Pit bulls and AR-15s – Both A Danger?
Two of the most misunderstood issues in America: pit bulls and AR-15 rifles. How so? There’s no such thing as a breed named “pit bull,” and an AR-15 is not an assault rifle. Detractors of both use misinformation posts on social media to “prove” their claims.
“Pit bulls” is not a breed but a collection of breeds, Wikipedia gives an excellent description of this term: “The pit bull-type is particularly ambiguous, as it encompasses a range of pedigree breeds, informal types, and appearances that cannot be reliably identified.” [1]
The term “pit bull” encompasses mixed breeds, again detractors of the breeds will mistakenly call a Lab/”pit bull” mix a “pit bull” even though the Lab may be the predominant breed. To these people, any dog with an ounce of blood from the five breeds of “pit bulls” (American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier, American Bully, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and sometimes the American Bulldog) is a “pit bull.” While it’s true, the bulldog breed comes from Britain from back in the 1800s and was used to bait bulls that does not mean the breed is bred for killing purposes. People turn intelligent, loyal animals into killing machines using methods that would make your skin crawl.
So how does the AR-15 fit into this discussion? “An AR-15 is an assault rifle as depicted in the AR in the model designation.” If ever a term has been beaten to death by liberals, this rates in the top five. The “AR” stands for Armalite Rifle, a company that designed the lightweight, semi-automatic rifle. The design patent, along with the trademarks, was sold to Colt’s Manufacturing Company in 1959. This rifle, labeled by many as an “automatic rifle” fires only one shot per pull on the trigger. The term “semi-automatic” refers to the bullet being loaded into the firing chamber without cocking the rifle as in lever-action rifles. One crazy comment went around the media that an AR-15 can fire 700 rounds a minute, which is nothing more than an absolute lie. An AR-15 fires ONE bullet for every press of the trigger’ Firing 700 rounds a minute would be impossible to do on an AR-15 humanly speaking. Holding the trigger down will give one nothing more than a sore finger after that first bullet is fired because an AR-15 is a semi-automatic. Of course, AR-15’s have been used in crimes; but so have hammers[2], knives [3], hands [4] and even pressure cookers [5]. Again, people make the rifle a killer.
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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_bull
[2] hammers , [3] knives and [4] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2018/crime-in-the-u.s.-2018/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8.xls
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_cooker_bomb