Watching the video last night of the insurrection in progress at the Capitol building, January 6, 2021, the thought occurred to me: What if they had had AR-15s?
If just ten of the Capitol Police had had AR-15s, and had used them, the insurrection would certainly have been effectively over before the insurrectionists stormed the Capitol building. Once the crowd saw actual dead people in front of them, they would have fled as fast as they could have. Of course, there would have been dead rioters, likely dozens of them before that point had been reached.
If just ten of the insurrectionists had had AR-15s, the Capitol Police guarding the Capitol would likely have been killed on the Capitol steps. After the rioters entered the Capitol building, it is also likely that any Democratic House members or Senators would have been killed on the spot. I can’t imagine the rioters would have carried AR-15s into the Capitol without intent to use them. Again, the result would have been several dozen killed.
If both the Capitol Police and the insurrectionists had had AR-15s, we would have had a live firefight on the steps of the Capitol building, directly adjacent to a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of unarmed rioters. I can’t imagine that that scenario would not have resulted in several dozen deaths at the very least.
The upshot is that, as bad as things were on January 6, 2021 at the Capitol building, they would have been so much worse had either, or both, sides been carrying AR-15s. If there is another insurrection, for example around the 2024 election, I can’t imagine one or both sides not carrying at that point.
And I can’t help but think that the reason Republicans and their voters react so viscerally to any restrictions on ownership of guns is because deep down they really want to use them this way. Forget “freedom’ or “rights”; people buy AR-15s because deep down they want to kill someone else.
The sale of AR-15s is now front and center as a national security issue. We need to ban the sale of those weapons, now. The security of this country is literally at stake.