American’s have been in love with firearms since, pardon the expression, well, since God was a child.
It’s not too difficult for me to remember the days of hunting deer with my two younger brothers and our dad. He’d wake us up, way too early, and we’d drive the truck down a cold dirt road, deep into the pitch-dark woods.
Pa would stop off at different spots along the road and drop each of us off at specified locations that he’d previously selected as deer stands.
Afterwards he’d move on, usually about a half mile away and set up his stand, looking back toward the general direction that he’d placed his young sons.
Then we’d all wait. And wait…
And wait even more for any sound that a deer might make moving through a thicket. In the Carolina’s they called it “Still Hunting”, which, as youngsters, we all figured meant that we had to be very still or we’d scare off our prey.
We never really killed any deer but we each had a gun and we sat there those days ‘hunting’ with our pa, like a real man.
Our weapon of choice was a Remington 1100 shotgun, we all got one for Christmas one year and we believed them to be excellent hunting guns. We could use them for rabbits, coons, dove and squirrels (if you didn’t mind picking the lead out while skinning them).
Remington 1100 Shotgun
One of pa’s biggest hunting rules was that “if you shoot it, you eat it”.
And we all understood that, so more than anything we we’re quite pleased that our old grandma, Ruby, would eat near all things that we killed in the wild. So stocking her icebox was one of our favorite past times.
Pa’s gun was different than ours. He sported a Browning 30-06, a spectacular hunting rifle, that he’d boast could “bring down an elephant”.
Browning 30-06 Rifle
Now, that gun was a badass gun and we boys dreamed of the day that we too could carry a “Thirty Ought Six”, as we called them.
Most every hunter would have been proud to own guns like the 1100 or the 30-06 back then too, and many hunters we knew used them whenever they took to the woods as well. Those two model guns were the popular sport hunting guns of our time.
But that was long ago. Sporting guns are different today.
Now days, in the U.S., one of the most popular guns is the AR 15 Assault Rifle.
AR 15 Assault Rifle
So popular in fact, that millions have been sold and, believe it or not, people actually shoot (or assault) deer with them.
Sorry, but I can’t see much sport in “feed shooting” any deer, too much like a video game?
But I regress.
Anyway, the AR 15 will set you back about $600 and while you can’t buy the gun at your local WalMart today, you can buy almost every single piece of the gun at old Sam Walton’s place and build it yourself.
In most states, you may not be old enough to drink, but you can legally purchase an AR 15 without parental consent.
And should you not be able to purchase one, say because you’re ‘wanted’ or a registered felon and all, if you can get your hands on a 3D printer, hell you can make one, from scratch!
Yes, the AR 15 is so popular amongst American’s that self titled, responsible gun owners, pack video sharing sites with images of their own children loading them up and putting them down (range).
American’s so love the robust weapon that they spend hundreds of dollars in ammo to actually try to burn the damn thing up!
Woah, now that was pretty cool?
The good old versatile and charming AR 15, you can make them, craft them, play with them and even smoke them. And imagine the deer you could waste with a bump stock.
Now what could be more American than that?
Maybe. School shootings? No man, it's just a gun.
And so it goes.
