Folks—the demonization of the AR-15 rifle has begun in the media. The usual talking points about its lethality, its rate of fire, and its scariness are coursing through the veins of the anti-gun Left following the Orlando attack. Omar Mateen committed the worst mass shooting in U.S. history on Sunday morning, which will likely be reclassified as a terrorist attack, when he murdered 49 people at a gay nightclub (Pulse). As Bob Owens and Streiff noted at Bearing Arms and RedState respectively, Mateen didn’t use an AR-15 rifle, but the media has a narrative to dole out (via CBS News):
A law enforcement source said that the shooting suspect legally purchased recently the two weapons used in the attack at the shooting center in Port St. Lucie near his Fort Pierce home. He had a Glock 17 handgun purchased on June 5, a Sigsauer MCX assault rifle purchased on June 4 on his person during the shootout, and investigators later found a .38-caliber weapon in his vehicle.
Owens noted that the rifle Mateen bought “has no major parts that interface with AR-15s in any way, shape, or form”:
The rifle used by the Islamist terrorist in Orlando was instead a Sig Sauer MCX carbine, a modular, multi-caliber (able to swap to different calibers, including 5.56 NATO, 300 BLK, and 7.62×39) rifle system that sometimes utilizes STANAG magazines common to more than 60 different firearms, but otherwise has no major parts that interface with AR-15s in any way, shape or form.This of course will make no difference at all to the anti-gun politimedia, who don’t particularly care about factual accuracy and who likely wouldn’t be able to tell an AR-15 from a toaster oven if their lives depended on it.
Via Streiff, the purpose of the narrative is to clear a path for its prohibition for civilian use:
Now this Sig is every bit as dangerous as an AR-15. It is sold in a semi-auto version to sportsmen and in full automatic by assorted special operations forces worldwide. The point is that it is not an AR-15 and no one, other than the media, ever claimed it was an AR-15. In fact, there is no humanly possible way it could be mistaken for an AR-15. This is not a mistake. This is a narrative. It is designed to build a consensus that the AR-15 is uniquely dangerous and contrive to outlaw it. Once that is accomplished the cry will be raised to outlaw similar weapons.
This is a Sig Sauer MCX Carbine:
We must remain vigilant. We must fight back against this narrative, but as of right now—a new ban on so-called assault weapons isn’t going to happen, folks. That could change if we lose to Hillary Clinton in November, and if Republicans lose the Senate. The Second Amendment is on the ballot. Choose wisely—and by wisely I mean, saying “hell no” to Clinton.
Our sister site, Bearing Arms, will have a more detailed post about the difference between the two rifles later today. Stay tuned.