Under the Black Flag

Making the AR-15 the powerful cultural symbol it is today has been a collaborative effort by those who love them and those who detest them.

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A banner featuring an AR-15 hangs outside a gift shop on May 11, 2018, near Cherokee, North Carolina. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

The Washington Post gets one thing—if only one thing—right when it comes to the AR-pattern rifle: It is a symbol, and a powerful one. 

We should try to understand it in those terms.

In a report published Monday—a generally incompetent one; more on that below—the Post forwards the claim that the AR-type rifle is “overkill for home defense,” which is not really true (and certainly is not a widely held opinion among knowledgeable shooters). But it is overkill for the particular kind of enormity with which the rifle is associated in the minds of many people: massacres such as the one perpetrated Monday at a Presbyterian school in Nashville, Tennessee, in which three 9-year-olds and three unarmed adults were murdered. That is a crime that can be committed with an ordinary revolver, but the role of the black rifle is cultural and aesthetic. 

As I have noted here on previous occasions, the AR-type rifle isn’t particularly powerful. It is generally chambered for the 5.56mm NATO cartridge, which is much less powerful than the rounds fired by many common hunting rifles. (The 5.56mm cartridge is, in fact, too small to legally hunt deer with in some states.) Nor is the AR unusual in its rate of fire (it is semiautomatic, meaning that it fires once per pull of the trigger). And it is not unique in its capacity to be outfitted with 30- or 50-round (or 100-round) magazines that can be quickly replaced. Almost any semiautomatic rifle or pistol with a detachable magazine (meaning most firearms) can be similarly outfitted. It is, functionally speaking, just another gun. 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    It’s amazing that the Washington Post gets basic facts wrong in a piece. One almost has to conclude willful ignorance.

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  2. Shadraq

    Let's boil this down. For no less than the last quarter century, or longer, no one in Congress, R or D, has come up with a proposed law that would have prevented mass shootings. Indeed, Marco Rubio brought up this very point 5 or so years ago and the NYT agreed with him.

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  3. Dadgum41

    Hmm. None of the letters in his name are in PEDANTIC.

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  4. Mmount378

    "I was going to link to a “SOCOM” example above, but I am at the moment working from the cafe of a Whole Foods Market"

    Found the lib, lol. This happened to me once, when I was trying to access Hornady's(ammo manufacturer) website while in the drve-through at Jack-in-the Box.

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  5. Avatar photo
    DougAz

    What??

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  6. Neelthakrebew

    KDW makes a big damn deal about the fact that a kook blew up a school in the 1920s. It was an isolated incident. He didn't start a cultural fad.

    Thus, this incident is utterly irrelevant to our current trend in which semi automatic firearms are used on our children, since the fad got started at Columbine.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Cogitatio

      And this brings us back to the importance of facts once again. Nearly all modern firearms are semi automatic. What are you trying to say here?

      Facts do matter (referencing your comments below). You are clearly offended that KDW did not tie his "facts" in a manner that satisfies your particular view of history. Imagine how gun owners feel when they are bombarded by comments that show a lack of knowledge on guns in general.

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      1. Neelthakrebew

        As much as I repeatedly asked KDW to elucidate a historical connection between the 1920s bombing and our situation today, he never managed to articulate one.

        Since he writes persuasive essays, I assumed that every paragraph was part of the argument. It turns out the 1920s bombing was just a long-forgotten fact that the Washington Post overlooked. It had no relevance to the argument at all. Just playing gotcha.

        I was not articulating my concept of the connection between the 1920s and the present; I was asking him to articulate HIS concept of the connection between the 1920s and today.

        I am sorry that I can no longer count on every sentence of Kevin's writing as making a contribution to his argument. Instead, I have to sort out what's a digression.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Cogitatio

          I did point out that "Nearly all modern firearms are semi automatic. What are you trying to say here?"

          This is tied to the fact that gun owners regularly deal with individuals that know little about firearms, and this is reflected in the arguments they make. You stated that, "Thus, this incident is utterly irrelevant to our current trend in which semi automatic firearms are used on our children, since the fad got started at Columbine." Nearly all firearms are semi-automatic. What was your point in making this statement?

