Gary Reeder
on my soap box for a moment
Sunday, January 06, 2019, 17:46

Just before Christmas a lady came into our gun shop and I happened to be over there behind the counter rather than at our machine shop slaving away over a custom gun. She pulled out a list of gifts to buy for her husband. She asked me if we had a Modern Sporting Rifle. I said no, but we had several AR-15s. Confused, she just stared at me until I tried to explain that they were the same thing, that Modern Sporting Rifle was just a term that cowards use to refer to an AR-15. She finally left, confused and probably went ahead and bought him a bow tie or some fur lined underwear that he would cherish until he could find some other poor soul to give them to.

That has bothered me ever since. Are we so afraid of the anti gunners that we have to make up a name for the most popular rifle in the United States, if not the world? Are we so afraid the anti gunners will see that we have and use AR-15s? If we start making up names so they won’t see that we have and use AR-15s, then the war is over. We have lost. We are running afraid of calling a spade a spade. And I fault the gun magazines for much of this. They constantly refer to the AR-15 as a Modern Sporting Rifle, or MSR. Why not show pictures of us hunting and taking game with the AR-15 and AR-10? Why not show us teaching our young people to shoot an AR-15? Why not push it as the perfect home defense weapon on earth? Why not show us shooting in competition with the AR-15? No, instead we cower behind words. We are afraid to call it an AR-15. Instead we make up words that don’t sound so violent as those horrible words, AR-15. If so then we have already lost the war of words with the anti gunners. Are we such cowards that we are afraid we might hurt the feelings of the limp wristed, light in the loafers anti gun crowd who will need counseling if they hear the words AR-15? If so then we might as well hang our heads and give up our guns to Pelosi, Schumer and the rest of the anti gun crowd. I for one refuse to hide my progun feelings behind the words Modern Sporting Rifle. An AR-15 is an AR-15. Nuff said.