I was shaking as I shouldered the rifle and peered through the scope at the small steel target 100 yards downrange. It was officially the coldest day in Las Vegas history, and I was in the middle of the desert, buffeted by wind and surrounded by the professional gun press, about to fire an AR-15 for the first time.
I grew up with guns, and I even own a small .22-caliber target pistol that I take to the range occasionally. But I had fired a rifle maybe twice in the past five years. I was a novice, and I was frozen to the core. I flinched as I pulled the trigger the first time, sending my shot wide of the mark. But the recoil wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared; in fact, the shot was actually pleasant. I fired again with more confidence, and the bullet rang the distant steel plate like a bell; then the next shot hit, and the next.
'You're doing great,' said Justin Harvel, founder of Black Rain Ordnance and maker of the gun I was shooting.
'It's not me,' I replied. 'I've never shot like this in my life. It's gotta be this gun.'
'Yeah, it's definitely not your daddy's hunting rifle, is it?'
In the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the AR-15 has gone from the most popular rifle in America to the most scrutinized and, in some quarters, vilified. Also known by its military designation, the M16, the rifle was racking up record sales in the years before Sandy Hook, but now, in the midst of a renewed effort to ban this weapon and others like it from civilian hands, the AR-15 market has gone nuclear, with some gun outlets rumored to have done three years' worth of sales in the three weeks after Newtown.
Now that the post-Newtown nation has suddenly woken up to the breakout popularity of the AR-15, a host of questions are being asked, especially about who is buying these rifles, and why. Why would normal, law-abiding Americans want to own a deadly weapon that was clearly designed for military use? Why are existing AR-15 owners buying as many of these rifles as they can get their hands on? Are these people Doomsday preppers? Militia types, arming for a second American Civil War? Or are they young military fantasists whose minds have been warped by way too much Call of Duty?
Preppers, militia types, and SEAL Team 6 wannabes are certainly represented in the AR-15's customer base. But fringe groups don't adequately explain the roughly 5 million 'black rifles' (as fans of the gun tend to call it) that are now in the hands of the public. No, the real secret to the AR-15's incredible success is that this rifle is the 'personal computer' of the gun world.
In the past two decades, the AR-15 has evolved into an open, modular gun platform that's infinitely hackable and accessorizable. With only a few simple tools and no gunsmithing expertise, an AR-15 can be heavily modified, or even assembled from scratch, from widely available parts to suit the fancy and fantasy of each individual user. In this respect, the AR-15 is the world's first 'maker' gun, and this is why its appeal extends well beyond the military enthusiasts that many anti-gun types presume make up its core demographic.
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