Spent six years in the Army and am a current gun owner. The notion that an AR-15 is pretty much the same as a typical hunting rifle is laughable. I'm not sure why people who are pro 2nd Amendment feel like they have to make that comparison, but it's a silly one and ignores some pretty basic realities of the AR-15 and of hunting rifles in general. (Semi-auto vs bolt action, capacity, purpose of .223/5.56 ammunition and its effect on living targets, and the fact that the AR-15 was specifically commissioned and designed for combat.)

One thing that I ask when people make this claim is, if the two are essentially the same, why don't more mass shootings involve hunting rifles? We know why, so let's stop making this stupid-ass comparison.