Category: Observations

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Defining the AR-15 Once and for All

And its history and cultural significance. Also: should civilians be allowed to own one?

AR-15s. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Yes, this needs to be done, for once by someone who doesn’t feel strongly about them either way.

But first, let’s begin with the gun’s origin. As in, guns in general. The gun, having been invented after humanity’s shift from hunter/gatherers to farming and ranching, did not originally serve the primary purpose of food attainment. It was quickly adapted of course, but it’s imperative to understand that the design of guns has not historically considered hunting as its primary function. They are, above all, intended to kill people. They are weapons of war.

But many guns are also built on adapted platforms in order to boost their hunting and target-shooting efficacy at the cost of human-killing practicality, and I’m glad myself because these pursuits certainly interest me more than people-perforation. They became popular with rural dwellers because their environment benefited from them. Shooting crows and raccoons was necessary to protect crops. And hunting, while not necessary, added meat to the table. My father was a farmboy and taught me how to hunt. Gun ownership, for recreational non-people-killing uses had become cultural in our evolving society. Their use had changed in their civilian functions.

But now it’s shifting back away from practical civilian rural use and into military. Family farms gave over to conglomerates and our economy doesn’t support rural life nearly as much as urban. Simply put, the gun culture of practicality waned, and far fewer people now grow up familiarized with guns. Now, most peoples’ initiation into the gun world is through watching, rather than doing. And guns in media lean heavily to the people-killing variety.

So what does this mean for the AR-15? Well, now let’s look at modern military gun design.

M1 Garands – a battle rifle. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

If we begin the story with the standardized bullet cartridge design, then I can confidently say that the first modern guns were battle rifles, which are defined as single and semi-auto full rifle cartridge weapons. They have long barrels and large bullets. They hit hard and have a long range, but are unwieldy in close quarters.

M1 Carbine. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

So the carbine was developed. Arguments abound on their definition, but I would say that they’re short rifles designed around pistol cartridges, although they certainly have their share of custom-designed rounds. They sacrifice power and range for maneuverability.

Browning Automatic Rifle – a light machine gun. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

To support these weapons, light machine guns were developed. They took the power and range of battle rifles and added automatic fire. Obviously they were not maneuverable, but that automatic fire was also then employed for…

Thompson submachine gun. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Submachine guns. They sacrificed even more power and range than carbines in favor of maximum maneuverability and automatic fire, using pistol cartridges so they could be somewhat manageable.

StG 44 – the OG of assault rifles. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Herein lied the gap. An intermediate weapon was needed that was somewhere around a carbine in terms of maneuverability, but with more powerful rounds and fully automatic capability. And so, in the later stages of WWII, the assault rifle was born. It uses an intermediate rifle cartridge that’s controllable under automatic fire, with the bonus of adding a select fire switch so the user can choose between firing speed and accuracy tradeoffs. It became the base for all modern military loadouts. And one of these designs became the M16, the US military’s standard light arm until very recently.

M16 – the American assault rifle. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Ah, but the M16 isn’t the AR-15. True. The AR-15 became a civilian variant of a rejected military design to build a semi-automatic full rifle cartridge battle rifle/carbine hybrid, originally the AR-10, (losing out to the M14), but its design was later used as the base for the M16. The AR-10, which fired a full (short-stroke) rifle cartridge, was also later produced as the AR-15, which uses the smaller assault rifle cartridge. Thus began the US military’s switch from battle rifles to true assault rifles.

M4 carbine. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Furthermore, the M16 later underwent an adaptation into a reduced frame version, the M4, as urban warfare became the more common engagement environment, highly resembling the civilian AR-15.

So where are we at now?

As stated above, gun culture has shifted from recreational to paramilitary, and as a result people buying guns now gravitate to ones that resemble military guns in form and function. And the primary American armed forces gun in use for decades matches very closely the AR-15. And with its design patent expired, it’s also now cheap and widely available. Hence its popularity.

And now, with the AR-15’s origin explained along with the history of America’s shifting gun culture adopting it, the question remains: should civilians be allowed to own one?

Not so fast. Now we have to explain exactly what it is.

