Hey yall the current insanity has finally pushed me into a place where I want to purchase a rife for self defense. Do any of you have access to a good guide on purchasing as well as any advice on finding a good firearms safety course/instruction?
EDIT: Wow! Thanks for the responses yall! A handgun wouldnt be ideal for a lot of reasons, and I wouldnt plan on carrying it around on my person anyway; I have pepper spray for that. I also dont plan on using it like in a home intruder situation, I mostly just want to be prepared if things really start to go sideways. I dont want to be the queer who is lead away to the camps without a fight, plus I have greatly enjoyed target shoting the few times I have done it. Mostly I am just looking for advice on what type of rife I should get and what is an affordable way to get it, I dont want to be taken advantage of.
I don’t know of a guide but here’s my 2 cents. An AR-15 is cheap, easy to use, fix, find ammo for, find parts for. In the USA, an AK is a step down in those regards, but still relatively popular so it’s not completely unreasonable to own or anything.
The AR-15 uses 5.56 aka .223 caliber ammunition so it kicks very lightly. But it’s still ridiculously deadly because it goes fast as hell.
A lot of firearms courses will be run by freakish chuds, not sure what to do about that. Even those people tend to kind of mind their own business around gun ranges and don’t typically start shit because well, everyone’s strapped.
If home defense is one of the scenarios, keep in mind that your rifle is a laser beam that goes through walls like they aren’t there. Including your neighbor’s exterior walls to almost the same degree.
But also, the vast majority of rifles that can fire them, can fire both. I have never actually seen a rifle that can fire .223 and not .556, though I suppose they must exist.
Not a direct answer, but here’s a homegrown starting point: https://hexbear.net/post/3356
This also is fairly useful: https://www.reddit.com/r/SocialistRA/comments/gzyya5/stop_recommending_larp_guns_to_newcomers/
Also, what SerLava said. If you can drop a decent sum, a Ruger MPR is a great midrange (in price/quality) AR-15 model. If you want to deal-hunt and understand the firearm better, you can dig around for the right info and put your own together. You may also want to consider a handgun, since you could conceal it (either legally, or illegally if you needed to in an emergency), and it would be more accessible if you need to defend yourself quickly.
This is where you need to think about what sort of situation you’d defend yourself in. Is your concern that some individual is going to attack you at home, or do you want to be able to defend yourself if there is some sort of a militant uprising in your area? Do you feel like you need the day-to-day availability of concealed carry?
Look into your closest SRA chapter if there is one, they will be able to point you to classes/range/instrucitons, many of which may be SRA-run.
Just be aware that the SRA is a complete shitshow at the national level, and local chapters can be hit or miss. I tried to be very active in my local chapter, helping instruct and train, but there are serious problems with the org on local and national levels that caused me to quit the org.
I’m not saying don’t, I’m just saying be aware of its faults.
Much of the org is just people posting and arguing. There is a small sliver of people trying to train and instruction, but they are vastly outnumbered by the terminally online that may not even own a firearm
National ran out of money and didn’t pay taxes, and the new budget eliminates pretty much all the paid staff because the union refused to reach an agreement that wasn’t “just charge more for dues”
My unfounded opinion was that during FY 2019-2021 the national org was treated as a piggy bank for members of a clique to get themselves hired on to the national org and draw a steady paycheck, with little to no oversight on how much work was actually done.
My local chapter had issues with extremely divisive sectarian fights and a toxic culture that caused long time organizers to quit the org. I ran for an elected position, won (no other candidates ran) and immediately was called very hurtful things publicly during the first member meeting in my capacity as that elected position. After helping train with daily virtual dry fire sessions on and off for a couple years that I would host on my own time for the benefit of the org, because I believed in the mission, it just broke me to be called awful things because of a disagreement.
I resigned and left the org.
