Ben Stein writes an opinion piece on the AR-15, and it’s embarrassingly idiotic.
I’ll excerpt the parts that tickled me and link the entire mess HERE.
It turns out that Lee’s birthday is still a state holiday in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Mississippi. In a real stunning statement of how America has changed, it’s sometimes combined with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday to make the holiday. Sometimes “Stonewall” Jackson’s birthday is tossed in there, too. What an amazingly flexible country this is.
And here’s something else as to which we need some change. It’s about guns.
What the hell did I just read? In this mother of all horrendous segues, Stein seems to be saying, “if redneck racists can endure celebrating Jackson and Lee’s birthday on a black guy’s birthday we can certainly do something about guns.”
Knowing trivia and having actual intelligence are obviously roads that don’t necessarily need to intersect.
…for the life of me, I cannot see why any American civilians need an AR-15 or any other military-style semi-automatic rifle.
If no civilians had a “military-style semi-automatic rifle,” why would non-civilians need them? Why this focus on disarming the civilian but not law enforcement?
You also say “any American civilians.” That’s a subtle but meaningful disclaimer. Is it that you can see why citizens of some other country might be well-suited being armed with the AR-15?
I understand why people want them. It makes your ordinary nerdy guy seem like he’s tough and rough and ready.
Wowza. Did he just say the AR-15 is for nerds, like how big cars are for guys with tiny junk? I’m starting to think that someone hacked Ben Stein’s laptop. No one is actually this stupid.
If you look at an AR-15 or any other similar weapon, it doesn’t look like it’s made for hunting.
The ol’ “2A is a hunting license” canard. Can this get any dumber?
It doesn’t look like it’s made for target shooting. No, it’s made to kill other people. At least that’s what it looks like.
Yes… it can get dumber.
If I’m ever killed by a maniac, I certainly hope it’s not with a gun that “looked like it was made to kill people.” That would be just horrific, wouldn’t it? I hope it’s with a gun that looks like it’s made to give people a nice warm stone massage.
So we can keep the AR-15 if we make it look like a salad shooter?
It looks as if it won’t ever be happy until you use it to kill someone.
Even the pink ones?
I understand the Second Amendment arguments about semi-automatic military style weapons bans: if you let the camel put his nose under the tent, pretty soon he’s walking off with the tent. If you let the government ban the AR-15 and its many cousins, are automatic pistols next?
I better run out to Walmart and buy me an automatic pistol before they are banned!!!! I have $600 bucks. What kind of automatic pistol will that get me?
Let’s just stop selling AR-15s at stores or at gun shows or anywhere. There have been too many innocent people killed by too many insane people who could not have done it without the AR-15 or its copycats.
A maniac with a Ruger Mini-14 “could not have done it”? Is that what you think?
The time for civilians to own AR-15s is over. No issues about background checks. Just no more manufacturing or selling of AR-15s. Period.
It’s apparently what Ben Stein thinks.
Tipster, WillysGoatGruff, says the comments at American Spectator are hilarious.
Dear Ben. STFU. AR 15’s are America’s gun.
https://youtu.be/2OhBBC_Cyeo
Dang, Ben, you were doing so well hiding your Nevertrump hump. I would have expected you to stay out of this AR-15 circular firing squad. Here’s your blindfold. Cigarette?
Mr. Stein is an economist… and a city boy.
Stick to your knitting, Stein.
I’ll give up my AR-15’s (plural), when the local constabulary & the U.S. Army revert to the Brown Bess & a Flintlock.
Oh – and all the “shithole countries” that want to invade us, do the SAME. >:-(
Truth be told, I’d rather have a Mini-14 or 30.
Stein’s article would have made much more sense, whether you agreed with him or not, if he full on attacked the “looks” of the AR-15 for having the alluring unnecessary qualities that attract mentally-ill nutball maniacs, like a fancy donut to Rosie O’Donnell.
Maybe he could have made a reasonable argument from that tack.
But no. He attacked “nerds who want to look rough and ready.”
Screw you, idiot.
You’re not nearly as smart as you think you are for that fact alone.
Outlawing the AR-15 in hopes of reducing “gun deaths” is exactly like outlawing silver cars in hopes of reducing highway carnage. As the most common color, statistically more people die in them than any other. If silver cars kill more people than any other, we must assume there’s something uniquely bad about them. Ban silver cars and save lives; there’s no excuse not to act.
I personally think that the Mini 14 is more suited to just killing people because the Mini 14 is such an inaccurate P0S that you sure as heck can’t hunt or shoot target with one. Not that this is your point but you fisked Stein so completely there is nothing left to say to that tool.
