“UR-15” (Utility Rifle) – Renaming Eugene Stoner’s Iconic AR-15 (and variants)

My old "high mileage" M4 style AR-15 / Doesn't it look sooo ominous?

“You can’t buy that car. It is against the law to own it, because you could potentially break the law with it. You don’t really NEED a car that can travel at 120mph anyway.”

Ok, so I guess you figured on an analogy here. --> You can no longer purchase any vehicle capable of reaching speeds beyond 75 miles per hour (in the United States of America). The reason being, any vehicle not specifically designed to adhere to the laws of the interstate systems, due to excessive speed potential, has been labeled a “Race Car”. Anyone who already owns such a vehicle will be “grandfathered”, but no more “Race Cars” can legally be purchased by the general public. However, faithful citizen, not to fear! You can spend an extra $2000.00, and wait patiently by the mailbox for the government to decide whether or not you are deserving of such an outlandish purchase. They will first run a check on your driving record, and make sure you are squeaky clean. Next, they will check with the FBI to be sure you haven’t done anything in the past that may label you as mentally incompetent, relative to your handling of such a dangerous piece of machinery. IF you pass their tests, and IF you wait like you were told, you MAY be allowed to PURCHASE a PERMIT for something that you used to have a RIGHT to.

In all honesty, I would bet more people who own Corvettes, or Vipers, or Hellcats have actually broken a law… or many, as compared to those who purchase “Assault Rifles”. In other words, “Assault Rifle” owners usually don’t assault with their rifles; whereas “Race Car” drivers, if the media demonized “Sports Cars”, actually DO race their cars… fairly often. Don’t get me wrong. I am not implying that all people who have one of these vehicles are belligerent criminals. I am, however, stating outright that the public shouldn’t view AR-15 owners as belligerent criminals.

Theory: We have become a society of labels. We have generational labels like Baby Boomers, Generation “X”, Millennials and Generation “Z”. We have political labels such as Liberals, Conservatives, Leftists, Marxists, Socialists, Libertarians, Moderates, and the list goes on. We label our society relative to their sexuality, and whether one agrees or disagrees with those distinctions, such as gay, transgender, homophobic and so-on.

Most all facets of our lives involve labels, whether we give that much thought or not. Ask yourself what these labels do for the society that employees them… I can tell you that in most instances, they draw lines of division between those that are identified by them. For instance, when voting on issues important to you, you will likely identify with a specific economic class. If you are a “middle class” working person, you may vote against legislation that you believe will further empower the non deserving “one percent”. Being labeled, by yourself or the media, as a specific class of individual, has caused divisiveness between the many classes or labels.

It is my belief that the anti-gun, or gun control, media has capitalized on a nomenclature, in an attempt to contrive a negative label on Eugene Stoner’s creations, to divide people and criminalize an inanimate object. What good is it doing the general public, especially those who abide by the laws set forth, to demonize a tool? And a tool is EXACTLY what a gun is. It is a tool to accomplish a job. If you use a hammer to start a fire or wipe your backside, you're probably going to be committed. If you use a car to fly, you're probably going to die. If you use a gun for criminal activity, either of the aforementioned treatment options may apply.

In the analogy above, I talked about “Race Cars”. It is fairly common knowledge that “race technology”, from sports such as NASCAR and Formula One, leaked in to commercially available cars. This technology was designed for racing, but is being benefited from by most of us today. In the same way, the AR-15 was designed to do a specific job. That technology has been tweaked, and the shooting sports nowadays are benefiting from that progress. Hunters and Three Gun Competition Shooters, as well as farmers and ranchers, have realized the true UTILITY of the Stoner design.

In hunting, now more than ever, the benefits of this breed of firearm are really coming to fruition. With the huge insurgence of feral swine in the south, and coyote populations in the east, it is increasingly important for hunters to be effective. Each of these animals is effectively and ethically taken with firearms falling under the “AR” label. I found it quite absurd when I heard a recent sitting President of the United States claim that these rifles (paraphrasing here –>) “ –have one purpose. They aren’t used for hunting.” I thought, “What a huge disconnect we have, between some groups of Americans”. I even got a call from DC, because I wrote him a message explaining his error.

The “15” variants are available for everything from paper at 50 yards to deer at 500 yards. The “10” variants add more UTILITY to the line by bolstering the platform to handle game like moose and grizzly bear. There are a great many people using the platform for each of these purposes and more, Mr. Ex POTUS!

I’ve done farm and ranch work. I bought my first “AR-15”, a M4ish variant, when I was plowing fields in Northwest Oklahoma. The farmer I worked for had tons of land, and the farming I was doing would support his cattle over the winter and/or be baled for feed later. The point is, I took care of the cattle, and that was on my mind while I was getting ready to plant wheat for them to eat in coming months. I saw huge numbers of coyotes while farming. I decided that I needed to thin them out, as much as reasonably possible, to decrease the predation on the livestock. It was time to go to the gun shop.

My experience as an infantryman, in the Army, had taught me the value of having a rifle capable of the following:
1.) Must be fairly small, in this case to ride inside a tractor cab
2.) Must be capable of 300 yard shots, in this case it must ethically kill coyotes.
3.) Must be tough, in this case because it would be bouncing around in pickups and on tractors day-in and day-out.
4.) Must have super-sturdy sights, to not get messed up through all of the torture it would endure.
5.) Must have “open sights” capable of precision at longer ranges, because a scope would get filthy within minutes in a dusty field.
6.) Must have a fairly high capacity magazine, because sometimes coyotes get lonely and run with buddies.
7.) Lastly, Must be a semi-auto, because coyotes don’t stand there waiting while you chamber another round.
8.) Ok, just one more... Must be a firearm I am comfortable with.

To me, the list of firearms that would fill each of my needs was small. Sure, you can get a Mini-14 (based off of a military action, but not labeled an “AR”), and buy a collapsible stock… but that thing is weighty compared to the Stoner design. Sure, I could get a bolt gun, but they are usually longer and/or bulkier than the “AR”, and I wouldn’t have the follow-up shot ability. Basically, the UTILITY that Stoner design has is nearly unmatched… at least in the firearms I could afford.

Kids and Women can easily handle the Stoner designed rifles. Petite young ladies shoot these things for their first time every day, in the armed forces, and my children can handle them just fine as well. My son first fired mine, the one that I bought years ago when my vocation was “Tractor Pilot”, when he was seven years old. He hit his target, a tree stump some 50 yards away, every shot. I let him fire 3 or 4 rounds, though he wanted to keep going. He could even shoulder the firearm well, better than any of the .22s that we have. Also, as a “Youth Rifle” (did you notice the label?), one of these with the adjustable stock can be adjusted as the shooter grows, and his/her length of pull changes.

My wife finds the “peep sights” easy to use. She prefers rifles without optics on them anyway, but she gets along famously with the “AR” style sights. The sights, and the ergonomics, and the functionality, and the very manageable recoil, and the ability to adjust the butt-stock to fit the individuals’ lengths of pull, all amount to a firearm for more uses than most other firearms can claim. It just has more UTILITY.

This is beginning to get long in the tooth, so I will wrap up for this evening. I believe my point has been argued. I don’t expect to change to many minds, or influence great change. I was being facetious with my title. I don’t expect for anyone to start calling “AR”s “UR”s. I do think it is quite sad though, that because of the labels affixed to certain things and people in our lives, other people (sometimes not even in our lives) get so offended and appalled. We let the modern media teach us, and form our opinions for us, instead of inform us of legitimate goings-on. I don’t think that an AR-15 is any more evil than a Race Car. What do you think?

Richard @arsenal-ok