Politically-motivated pedants will be quick to point out what it isn’t: an assault rifle. They do this to discredit their opposition, who often refers to it as such. Because the “AR” in “AR-15” doesn’t stand for “assault rifle”, it stands for “Armalite rifle”, it’s original designer and manufacturer. Yes – it’s an easy mistake to make, and while I hate the smugness of those who make that correction, it is an important distinction. The original AR-10 design – a battle rifle – became both the M16 – an assault rifle – and the AR-15 – not an assault rifle by definition. Technically, it’s called the AR-15 carbine, but I think this is wrong too. I consider a true carbine to be a reduced frame battle rifle. No, the AR-15 is a reduced frame assault rifle, which needs a different definition (there is also the PDW, which I’ll just quickly define here as a submachine gun that shoots reduced-intermediate assault rifle cartridges), but even then there’s some inconsistencies with the definition because an assault rifle has automatic fire capability selection (I consider burst-fire automatic fire).

So we can’t define it on existing definitions. There – I said it. It’s a hybrid weapon: an assault rifle/carbine. It doesn’t fit into a nice box.

So should civilians be allowed to own one?

Promoters call it a “modular weapon platform” or other such weasel terms. Fine, I’ll agree with the platform being modular, but it’s this modularity that detracts from its credibility in the civilian gun culture. Sure you could eradicate varmints with it, but it’s overkill. And if you went hunting with it, you’d get your ass laughed out of the woods by old-timers. And its cartridge isn’t even legal for deer in many states, so I dunno what game you’d take with it.

The self-defense promoters lean on its people-killing effectiveness, which I can’t argue against. And that’s the double-edged sword right there. Defense…or offense via mass shootings?

And the Second Amendment-ers simply say it’s their American right. Which is dubious ground to stand on, even if a valid argument.

That question, I’m not going to answer. If the answer were easy, it would have already been answered. But hopefully this will provide some background on the damn thing’s origin and culture of ownership.

–Simon

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Calvin and Hobbes – Publication Edits, 3

This one I found not because I was diligently auditing the dialog (I was, in fact, distracting myself from a rather boring conference call), but because the dialog itself didn’t make immediate sense to me and my brain screeched to a halt. The joke was lost on me, and having read every strip multiple times over decades, I’m familiar with Watterson’s humor. It was enough to not slip past me:

November 25, 1988

From The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection. I took this photo.
From gocomics.com: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/11/25

A second read and it became obvious that this editorial change was much bigger. I would even go so far as to say it changes the entire joke. Here’s my take, paraphrasing and reading between the lines:

Original version:

Calvin: I’m a cranky kid.

Mom: I don’t care.

Calvin: If you were truly the woman who gave birth to me, you would care a lot more than you do.

Mom: If I weren’t truly the woman who gave birth to you, then I wouldn’t have kept you this long.

Calvin: I still don’t believe you’re the woman who gave birth to me. You purchased me.

Revised version:

Calvin: I’m a cranky kid.

Mom: I don’t care.

Calvin: If you were qualified to be a mother in the first place, you would care a lot more than you do.

Mom: If I weren’t qualified to be a mother, then I wouldn’t have kept you this long.

Calvin: I still don’t believe you’re qualified to be a mother. I want to see documentation that you’re certified to be one.

It’s sort of a similar punchline, but a pretty significant change. It’s modernizing the joke (as in, our growing obsession with professional certifications). As I previously mentioned in…

Calvin and Hobbes – Publication Edits, 1

…kids and families often “joked” about the inherent “legitimacy” of children. In fact, that’s still done today in biological nuclear families with much frequency. But again, the editors must have considered that insensitive to adopted children/broken families/divorced families/remarried families and whatever any other form of non-traditional families out there that they preferred to update the text.

And again, I’ll accuse them of trying to edit history by changing art to be more palatable to a new audience.

–Simon

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The Case for Trumpism

As one of the many confused participants of the American democracy, I never quite understood how Trump was ever allowed to exist. Sure, I understand humanity’s history is rife with political leaders who embody despotism, but even with our collectively short memory, the names are not forgotten, nor do they fail to invoke derision: Mao, Castro, Mussolini, and of course Hitler.

So when Trump entered the political scene, who very openly possessed similar personality traits, I thought (incorrectly) that he simply just couldn’t be. How did he happen?

To seek an answer, I dug around on American political affiliations and voting habits, and was delighted to find a deeper analysis beyond “left” and “right”. It also helped bring me some personal closure to my own non-affiliated voting preferences, categorizing myself nicely as…

(The Pew study I’m referencing, as summarized by NPR, can be found here: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/09/1053929419/feel-like-you-dont-fit-in-either-political-party-heres-why

In the article is also a link to the quiz, but I’ll post here for convenience: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/quiz/political-typology/)

Here’s what that says about me, according to the Pew study:

  • 18% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents
  • the youngest and among the least religious and politically active of the Republican-leaning groups
  • most don’t identify as “conservative” politically, but are conservative economically, on issues of race and in that they prefer smaller government
  • more moderate than other Republicans on immigration, abortion, same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization
  • lean toward the GOP but are not enamored with it; almost two-thirds would like Trump to not remain a national figure, and, in fact, a quarter identifies with Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents
  • the only GOP-oriented group to say President Biden definitely or probably legitimately received the most votes in the 2020 election, and only about 4 in 10 believe the results of the 2022 elections “really matter”

I’d say that’s fairly close to what I expected: a slightly right-leaning independent. (Though my father often accuses me of being some ultra-right Republican loyalist. I guess, in comparison to his own political views, that’s how he would see me in comparison.)

