Opinion: The AR-15 next door

My AR-15 (Photo by David Chung) An AR-15 stripped lower (Photo by David Chung)

I don’t want to alarm you, but I want you to know that I am your neighbor and I own an AR-15. Of course, I probably don’t actually live next door to you, but the chances are good that at least one of your neighbors, up the block or across the street or maybe the one who shares your back fence owns an AR-15.

Most experts estimate there are over 24 million privately owned AR-15s in the United States, indicating that roughly one in every twenty households possesses an AR-15. When excluding states with stricter gun laws, such as California, New York, and Illinois, where owning an AR-15 is more challenging, states with less restrictive gun legislation, such as Iowa, are likely to have a higher concentration of these firearms.

As your neighbor, I would like to challenge some stereotypes about AR-15 owners in particular and gun owners in general.

First, I am not a white supremacist! I do not have a swastika armband in my closet. I am not a KKK member. I have been to Charlottesville, Virginia but I was just passing through. I did not attend the Unite the Right Rally and I do not own a tiki torch. In fact, I am not even white!

Second, I am not ‘tacticool’! You know what I am talking about, guys (it’s mostly guys) who never served in the military but dress up as if they were Navy SEALs. They have long beards and tattoos. They wear their ball caps backward with dark wraparound sunglasses and their T-shirts either have a subdued American flag or some patriotic, militaristic slogan. They want to be both ‘tactical’ and ‘cool’! I don’t even wear T-shirts and my sunglasses are gold mirrored Oakleys because I am a bicyclist.

Third, I am not a red neck or a good ol’ boy! I don’t have a confederate flag bumper sticker on my pickup truck, I don’t even have a pickup truck. I don’t own a single piece of camouflage clothing and I don’t own a dawg.

Finally, I am not a computer gamer who lives in his parents’ basement. I am not trying to replicate the weapons my character uses in Call of Duty. The last computer game I played regularly was Doom in the 1990s.

So, who am I? I am a pretty ordinary guy, the kind of guy who lives next door. My wife and I just celebrated our 40th anniversary. We have eight adult children (OK, maybe that part is not ordinary) and were Jefferson High School show choir parents for 21 consecutive years! I was born in Iowa and graduated from UNI. For the last 33 years, I have worked as a computer programmer or software engineer.

I did not grow up around guns. I had toy guns as a kid, but I don’t recall even owning a BB gun. Even though I had never owned a gun, I have always been a big proponent of the Second Amendment. When states (like California) and municipalities (like Deerfield, Illinois) started limiting gun magazine capacity or banning certain types of guns altogether, I decided it was time to make my support for the Second Amendment beyond theory. I became a gun owner, sort of!

I say sort of because I only bought part of a gun. I went to a gun store, completed a federal background check and bought some 30-round (normal capacity) magazines and an AR-15 stripped lower. A stripped lower is a solid piece of aluminum used in the construction of an AR-15. To turn a stripped lower into a functioning rifle, you must attach a barrel, add sights, fit a buttstock and grip, insert a trigger and install several internal parts. The lower is the part of the AR-15 that contains the serial number and therefore requires a federal background check.

In the eyes of the government, I was a gun owner, but I didn’t really own a gun. A couple of years ago, I decided it was time to build my AR-15. I ordered the necessary parts, and a friend helped me assemble my rifle.

So why did I choose an AR-15? At first it was a form of protest against proposed (and actual) bans. I was not even a fan of AR-15s, I always thought that my first rifle would be a variant of the M1 like Springfield Armory’s M1A SOCOM. As an AR-15 ‘sort of’ owner I started researching the AR-15.

The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the United States and there are several reasons. One reason is that the AR-15 is the semi-automatic version of the M16. The M16 was adopted as the standard rifle by the U.S. military in 1967. So, for anyone who served in the last 50 years, the AR-15 is familiar and works much the same way as the rifles they used on duty.

The AR-15 is flexible, AR-15 owners like to talk about the ‘AR platform’. The standard AR-15 is chambered in .223/5.56mm. Many Iowans build AR platform rifles for the .350 Legend or .450 Bushmaster cartridges to use for deer hunting. Other states allow hunting with AR platform rifles chambered for more powerful cartridges, like the .308.

It is easy to build a purpose-driven AR platform rifle. There are many different calibers available for deer hunting, coyote hunting, long distance target shooting and self-defense. There are several popular forms of shooting competition that use AR platform rifles. The AR platform can even be used to build pistols!

In my case, I liked the fact that I could build an AR-15 instead of buying it off the shelf. I am definitely not a gunsmith, but building it helped me to better understand how the rifle works. I got to choose the features that I wanted, and I know I that I can make changes or upgrade my AR-15 myself.

I enjoy spending time at the shooting range with my AR-15. But, as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker in Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility.” As a responsible AR-15 owner, I keep my rifle locked up in a safe. We have had a recent wave of car break-ins in my neighborhood, and I may install a doorbell camera. But, if I see someone breaking into my car, I am not going to grab my rifle and try to stop them, I am going to call 911. I am not going to shoot someone for making a wrong turn into my driveway or letting their basketball roll into my yard. I am not Kyle Rittenhouse, I will do everything I can to avoid a putting myself in a situation where I might be forced to use my AR-15 to shoot someone. But, if you break into my house in the middle of the night …

I am your neighbor and I own an AR-15.

David Chung is a Gazette editorial fellow. David.Chung@thegazette.com

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