I used to have an AR-15. It looked pretty mean, and I kept waiting for it to get up and start massacring people wholesale, but it never would. Not even one person. Took all the fun out of gun ownership, it did.
/sarc off/
Wheres this “Modicum of common sense” he starts with? Or did we all miss that?
“…for the life of me, I cannot see why any American civilians need an AR-15 or any other military-style semi-automatic rifle.”
Well, there are a couple of answers to that. The first comes from my Scott-Irish blood which is “F U that’s why!” Then the years of religious training kick in and I calm down and would just repeat what Bill Whittle has to say https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOwy9OWfnAM
But then I start thinking again about how some elite urbanite who lives in a secured place (fence or doorman) and the Scott-Irish flares up and we are back to “F U, thats why”.
This is exactly why I went with the AR-10.
The AR-15 looked bad……but it was misleading.
The poor guys turned into Spicoli.
I “liked” every post above. I used to like stein.
Hey Ben, my AR-15 doesn‘t look so unhappy and mean since I accessorized it with black Swarovski rhinestones. Not too many, mind you. Just enough to be tasteful. 💎 Or tastefully offensive to you, probably.
Hey Ben! You dumb shit! mrs6pak says you should come over and take her AR away from her. Good luck.
Those words from a guy whose best-known utterances were, “BUELLER, BUELLER, BUELLER.”
Ben fails to realize you can keep EVERYONE off your lawn with an AR chambered in Blackout.
PSA (off topic)
For those who followed “Imperator Rex3,”
he now has a new site:
https://twitter.com/_VachelLindsay_
I live in a pick-up truck neighborhood in Phx. None of my neighbors have shot anyone, but we don’t have home invasions, drug dealers hanging on the corner selling to our children, etc. Maybe because every homeowner is armed.
Do they have a scary big gun? Seems likely.
Ben also gets on with Cavuto and talks about the benefits of raising taxes on the rich.
(((’nuff said))).
I agree… the AR15 should be illegal. ..
From hence all school shooters should only be armed with 6 shot clips or revolvers requiring manual reloading in the midst of firing. Further limiting class size to 15 will further reduce the numbers of fatalities in any given class room.
Furthermore, these new restrictive gun laws should be posted at all entrances and exits notifying any would be shooter of compliance with stated gun laws and thereby obtaining greater compliance. ..
I’m only just curious how many gun laws the Florida shooter broke and how he will be prosecuted..
Speaking of nerds…
I keep seeing headlines of people who are destroying their Ar-15. I have a message for them, “don’t destroy it, just give it to me, I promise it won’t go on a mass murdering spree.”
It is so stupid, just because some of these idiots choose an AR-15 to kill with doesn’t make it a gun just to kill people. There are many guns they could choose to commit mass murder, just like they could choose something besides a gun to commit mass murder.
How about using some common sense and look at how easy it is for these people to murder in gun free zones. If you’re ignorant enough to have a gun free zone then you should take other precautions to prevent kids from being fish in a barrel. The simplest of that is to lock the damn doors, isn’t there a reason schools go on lock down all the time? Then quit being liberal idiots and call the cops on little thugs and give a shit that LE and FBI sucked so bad at their job.
Ben Stein calling anyone a “nerd” is rich, considering his biggest claim to fame is being type-cast as a nerdy school teacher.
I have 57 long guns but no AR’s. Even a BAR.
Have not touched one in almost 50 years. BUT – THE ONE THE GOVT GAVE ME WAS NOT, REPEAT NOT, A RIFLE. It has a smooth bore. Not one grove. IT WAS A MUSKET! A very light, rapid fire (until it jammed, which was far too often!) musket. My M14 HAD GROVES IN THE BARREL; IT WAS A RIFLE! AND I NEVER SAW ONE JAM -EVER – IN NAM!@#$%! And it had a solid stock – good fo but stroking Kalasnikavers!
Well let’s see, according to reliable sources on the Inter-Web, here are the leading causes of death in the United States.
Since 1973 when Roe v. Wade created the so-called right to elective abortion on demand in the United States, nearly 60 million children have been killed by legal abortion – and the death toll persists at over 1 million lives lost to abortion every year.
Heart disease: 633,842
• Cancer: 595,930
. Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the U.S. causing at least 250,000
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 155,041
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 146,571
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 140,323
• Alzheimer’s disease: 110,561
• Diabetes: 79,535
• Influenza and pneumonia: 57,062
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 49,959
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 44,193
But guns are the problem?
Maybe Ben should read some history books to learn what happens to a population when their government decides to disarm them. In light of the recent revelations of FBI, IRS and Department of Justice being used against U S citizens, we need more AR-15s not fewer.