Hi, my name is AR-15. Some of you know me, but many more of you know of me--through the media. But you may not know the real me.
I'm that cool, sleek-looking black gun you've seen profiled by the press. They put me in newspapers and on TV, showing my picture as if it's a mug shot, even though I've never committed a crime. Oh, bad people have at times used (and abused) me to do bad things, but not really that often; as even The New York Timesadmitted in 2014, firearms such as me--which that paper and others call "assault weapons"--are only used in two percent of gun crimes (most are perpetrated with handguns).