If stupidity hurt, Stevens would require a morphine drip.
As far as why the AR-15 is so popular... everyone who ones one has their reasons that they like it, so I'll give you mine:
+ Accuracy. The hole in the paper is typically *exactly* where I wanted to put it, and if it isn't, it was my fault.
+ Recoil. The
.223 Rem / 5.56x45mm NATO cartridge in an AR-15 has very little recoil. Women and some children can fire this weapon standing up. (Though our idiot VP says "Get a shotgun", I've seen too many women who were unable to handle a 12 gauge... but the AR-15? No problem.)
+ Rail system. The AR platform is very customizable with scopes, lights... some day, I'll trick mine out, but in the mean time I can still shoot a tick off a dog's ass at 100 yards with it with the iron sights.
;)
+ The
.223 Rem / 5.56x45mm NATO round. Simply put, against a human target, this round is devastating. For self/home defense, the 30 round magazine allows for you to miss a few times and still put a hurting on the bad guy, and the round itself tumbles and fragments causing intense damage to internal organs despite being a comparably small projectile to even the often maligned 9mm round. This round will also take down smaller animals -- deer, wild hogs -- while some states will not let you hunt with the
.223 cartridge, the
.223 round WILL drop a deer.
(Not as reliably as that
.30-06 rifle I'm hoping to get for my birthday, but it's still effective.)
Consider this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
And compare to my choice of handgun caliber, the mighty
.45 ACP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
See the difference? It's breathtaking.
Of course, for pure devastation you need a
.50 caliber rifle round:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
So why do the gun grabbers hate it?
1. It's black, and most liberals are secretly racist
2. It's "scary" looking
In summation: accurate, low recoil, customizable, effective cartridge against both human and deer. AR-15's are AWESOME.