The day I bought an AR-15

America's favorite rifle is back in the news. Yet again.

I guess that owning an AR-15 makes me an out-and-out gun nut. Why own one? I enjoy shooting paper targets at the range and getting my groupings tighter. Is that too much fetish to share, loyal reader?  No. Merely the science of shooting a long rifle.

English and married to a globe trotter, I never thought that I would own an AR-15.  But then I ended up in Atlanta, Georgia. And it wasn't long before I got America's favorite rifle. 

English people, by and large, do not get gun culture in the USA at-all. Take the multimillionaire super-journalist Piers Morgan. He even managed to alienate his liberal audience on CNN, suggesting that all guns in America should be banned.... A posh Englishman telling Americans to disarm when the country was founded by colonialists who rose up against us Brits for trying to take away their guns... the irony was not lost on the host culture. As for Piers Morgan, before he could get deported, he jacked in his gig at CNN and returned to the UK of his own accord. 

The local NPR station WABE is still discussing the spa massacre, when 8 Asian-Americans of Korean extraction were gunned down by a sex addict not so far from our home in Atlanta. Not long after that tragedy, another psycho got jumped by cops walking around a Publix supermarket in Atlantic Station with an AR-15; then it was the Syrian expat running amok at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado with an AR-15, and then another, and another... No wonder the new government of Joe Biden seeks to use this opportunity to introduce tighter legislation on the AR-15 and high capacity magazines. 

But why even bother?  The USA is awash with firearms.  There are an estimated 397 million guns in circulation in the USA; more guns than there are citizens.  With 9.5 million of them coming onto the market every year off the domestic production line, no wonder half of every US household owns at least one firearm. 

I pull up to a gun store on the edge of Atlanta. It is, reputedly, the biggest gun store in the USA and, quite possibly, the entire world. I had been waiting for the AR-15 to go down in price. At Adventure Outdoors, on my day of purchase, they were going for $500 and small change. The threat of restrictive gun laws, civil war, and the pandemic, has made many Americans guns and ammo shopaholics.

Though it looks, and is modeled, after the M-16 rifle designed by Eugene Stoner, the AR-15 is an all-round rifle, handy for hunting, home defense, and protecting the republic as per the 2nd amendment (or something like that, I'm only half-American and vague about the fineries.)  

$500 and change. Ammo too. Better to be safe than sorry. Oh, no! Not that old chestnut! And why did I buy a so-called "assault rifle"?  Probably because they were going cheap...

The shop assistant takes the rifle.  I fill in a form. I am eligible for gun ownership.  I declare that I have no felony or drug convictions. Then comes the National Instant Criminal Background Check. Clear. Proceed. I can walk out of the store with my AR-15 on the same day of purchase. Hip-hip-homicidal? 

On the hellish road back to Atlanta, there's a moment of existential introspection.  I am driving in a car with an AR-15 rifle, with two spare magazines and 200 rounds of .223 ammunition. What if I get pulled over by the Law? In England, I'd get banged up for a jax (five years). Panic over.  This is the USA.  It's perfectly legal until it becomes perfectly illegal. As soon as I return home to Taco Town, I hide it behind the ironing board in the bathroom, safety catch out of sight and safely cocked out of mind.

For most limeys in the USA, the ones living in New York or Los Angeles, it's easy to be an anti-gun liberal.  The hinterland is different. Home invasions are a regular occurrence. Police response times slow. To be an armed home owner in certain parts of the USA is not just deterrence but insurance.

The most pervasive thing about America is its fascination with guns. Guns rule OK.  It's almost perverse. But in downtown Atlanta, an area blighted by drug related crime and casual violence is it really necessary to own one? Yes.  I can't call the Old Bill if I'm brown bread.   

I try and shoot with the AR-15 once a week down at the local gun club. Hidden behind the ironing board in the bathroom, next to the washer/dryer, the rifle is less scary. It becomes a tool. Not as everyday practical as a chainsaw or a leaf blower but a tool nonetheless. Have I crossed the Rubicon? No. I just know the power of guns. They scare the shit out of me.

Will the USA be free of the AR-15 or its love affair with firearms? No. Americans love the power of guns.  They would not want to be without one if they thought they needed one. Bad guys can get guns. And people here will always want the option here to own one, to protect themselves and/or their families.

The responsibility of owning an AR-15 is sobering. However, could I live in a world without my AR-15?  Not really. Could we live in an America free of guns? Dream on. There are too many guns in the USA and there is no way a government, Republican or Democrat, could get rid of them all. That's a job for a dictator.