If you ever peruse the brochures and advertisements that urge you to invest your money in stocks or gold or pork bellies, there is always the caveat that “past performance does not guarantee future performance”. In short, yes, the stock we’re trying to sell you did awesome for the last five years…but thats no promise the next five years will be as good.
Keep that little grain of salt at the tip of your tongue as you read this insightful piece:
If I pause and fire a few synapses, I do believe that in the almost fifty years I have been trodding the Earth I have never had an episode where I needed an AR more than I needed a handgun. And, as the poster points out, in the last hundred years, Joe Sixpack hasn’t really needed one either except for some small localized issues. (Of course, just because there was no big national call-to-arms episode doesn’t devalue the localized issues that made having an AR handy.)
I suppose the argument is that, historically, a pistol has proven to be more useful and necessary than a rifle for defense. (Outside of actually going to war, of course.)
However….in the last fifty years I haven’t needed life insurance either because, well, I haven’t died. But that doesn’t mean that not having it is a good idea. So I’ll continue to acquire those evil rifles as I can, but perhaps I should appreciate the pistols a tad more.
And just to make sure there is no doubt about my thinking…”need” is not a criteria for owning a gun of any kind. Need it or not, I should be able to own as many darn thundertoys as my skinny wallet can afford.
I’m very unlikely to NEED an AR platform semi-auto for offensive or defensive purposes. But one day my kids might. Or my grandkids. And by that time, it may be much more difficult to lawfully acquire one.
My descendents may one day be very thankful that dear old great-granddad had the foresight to squirrel a few rifles and some ammo away.
Um, insightful if you lived in Manhattan, NYFC, maybe.
Not so much if you lived along the Mexican border, or in Mexico, which was in full revolution through 1920.
A rifle or ten might have been a wee bit handy any number of other places, like if you were a Jew in Central Europe, a Frenchman, Belgian, Dutchman, Pole, Dane, White Russian, Frenchman, or British subject. Let alone living in Manchuria or Spain in the 1930s.
Then there’s Greece in the late 1940s, Korea in the 1950s, Israel every day since 1940, then anywhere in Africa, any number of banana republic “emergencies”. And on and on.
If you live at the traffic circle in Hooterville, maybe not so much. But that’s got a lot more to due with 150 years of America that with the intrinsic worth of pistols over rifles.
You need both, and specifically, you need a pistol to fight your way to a shotgun or rifle. Always, and in all times and circumstances.
Anything else is sophistry masquerading as reasonableness.
Well stated.
Do you think it even occurred to the author that the reason no one has needed to use those rifles is based in the fact that we simply posses them? Arguments like his always assume that circumstances would have remained the same for the past 100 yrs. regardless of the ingredients that went into creating the existing reality.
Remember though that your choice of firearms and accessories back then were very limited, nothing compared to what we have today. Magnum revolvers were just a gleam in Elmer Keith’s eye. Scopes were much more basic and had issues that were taken care of later on. Also recall that wages were far less than what we make now – less disposable income.
I do agree that a handgun is essential – it is the gun you ALWAYS have on your person vs. the long arm which is set aside as your hands are otherwise occupied. I’d want two designs – one a hide out. That lever gun (Win. 30-30) is a good woods rifle that can be a good patrol rifle as well – many police agencies had them as the ‘rifle in the car’.
What I would enjoy – far more open spaces with less population. Some public lands would be paradise. Smaller cities with Mom – Pop stores. That would be nice for a change.
The film “Beyond the Gates” (a.k.a. Shooting Dogs) is set in Rwanda in 1994 dealing with the genocide that happened there from the perspective of UN Peacekeepers. For me, it was the single film I would have someone watch if they wanted to know why I support 2nd Amendment rights. The people there who got hacked up with machetes would have done well to have handguns, but would have been even better off with some evil black rifles. It’s not a small, localized issue if it is happening to you.