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    2. Kevin Williamson

      Yeah, what kind of journalist cares about the facts?

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      1. Neelthakrebew

        I have a PhD in history. I don't believe that any historical connection can be shown to exist between the school bombing of the 1920s and the current fad for school shootings which began at Columbine.

        We historians don't value facts per se. We value facts that have historical connections with each other, where an earlier event serves as a source of inspiration or influence or causality to a later event.

        I'll try to give you an example of unconnected historical events. You and I once had a discussion of Muhammad Ali the famous pasha of Egypt. Within the last six months I have read about his efforts to develop the cotton industry in Egypt. He not only wanted Egypt to grow cotton, but he wanted it to spin and weave cotton, and built factories for that purpose. After his death, his successors abandon this project and allowed the factories to lapse into ruin. For this reason, Egypt's present factories today have no historical connection with Muhammad ali's forgotten factories of decades earlier.

        https://archive.org/details/empireofcottongl0000beck_y4i0/page/166/mode/2up?q=%22Muhammad+Ali%22

        I argue that the 1920s school bombing has absolutely no historical connection with the pattern of violence against schoolchildren that has emerged as a pattern since Columbine. Just as the 1920s bombing has no historical connection with Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing. Or the Boston Marathon bombing.

        If your point is simply to demonstrate that there are multiple means of achieving the mass murder of schoolchildren, that is a point too trivial to deserve your attention. It can be known with gas. It could be done by poisoning school lunches.

        It is you who bring up a historical irrelevance when you bring up the school bombing of the 1920s. That makes you an antiquarian rather than a historian. Historians have the goal of looking for historical connections; antiquarians collect random historical facts. In this instance, you, Sir, are an antiquarian.

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        1. Pcostley

          Is there a direct connection and cause? No. Is it an example of either sloppy or deliberate journalism designed to make a point? Yes.

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          1. Neelthakrebew

            KDW blamed the Washington Post for not including the 1920s incident in its coverage of AR style rifles. Clearly, he thinks it's a relevant fact. But he could not articulate a reason why a discussion of present trends should include this long-forgotten incident.

            Later, he gave me a response that seemed to indicate that this was an example of mass violence that's been going on since the 1920s. But he really couldn't give any incidents of mass violence between the school bombing of the 1920s and a general claim of mass shootings in the 1960s--a gap of 40 years.

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        2. Pohl

          This may be too obvious, but your Egyptian cotton facts would all appear in a history of . . . the cotton industry of Egypt. Kind of a weird example to show an absence of causality unless you’ve ruled out a priori all but the most proximate causes, which is simply a choice until you argue there’s an absolute difference in kind, which you at least suggest regarding Columbine.

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          1. Neelthakrebew

            I was trying to make the point that the 1920s school bombing had no historical influence whatsoever on the fad for school shootings that began with Columbine.

            Just as Mohammed Ali A's cotton factories in Egypt in the 1820s had no historical influence on the existence of cotton factories in Egypt today.

            That was the only point I was trying to make.

            KDW seems to think there's some kind of historical connection between the 1920s incident and the media and internet encouraged school shooting trend of our times.

            I fail to see any historical connection between them. Do you?

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        3. Kevin Williamson

          So, to summarize the conversation so far:

          "We should adopt policy y, because x is the case."

          "X is not the case."

          "Sure, but I have a PhD."

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          1. Neelthakrebew

            Please note that I never discussed policy in the comment that began our discussion. I did challenge the relevance of the 1920s bombing to any evaluation of our current situation. So the following is a mischaracterization of our discussion.

            We should adopt policy y, because x is the case."

            I repeat my original comment:

            KDW makes a big damn deal about the fact that a kook blew up a school in the 1920s. It was an isolated incident. He didn't start a cultural fad. Thus, this incident is utterly irrelevant to our current trend in which semi automatic firearms are used on our children, since the fad got started at Columbine.

