gather statistics for people who are most similar to me in both training, intelligence, ideals, temperment, and practices.

Obviously the odds of someone who is reckless or irresponsible with their guns is on one end of that bell curve and the odds of someone who is responsible and well trained on the other.

So really has little to no applicability to me as an individual.

Now if you want to talk about how we can make guns safer for the general population, sure, there is some relevance here, but that is not what is being discussed.

@freemo @dantheclamman He didn't say risk of accident. He said risk of being the victim of homicide. You being well trained doesn't affect the probability that someone else grabs your gun and shoots you with it?
In fact you are probably at higher risk than average since most people don't keep the gun with a magazine and easily accessible (compared to people who have it unloaded in a gunsafe)

@ayy @freemo @dantheclamman It is very hard to take someone's gun and shoot them with it if the person is trained and using a modern holster, which are designed to make it difficult for others to take your gun.

@nerthos @freemo @dantheclamman That's not the scenario I meant. I meant more

> drunk argument with friend / wife
> they go up and grab the gun
> bang