guns

I'm looking into getting an AR-15, this would be my first firearm. I'm wondering if I should be worrying about what brand of ammo I choose to purchase, will it affect how quickly the barrel becomes dirty etc?

Context for those living in less restrictive areas:

AB 1127 is a California Bill that aims to ban the sale of "semiautomatic machinegun-convertible pistols" (ie pistols that can utilize a Glock switch or similar). The bill doesn't mention Glock by name, but it's intent seems to be geared towards removing the Gen 3 Glocks from the market.

Ironically, one of the main reasons the Gen 3 is still so prevalent despite the Gen 4 and 5 having been out for a while, is that California has not added (and likely will not add) them to its "handgun roster" (a whitelist of handguns you are allowed to own in the state - I know). The Gen 4 and 5 are not as easily modded to be full-auto (though it's still possible), so if those had been added to the roster, chances are high that there'd be far less full-auto Gen 3s floating around...

A unanimous Supreme Court dismissed Mexico's claim that U.S. gun manufacturers aided and abetted the pipeline of weapons from the U.S. to Mexican drug cartels.

"Mexico's complaint does not plausibly allege that the defendant gun manufacturers aided and abetted gun dealers' unlawful sales of firearms to Mexican traffickers," Justice Elena Kagan, one of the court's three liberals, wrote for the court.

At issue was Mexico's claim that Smith & Wesson and other gunmakers were turning a blind eye to hundreds of thousands of high-powered weapons made in the U.S that are illegally trafficked into in the hands of Mexican cartels.

Mexico argued that it is a country where guns are supposed to be difficult to get. There is just one store in the whole country where guns can be bought legally, yet the nation is awash in illegal guns sold most often to the cartels. Mexico maintains that gushing pipeline of what it calls "crime guns" comes from the United States where manufacturers know which dealers are the bad actors.

"You can't hide behind the middleman and pretend like you don't know what's happening," Jonathan Lowy, co-counsel for Mexico and president of Global Action on Gun Violence, told NPR earlier this year.

But the gun industry found that argument flawed.

Lawrence Keane, counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms industry, told NPR earlier this year that every sale to a consumer by a licensed retailer is approved by the federal government, and every transaction requires a federally mandated background check.

Mexico is arguing that a "lawful distribution system that's approved under federal law … is aiding and abetting cartels," Keane said. "If that was all that was required, Budweiser would be responsible for drunk driving accidents all across the United States, and apparently including Mexico."

Ultimately, a unanimous Supreme Court agreed.

I like collecting guns for their novelties, rather than the complete set. I don't need four plastic fantastics from different manufacturers. This one is fun because it has an integrated suppressor, resulting in a yuge muzzle. Takes bog-standard Glock 17 magazines and has a dogshit trigger, but ai like it anyway.

FWIW, I disagree somewhat from the article. It downplays the value of a good trigger for non-long range rifles, but for me a good trigger is going to be a fast way to get groups tighter. For a mere $120ish, it's a worthwhile upgrade.

I actually don't mind clamshells. They feel great in the hand, and I simply mount a light on the FSB. A quality, true freefloat MLOK is a good upgrade, but I don't see the point in getting something in between like a drop in quadrail for a personal rifle.

For optics, I'm never fully jumped on the LPVO hype train, and now I see some people swinging back away from them. My issue with LPVO was always that people who shoot with them a lot tend to stick a red dot on top of them because the LPVO isn't actually ideal on 1x. At that point a fixed power with a red dot on top does the exact same thing but usually in a lighter and smaller package. I really like my TA31 with a red dot on it. I do like some LPVOs having variable focus and bigger view windows than something like a TA31, so there is merit for them there. For a close range focused build, the Eotech is unbeatably crisp, but on the other hand I used a cheap Bushnell TRS-25 for about a decade before it started degrading, and in that time I never felt I was missing shots because of the optic.

An ambidextrous safety and a ambi-charging handle are simple swaps that make a rifle more left handed friendly.

Upgraded BCGs are good, but only really matter for shooting enough that the rifle needs the extra reliability through the dirty build up. Something I'd put at the bottom of the list to upgrade.