More importantly, it means I can be swayed and do not vote out of a political ideology, nor do I worship an individual candidate. So for the main point of this post, this means that of all the conservative categories that would unquestioningly vote for Trump, I would be the one who might or might not. In theory, I wouldn’t be locked in by association. Why is this important? Because when adding the population percentages for each political category, even if the Republican candidate had all votes from the Ambivalent Right, he would still only have 40% of the popular vote. That may be enough, given that some of the Stressed Sideliners in the middle might vote for him, and with the electoral college ultimately making the final vote (which of course doesn’t require popular majority). But you can’t lose many of the Ambivalent Right with a margin that small. It’s a group that has to be swayed, and wasn’t swayed enough in the 2020 election, but was formerly swayed in 2016. I’m the group that makes the determination.

So what would it take to sway someone like myself who’s in this category? Let’s look at Trump as the individual.

In all of Trump’s monologues he juxtaposes questionable figures next to facts, presumably to give the illusion of association. It’s pseudo data, the inaccuracies of which quickly rule them out as having any grounds in reality.

Okay, so he can’t provide believable figures. What does he say he stands for then? Generally, everything that’s a soundbite for the right. But for the Ambivalent Right, that’s not necessarily a list of everything we want. In fact, much of it is not what we want. Therefore, it comes down to a comparison of candidates, and which one aligns better with personal political policy beliefs.

But there’s also a more basic human element to consider. Aside from being Republican, Trump’s primary “appeal” has been the “Fuck you!” attitude. I’ll explain why this is important, but first – a quick history lesson on feminism and American policy changes:

The Rift

During the second world war women were wholesale brought into the workforce for the war effort and gained a new financial independence.

No-fault divorce became available, famously in the form of its poster child: Reno, NV.

Women gained sexual freedom with contraceptive availability. Marriage and the nuclear family were no longer prerequisites to a woman’s sexual satisfaction.

The Equal Pay act went into effect which, in theory, mandated equal pay for women and equal availability of all job types.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act was enacted and then women could obtain credit individually, further gaining financial independence.

This is obviously a very compressed timeline, but the point is that in the span of ~30 years, women became, at least on paper, the equals of men and guaranteed all the rights and privileges thereof.

The Pandering

But then things got nasty. With this demographic now financially established and making their own decisions, it only followed naturally that media, advertising, and policies shifted to earn their previously unexploited patronage.

Peaking in the 1990s, based on my own experiences anyway, media and advertisements adopted the script of husband = idiot/wife = knows everything. The world of men was now being taught that they couldn’t function independently themselves and needed women, while women didn’t need men.

More empirically, college enrollment and graduation rates shifted to become overwhelmingly dominated by women (I challenge you to dig into these discussions and avoid a flame war).

Companies and governments started employing varying policies on mandating female percentages of board members and executive positions.

Incarcerations rates of men became approximately 10X that of women.

80% of custodial divorcees are now women.

The Pushback

This is, admittedly, just a small portion of the recent gender narrative and lacks much of depth of study required to truly vet its anthropological implications. But a cursory glace would show that:

  • Women gained financial freedom
  • Women gained sexual freedom
  • Women gained freedom from needing men
  • Society started pandering to women and sidelining the needs of men
  • Society started preferring women over men in certain circumstances

The Contemporary Themes

  1. Women are told that they’re superior to men but still need preferential treatment to achieve their potential
  2. Men are starting to feel disadvantaged to women and resent being abandoned by society

So How is This Related to Trumpism?

Here’s my theory. As stated before, only 1 of the 4 conservative groups is not pro-Trump. This group must have voted for Trump or he would not have been elected. But they don’t like Trump. Nor do they like most of the far-right that he represents. They like moderate-right, which is what Obama was, which is why Obama was elected. But they had to have voted for Trump or he wouldn’t have had sufficient votes. What happened?

This is where we return to the “Fuck you!” human element.