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          2. Neelthakrebew

            You are a good enough thinker and writer to know that your latest comment is utterly obscure. What am I supposed to make of your communicatingt with x and y which stand for unknowns in mathematics? If you communicated in such an obscure manner in one of your essays, i wouldn't have to call you out because there would be dozens of people ahead of me to do just that.

            I was simply pointing out that the 1920s bombing is utterly historically irrelevant to the present situation of school shootings. There is no connection of influence or causality to the present fad of school shootings.

            Do you wish to elucidate that connection for me so that I can see how this random bit of history is somehow relevant to the discussion?

            I introduced my background in history because historical connections of inspiration and causality are the very first thing we look for. Apparently they aren't the very first thing you look for.

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  7. Neelthakrebew

    Tell me what you think about this--human nature hasn't changed; people got just as mad at the time the Second Amendment was adopted as they do today. But today's guns can deliver bullets 100 times more rapidly and lethally did than they did in 1791.

    What shall we make of these two facts?

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    1. Pohl

      Not as much as you’re implying. Semi-autos are normal, common, and legal. You can discuss things like magazine limits as my city has enacted, unfortunately. Unless there is a response, and the shooter doesn’t have a sidearm, he can just reload. As I mentioned elsewhere, over 80% of school shootings are by individuals who steal guns from family members. Lock up your guns, people, and know when your children are in trouble.

      Some logical steps are out there. I wish we would take them instead of focusing on the shiny object. This makes me think of the people who want to legalize drugs. I wonder if they are many of the same people who want to ban certain guns. The problem is clearly in the things that are creating shooters themselves. Perhaps Tipper Gore was on to something. Look how popular first-person shooter games are, and violent movies, and music, and sports. We enjoy this entertainment. Something is likely wrong with us, I agree with you. Other countries enjoy these things, too, but we generate much of it, so there’s something in our cultural DNA and our current proclivities.

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      1. Neelthakrebew

        You: As I mentioned elsewhere, over 80% of school shootings are by individuals who steal guns from family members.

        Me: You will have to give strong evidence for that, because i cannot remember a single mass school shooting done by a person who stole the gun from a family member.

        I think restricting magazine size holds the most promise for mitigating this deadly trend. People have more chance to survive a 10 round clip than a 30 round clip or a 100 round clip.

        The minute you talk about restrictions upon entertainment, you're in First Amendment territory, and I think the First Amendment is a lot more valuable to our society than the joys of shooting vermin with a 30 round AR15 rifle.

        To me, we are living in a dream world if we fail to come to grips with the fact that the artifacts some claim to be protected by the 2nd amendment are vastly different than the artifacts that were available at the time that amendment was written.

        I think the Founding Fathers would wet their pants if they saw a semi automatic weapon fired with a 30 round clip. They couldn't hustle back to Philadelphia fast enough to ban them.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Cogitatio

          "People have more chance to survive a 10 round clip than a 30 round clip or a 100 round clip."

          Not at all. A shooter can (and likely will) carry more than one gun. They can reload at their leisure in such a case. Additionally, there are millions upon tens of millions of magazines greater than ten rounds out there. Nearly all pistols sold today have magazines that hold greater than ten rounds. You simply cannot restrict something like that.

          "The minute you talk about restrictions upon entertainment, you're in First Amendment territory, and I think the First Amendment is a lot more valuable to our society than the joys of shooting vermin with a 30 round AR15 rifle."

          You may feel that way, but the 2nd Amendment is part of Constitution and has the same weight as the First. Many people will agree with you. Many will disagree. One thing is pretty simple: If you can restrict the 2nd Amendment with its "shall not be infringed" language, you can reasonably restrict your First Amendment rights as well. Either the Constitution means something, or it is all subject to the whims of the people in charge. I know which side of that question I fall on.

          "I think the Founding Fathers would wet their pants if they saw a semi automatic weapon fired with a 30 round clip. They couldn't hustle back to Philadelphia fast enough to ban them."

