I am a former Navy SEAL turned police officer, and I think that the media is doing our country a huge disservice by claiming that our ARs are "assault" or "assualt-style" weapons.

I've seen a whole lot of death. I know what assault weapons look like, what they sound like, what they do.<br>No, the real guns that our troops use do not look like the guns that many of you have bought recently, which were misidentified by media as being militarily useful. I have never seen them used in an assault; they have never been issued to me by the military. I have never seen a fellow soldier with one on active duty. The rifles that you have purchased are civilian-use guns that are not "assault weapons".<br><br>Assault weapons are made for war. They are made to kill people. They are made to take and hold terrain, not to defend a home or hunt food. When I was overseas with an assault weapon, the intent of my superiors was that I would be taking a position by any means necessary.<br><br>That is not defense. That is not hunting. That is war. I promise you, when I was in country, no one cared what my arithmetic was as I killed insurgents: more than 1 shot in less than 1 minute was fine. We were there to take territory, kill or scare enemies, and come home. If you have an AR-15, you've been fooled by the marketing, the price, and worse - you've been fooled by arithmetic. It is *not* an assault weapon.<br><br>Speaking as a solder and a police officer, I can tell you that nothing scares me more than the weapon you have purchased, with no understanding of what a militarily useful firearm *really* accomplishes.<br>I have never, ever been to a call, seen a gunfight in the street, or received combat training from within 50 feet of someone who has been shot, killed, or injured with a civilian AR-15, without immediately thinking \*Oh shit. That could have been prevented.\*<br><br>There is nothing scarier than seeing a person dead or dying from a wound caused by a civilian AR-15. Nothing gives me a stronger feeling of foreboding than walking through a public space and seeing you with your AR-15 strapped across your back.<br><br>If you are going to war, I cannot stop you. But please do not take the name of the US military, of our fine men in uniform, and the oaths we swore to protect this country. If you have an AR-15, you are not a patriot. If you have an AR-15, you are not a warrior. You are a fool - and you are being lied to.<br>This is not fine.