No moderate conservative would disagree with sexual egalitarianism being a bad thing. But the resultant pandering to women and subsequent steady disenfranchisement of men created…feelings. And unchecked feelings can cause bad decisions. Like Trump. It became personal. One too many conversations with a Progressive Left – one too many condescending comments from the elitist left – one too many accusations of privilege, when the workforce had just dug itself out of the Great Recession and employment opportunities were finally starting to improve, by a judgy and leftist younger population less impacted by the economic climate.

Trump was an opportunity to teach the far left a lesson. It was “Fuck you!”

My theory is that large numbers of right-leaning moderate men finally had enough. The irritation with the left overcame their rational political side and emotional decisions overcame reason. And this what when the political opponent in the election was a far-left liberal woman, the very personification of the elitist and condescending left!

I’m not saying that I voted or will vote for Trump, but on some level, I do understand his appeal. And that’s a very strange thing for me, an Ambivalent Right, to admit.

–Simon

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The Swarth of the Lie

It’s hard to make a pithy rhyme off that, but I’m trying to poke some fun at the redneck-right and their attempts to appropriate Independence Day. A communal holiday celebrated via explosive displays which, in theory, should be the quintessential melting pot of our national diverse cultures, is instead interrupted by white trash in Silveradoes and F-150s, adorned in home-made signs profoundly and profusely pontificating perversely on the perceived injustices of whichever Democratic politician has sparked their ire at that particular moment, all while ignorantly violating the flag code while they tow a Chinese-made Old Glory from their trailer hitch in the dark and rain.

Prior to home ownership, Liz and I lived in Kettering. I consider it to be generally working class, and until recently it resonated with our lifestyle. And even after moving to Centerville, Kettering seemed more welcoming. Their public service personnel, city events, and general means of living felt ubiquitously middle class. But recently, it’s become more hostile. Through either our own increasing economic means which disconnect us, or Covid’s impact on the broader community, it now feels…trashy. Maybe “dilapidated” is a better word, but I’m not obligated to be particularly magnanimous towards unpleasant people on my own blog.

Anyway – between that and the post-Covid lackluster fireworks trend, the kid losing interest in family outings, and the city deciding to develop the little hill we always parked on for the event – we stopped going.

Then Liz reserved a table at Centerville High School, directly adjacent to where the city hosts their own fireworks, along with a number of food trucks. And aside from the standard menagerie of douchebag teenagers that would be expected at a school-hosted event, the populous was remarkedly less trashy. Also buying a table helped. Yes – money grants privilege (and creates a redneck paywall).

I like money. It lets me avoid people I don’t like.

And our proximity to the fireworks themselves restored for a moment that small bit of magic we all used to feel as little kids. So much so, in fact, that I snapped nary a photo. But I did manage two to mark the event:

More purchased privilege: a Korean-style corndog. There was no breading. It was coated in mozzarella cheese and queso dip, then rolled in crushed spicy Cheetos. I did not finish this abomination, but I could afford it!
A candid shot. The kid was busy messing around with attaching her glowsticks in her desired configuration instead of watching the fireworks.

The pettiness in me will gloat at this change in circumstances. The aforementioned white trash who try to claim the holiday as their own and take the opportunity to shun those who they deem as lesser Americans are in this case themselves excluded due to a fundamental American value: The American Dream. They’re priced out of the community and the events it holds.

It turns out that we’re the true Americans, (along with the plethora of Indians and Asians present at the event with us who also figured out how to succeed in the American economy). And I didn’t even need to make a poster to feel self-righteous.

Happy 4th!

–Simon

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Calvin and Hobbes – Publication Edits, 2

https://ephemerality.net/tag/calvin-and-hobbes

This may or may not be an edit. It’s possible that it’s a minor printing error, maybe unique to my copy, but I noticed something odd in this strip. And it’s not immediately obvious that it wasn’t intentional.

April 3, 1988

From The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection. I took this photo.
From gocomics.com: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/04/03

Notice in the 8th panel in the first photo, Hobbes has what appears to be a visual representation of a dream above his head. Here’s a closeup:

Now the question is: is that meant to be a recognizable object, or is it a printing error, given its color similarity to the background? It looks like a solid object though, with crisp lines and a defined halo surrounding it. Also of note, he was after tuna, explained by the final panel:

Given the limited resolution of hand-drawn reprinted comics, I could see that it is indeed a chunk of tuna that Hobbes is dreaming about. But if that’s true, it really doesn’t add much value to the strip to have made the modification later, so it hardly seems worth the effort.

Was it an editorial change, or a printing error? This one, for the time being, remains a mystery.

–Simon