          The Founders were well aware of the existence of semi-automatic weapons, including the Chambers Machine Gun and Pickle machine gun. There were a number that were built from the 1700s to around 1780. The issues were cost and reliability, but as with any new technology, it was inevitable that these issues would be resolved. Moreover, from the 16th to the 18th century, there were a variety of pistols and rifles with multiple revolving barrels that were invented, using match lock, wheel lock, and flintlock methods of ignition (some were the predecessors to the modern revolver). And individuals in the Revolutionary era could and did own actual cannon.
          Point being, your speculation on the Founders is likely, er, unfounded. They would not have been hustling anywhere other than a place to get their hands on such weapons.

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        2. Pcostley

          Sandy Hook

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          1. Neelthakrebew

            That's ONE--you've got a long way to go to 80%.

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        3. Pohl

          You’re simply too late on this question. We have the right to ordinary rifles. I’ve looked into mass shootings a lot. I most recently grabbed that stat from the NIJ, which I think was citing the database of The Violence Project. I’m not advocating free speech restrictions but greater awareness of what we’re all “amusing ourselves to death” with.

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          1. Neelthakrebew

            I ignore anyone who cannot give me a link to the evidence that supports his argument.

            Define ordinary rifle— bolt action or semi automatic? How many shots unloaded into somebody else's body in a minute?

            As for being too late on the issue, every bit of the constitution is subject to amendment. In 1863, slave owners could argue that abolitionists were almost 250 years too late on that issue.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Brian Ruff

    “Mock those who offer prayers after these massacres all you like, but a prayer is an admission that something is wrong and that the problem at hand is bigger than quotidian politics, and such a confession seems to me an eminently sensible place to start.”

    Best sentence I’ve read by anyone, about anything, in a long time.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Will Bates

    If the solution isn't banning certain weapons (which I myself am skeptical about), why can we not have the discussion about banning certain PEOPLE from owning them?

    We keep hearing that the problem is mental health, but that those mentally unfit people should most definitely be able to buy all the guns they want.

    What about a psychological profile? Maybe an interview? Handing $400 over the counter and coming back a week later for the gun doesn't seem like it's doing much good, and the background checks are so full of holes they might as well have been targets downrange at the same gun shop.

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    1. Philopus

      A good many of the public mass shooters were under psychiatric care. For example, the latest killer. Those psychiatrists have all the tools necessary to make it difficult or impossible to legally acquire modern firearms. There is a repeated failure of these supposed trained professionals to do anything. You want a system where these same people who repeatedly fail with patients, to make decisions based on a 10 minute interview? And failures of government employees should not be the basis of denying rights.

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    2. Neelthakrebew

      So we should have a society that is more focused on controlling people than controlling inanimate objects. It used to be, in the 19th century that a family could put away a female just on their say so that she was nuts.

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  10. Joseph Wellford

    While I certainly find the parsing of the relative lethality of firearms fascinating, I haven't yet found an instance of any firearm of its on volition arriving at any public gathering, and again of its own volition discharging projectiles into human beings.

    As Kevin twice points out the most deadly school attack did NOT involve firearms. For what its worth, I'm not terrified of a world in which weapons are plentiful, its the people that scare me.

    More important than firearms is the declining effectiveness of the police, between 1980 and 2020 we've gone from solving 71% of homicides to only solving 50%. We're on track for a world in which a majority of killers get away with killing.
    More important to stemming violence in America is that between 1977 and 1993 more than 400,000 Americans were murdered, but only 226 convicted killers were executed and only 2,713 remained on death row. Does anyone think this number got better?
    I find the obsession with guns to be not only frustrating but counterproductive.
    The reality of violence in America is that until we deal with mental health system that won't institutionalize those that any layman could in 10 minutes of conversation easily conclude are a danger to themselves or others, deal with the revolving door of our justice system, i.e. recidivism combined with criminal escalation, and the declining ability of the police to close cases, then we are not actually having a discussion about violence. We are engaged in another battle in America's on-going culture war.

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    1. Neelthakrebew

      KDW makes a big damn deal about the fact that a kook blew up a school in the 1920s. It was an isolated incident. He didn't start a cultural fad.

      Thus, this incident is utterly irrelevant to our current trend in which semi automatic firearms are used on our children, since the fad got started at Columbine.

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