The attempted assassination of Donald Trump was reportedly carried out with an AR-15 variant. When the type of rifle became known, the usual suspects immediately began screaming for banning “assault weapons,” a class of firearm that does not exist, but serves as a catch-all term for any scary gun Democrats/socialists/communists (D/s/cs) want to ban at the moment. Kamala Harris has long wanted to ban “assault weapons” with a mandatory “buy back”—confiscation with government deciding how much compensation—if any—you’ll get. And of course, anyone refusing will find themselves in federal prison or dead. Now, however, the new, election converted, version of Kamala still wants to ban your AR-15, she just doesn’t want to confiscate them anymore. Until she gets elected, that is.

Part of the anti-liberty/gun cracktivist playbook is claiming the ubiquity of guns justifies their banning. Fewer guns, no “gun violence” (go here to discover why that’s false), a particularly dimwitted misnomer. It’s unsurprising some criminals, particularly those involved in noteworthy crimes, use the AR-15. It’s ubiquitous, America’s most popular rifle. Light weight, adaptable, highly accurate and our military issue rifle since the Vietnam era. 

Even so, Americans are learning our politicians and bureaucrats know nothing about the nature, history or employment of the firearms they legislate. In-the-know Americans have long suspected most law enforcement officers, particularly high-ranking sorts, are also largely clueless, as is the media, who virtually always get everything about guns wrong, and rarely issue corrections.

This week, that suspicion was confirmed when FBI Director Christopher Wray, testifying before Congress on the Bureau’s investigation into the attempted assassination, first claimed Trump was not hit by a bullet, but something else. Maybe a piece of glass, or shrapnel, something, anything but a bullet. His own agency had to walk that back the very next day, admitting it was a bullet. But Wray loosed another dimwitted whopper: the assassin’s AR-15 had a collapsible stock, so he probably just collapsed the stock and hid the rifle in a backpack!

This bit of nonsense was transmitted by the media, including The New York Post, which source, unlike many, was honestly trying to inform rather than deceive.

Graphic: A common AR-15 variant (accessories optional). Author.

Contemporary AR-15 variants are semiautomatic rifles, usually with the legal minimum 16” barrel, and a collapsing stock. In those outward factors, they resemble the military M4, which fires the same .223/5.56 NATO cartridge, a cartridge of intermediate power, not a “high powered” rifle cartridge. The M4 principally differs in that it is a select fire weapon: it may be fired semiautomatically or fully automatically, unlike the semiauto-only look-alike rifles available to civilians.

The collapsing stocks shared by both collapse all of about 3.25 inches, which is not nearly enough to allow one to be concealed in any but the largest backpacks. The kinds of backpacks one might consider standard, carried by college students and many others, are about 21” tall. The primary purpose of collapsing stocks is to adjust “length of pull.”

Length of pull is essentially the distance from the back of the stock to the trigger. Properly adjusted for the shooter, the weapon is more comfortable and it’s easier to be accurate. Because the M4 is a general issue weapon, it makes far more sense to have an adjustable stock than to have to maintain stores of weapons with many different stock lengths. A soldier wearing heavy body armor or carrying a pack with thick shoulder straps will usually want to slightly shorten their stock to maintain a proper length of pull.

Graphic: Author

This graphic illustrates the issue, and also illustrates why Wray and many others who should know better don’t. With stock fully extended, this AR—essentially identical in dimensions to most on the market—is 35.5” long. Collapsing the stock reduces its length to 32.25 inches, still far too long to conceal in a common backpack.

What Wray obviously doesn’t know is AR rifles can be separated into upper and lower receivers by pushing two through-pins which are retained in the lower receiver so they can’t be easily lost—important in a general issue military weapon—thus allowing easy cleaning and maintenance. Thus disassembled the upper receiver is only 24.75 inches long, the lower, much shorter. Both pieces can be easily hidden in a slightly larger than usual backpack and quickly reassembled. The assassin apparently had sufficient time.

A collapsible stock does make an AR-15 slightly—by 3.25”--easier to store, and just a little easier to maneuver in the close confines of military vehicles, but as he does so often, Wray had no idea what he was talking about, and the media was blissfully—but in this case not maliciously--ignorant.

Facts potentially useful in this investigation you’re not going to get from the FBI or the media.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.