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Only in the United States of America (and only for protection):

Today, the AR-15 is the best-selling rifle in the United States, industry figures indicate. About 1 in 20 U.S. adults — or roughly 16 million people — own at least one AR-15, according to polling data from The Washington Post and Ipsos.

At least it is not a fully automatic gun. I wonder if the mass shooting problem would disappear if the other 19 people also had one of those.

washingtonpost.com/nation/inte

@pj

The idiocy of the argument is when we look at what the AR-15 is, there is nothing special that makes it good at mass shootings, it is just common.

In fact it is pretty much the most low-powered rifle you can buy, it is a small-game rifle and not considered effective at medium (hogs) to larger game like deer.

So, as with most of the anti-gun rhetorix it is one of those “feel good, does nothing and makes the situation worse” sort of trade offs.

@freemo

Do you consider the 60 people gunned down in Las Vegas in 2017 more of a “medium” or a “larger” game?

Also, how could this happen:

His arsenal of weapons, associated equipment, and ammunition included fourteen AR-15 rifles (some of which were equipped with bump stocks and twelve of which had 100-round magazines), eight AR-10-type rifles, a bolt-action rifle, and a revolver.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las

@pj well its not just about number of people killed but also frequency. 60 people killed in a mass shooting happens what once every 100 years or more… 60 people dieing is already a relatively small number when you consider the hubdreds of thousands that die in violent acts a day. Compund that with the fact that it has happened once at that magnitude in the history of the USA id labeled it as so small as to be insignificant overall.

@freemo

Yeah. Sure. If we had this kind of equitable approach to aviation safety, we would probably have more airplanes falling from the skies but at least our bus rides would be as safe as airplanes.

Sometimes with people, it is not all about statistics.

@pj what approach.. you can fly certain types of airplanes with no license or regulation of any kind… cant remember the last time it was a major issue though, most people dont even know.

@freemo

I’m talking about airplane engineering safety which I happen to know a little about.

Airplanes, are statistically speaking, the safest mode of transportation. More people die in bus and car accidents than in airplanes and that is not by chance. It is because we’ve put some effort into making them safer.

According to you we should have gotten our priorities straight and fixed the buses first.

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