The cycle of fear that drives assault weapon sales

[benEzra]

51. Finn M39 on a 1905 Izhevsk receiver still bearing the Romanov crest,

Yeah, & you're not machismo eh? is that a mosin nagant, or I think that was russian made, doubled as a good pole vault (pole for vaulting, not for vaulting poles).

"Machismo" is a noun. The adjective form of your insult would be "macho", would it not?

In any case, on the macho-vs-geek spectrum, I'm very much at the geek end (technical writer, Perl wonk, Guild fan) and very proud of it.

Yes, a Mosin...a very nice Finn M39 on a 1905 Izhevsk hex receiver still bearing the Romanov crest, rebarreled and converted to M39 configuration in 1942 at VKT in Jyväskylä. A fascinating piece of history, in my opinion, and not your garden variety M1891. Best group so far is 1 3/8" at 100 yards, which isn't too shabby for a rifle that's 108 years old.

How many gunowners have a personal gunsmith? I never did, not too many do

Neither do I. That's one reason the AR is so popular. You can rebarrel, change caliber, change stocks, free-float, install a match trigger, install optics, install a light, install a sling, change length of pull, and anything else you'd want to do yourself without every having to pay someone else to do it for you. That's a key difference between an AR and (say) a Mini or a Remington 7400.

IN FACT, in good part, people who'd understand you above would be ex army/marines & some law enforcement

Knowing what the hell you're talking about when it comes to firearms, firearms law, and the shooting sports is not a radical position. Distressingly rare, perhaps; radical, no.

People who'd understand what I said would be target shooters, competitive shooters, and people interested in the technical aspects of guns and shooting, instead of just bleating about what a gun looks like or how well it kills Bambi or what kind of noise it makes when you cycle it or what Cletus on TV says about it.

People who understand things like sight offset, ballistic coefficient, muzzle energy, how momentum affects recoil, and such. The people who know the difference between a rimfire and a centerfire cartridge, or know how to use a ballistic table. *Those* are the people who understand why a non-automatic civilian centerfire .22 isn't some uber-superweapon. It's a rifle, period. A non-automatic rifle, and a small-caliber one at that.

Bottom line, you're fighting to outlaw the most popular civilian target rifles and HD carbines in the United States and you don't even seem to realize it. But you're in good company, far too many legislators are laboring under the same misconception, and it is going to hurt the party in 2014.