I own an AR-15 …

I’m not a survivalist. I’m not a gun nut. I’m not a hunter. I’m certainly not a terrorist.

I’m not ashamed, either.

And I didn’t buy it for self-defense. Nor do I plan on carrying it anywhere but back and forth to the target range. If I was worried about defending myself against an armed intruder, I’d follow the sage advice of a friend who is a former Marine and scoot out the back door first if possible. 

Otherwise, like him, I’d have to ask the intruder to wait awhile until I could retrieve my gun from its case and go to another place in my house for my ammunition.

Going out the back door makes a lot more sense.   

I also don’t believe just anyone who wants this gun – or any other firearm for that matter – should be allowed to get one.  There need to be rules about who can purchase a firearm. Everybody I know who owns firearms is in complete agreement with that.

Every single one. No exceptions.

It’s not about the 2^nd Amendment; it’s about common sense. Only a complete idiot thinks anybody should be able to get a functioning firearm, regardless of their criminal past or mental state.  The NRA agrees there need to be reasonable restrictions. 

Currently there are background checks. But they rely on information on file.  If no one takes seriously and reports that someone has a mental illness, tortures small animals for kicks, has been expelled from school for threatening people, talks about killing classmates, and posts about desires to be a “professional school shooter,” well, that won’t show up.  

Just as it didn’t on the recent Florida school shooter’s background check. 

That’s the glaring flaw in background checks. The checks are only as good as the source data provided to authorities. If you are a wife beater and your spouse never reports it, it won’t show up. If a school administration declines to alert authorities to a scary kid threatening his or her classmates, it won’t show up.  If parents refuse to let police know their teen is stockpiling weapons and body armor and searching for bomb-making instructions online, it won’t show up.

This is how people who should never get a firearm pass background checks.  Make no mistake, there are checks and rules in place, but apathy and political correctness can defeat them.     

When I bought the parts to assemble my AR-15, before I could pick up a critical component – which had to be shipped to a Federally licensed dealer by law – I had to fill out a form and submit to a background check. That form required me to attest that I was at least 18 years of age, had not committed a felony, had no history of mental illness, no record of domestic abuse, and no history of abusing drugs or alcohol, among other things. If there were any discrepancies between what I submitted and the government database I would be denied that critical part.  

Had I tried to buy a completed off-the-shelf AR-15, or any other long gun, from a licensed dealer in Florida I would have had to go through exactly the same process.     

I did everything by the book. 

I assembled all the parts with the help of a friend to produce the finished gun.  It wasn’t difficult at all and took less than an hour. 

And frankly that’s why the AR-15 is the most popular long gun in America.

Not because it’s got a military heritage for Rambo wannabes.  Not because it’s considered an “assault weapon” by some. Not because it is deadly – which of course it can be. 

The real reason is because it’s so easy to build and maintain. It’s like a Lego gun – all the parts snap together, and easily snap apart for cleaning. Another reason is there are so many AR-15-type rifles out there manufacturers of such things as scopes, magazines, and other accessories offer a lot of easily installed options at competitive price points.  

It’s also an accurate gun with very little recoil.  Since I bought and built mine exclusively for target practice at a range nearby, that was important.

However, it has a nasty reputation, mostly because AR-15-type rifles have been used in a number of mass killings, including the Las Vegas massacre and most recently at the school in Florida where a nutjob former student killed 17 people. The AR-15 has been described by some on the left and promoted by the media as a weapon of war, designed exclusively to kill people.   

Because of that, when you tell some people you own an AR-15 they tend to shrink back a bit – as if there’s a side of you they never saw before; perhaps something they should be afraid of. 

Much has been made about how the AR-15 is a “semi-automatic.” To some, that implies it’s a virtual automatic weapon, like a machine gun.  Semi-automatic really only means that after you fire off a round by pulling the trigger, it just chambers another round – so every time you shoot you still have to pull the trigger again.  You could pull the trigger rapidly, of course, but I don’t and nobody I know does that, especially shooting paper targets at 25, 50, 100 or more yards away.     

Which is all I do with it. Well, okay, I shoot primarily at 25 and sometimes 50 yards.  I’m a long way from trying to hit a bullseye at 100 yards or more. I’ve only been at this for about a year now; I’m getting better but not nearly good enough.

The reason I enjoy target shooting is not because I am very good at it, which I’m not, but because – paradoxically, perhaps – it is more relaxing than you might imagine. To be accurate you have to learn to concentrate, monitor your breathing, loosen up, and focus intently.

There’s almost a Zen-like, meditative quality to it. That’s what I like.  Plus, my friend and I always stop at Waffle House for breakfast on our way to the range. 

A pecan waffle and meditation. Is that a perfect day or what?   

I also enjoy the camaraderie at the range. The people you meet there are among the nicest you’ll encounter. Mostly middle-aged and older guys; some former cops, many former military, and some, like me, just getting started.

Everybody I’ve met there is incredibly helpful, courteous, and focused on safety – far from how gun owners are often portrayed. I suspect most if not all of them also support background checks and reasonable restrictions on who can own a firearm. No one in their right mind wants dangerous, mentally unbalanced people to have access to firearms. 

But to prevent that, people need to step up and report bad actors to the authorities, so background checks have the data they need. Schools need to flag and report students with violent tendencies. Parents need to swallow their pride and let someone know their child is a hazard to others. Mental-health professionals need to monitor their patients to see they stay on their meds.  And of course neighbors and others need to have the guts to tell police when they see something that disturbs them. 

Until everyone does that, the wrong people will pass background checks.   

There are now more guns in America than people. There are also more Americans than ever before. That also means there are more mentally unbalanced people among us – more psychopaths, more sociopaths, and more people with violent and homicidal tendencies, as our population grows; it’s the law of big numbers at work.   

Following the shootings in Las Vegas and Florida, it’s easy, at a time like this, to blame the AR-15-type rifles and their wide availability. It’s easy to blame the availability of 20-30-round magazines for their role in these mass shootings. 

There have been calls to ban both after almost every mass shooting.  Last night, some talking head even suggested that one solution might be to put a heavy tax on ammunition. 

Everyone seems to be searching for an easy answer. I can’t blame them. 

It’s far harder to accept that the cause of mass shootings has less to do with the weapon used, and more to do with society’s reluctance to deal with the role of apathetic parents, timid school administrators and mental-health professionals, and the fear of getting involved.   

It’s also hard to accept that media coverage, and our society’s obsession with fame, also contribute to mass shootings.  The Columbine, Sandy Hook, Florida school, and Las Vegas massacre as well, turned the perpetrators into celebrities in a perverse way.  That’s what many of them wanted – fame. Notoriety. Slaughtering people was their path to stardom. 

My AR-15 had no role in that.

The millions of other AR-15s out there in the hands of responsible owners didn’t either. 

But parents, schools, mental-health professionals, and neighbors did.