Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

I live in Los Angeles and I used to feel that way until this pandemic hit - I'm not saying you'll change your mind living in NYC, just sharing my change in perspective. I bugged out mid-March to a family farm to wait out the pandemic and since then its been a nonstop string of events reinforcing why - at least outside of cities - guns are absolutely necessary. Now, mind you, one member of the household works at a research institute in San Diego with a 40 minute commute so this isn't even really rural, just exurban, but we've got septic, well, propane tank, and depend on 4G internet.

The nearest police station is 15 minutes away if I drive 100mph but writing this post is the first time I've thought about that fact. The bigger problem is animals: we've never once been able to reach our area's animal control or get a call back from them, no matter when we call. Most situations we can handle ourselves like dealing with rattlesnakes but last year a mountain lion ate our neighbor's goat and the only way to get rid of it was to shoot at it (or over it, as I found most people here won't kill rare animals unless absolutely forced to).

We've got several pets and feral cat decided to make herself home in our shed, giving birth to a full litter right before a large group of giant raccoons migrated to our area. If the raccoons in NYC are anything like the ones here, they're huge with the mammalian equivalent of alligator hide. Scaring them doesn't really work without a gun and nothing but a proper firearm will do more than piss it off and wound it, which will just make it more dangerous. The options are a) put your pets at risk every time you let them out at night, b) weapons that will only cause inhumane damage to the animal, or c) a real gun. If you're the kind of individual that values life as an inherent good but prioritizes the safety of family and pets, guns become the only realistic humane option.

Now, the ironic part is that most people I know here should absolutely not be allowed to own a gun if they lived in the city. Some of them have really warped views of human civilization that led them to live further out (rapists and murderers around every corner) and seem to relish the idea of "defending themselves" with a gun. However, the very idea of them getting enough warning to get to their gun fast enough to actually manage to load it and shoot an assailant is just laughable. Most people here use their guns so infrequently outside of LARPing at a shooting range that when it comes time to use the workhorse gun instead of their assault rifle props, they spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how to use it while the animal just stands there, confused.

As far as I know, most countries with strict gun control still leave a loophole for rural residents big enough to drive a train through. However, most of those countries have sane gun cultures where they treat them as dangerous tools and not as religious idols. Now having experienced the damage guns do in inner cities and their necessity further out from civilization, I'm torn on the issue and I don't see a way out.

For a similarly opposite perspective as someone who's currently in a rural area:

I can go out back, set up target(s) and plink away basically anytime I want. Might even do it this evening if the ammo I ordered finally gets delivered today. There's a safe direction to aim in and the distant neighbors don't mind, they do the same!

For longer range, there's various outdoor ranges around, both formal and informal (you may shoot on nearly all large tracts of public land and private land that isn't posted against it, provided you're an appropriate distance from structures and all that).

The occasional sound of gunfire here doesn't alarm anyone. One or two is someone killing a pest or hunting, lots is some target shooting.

If I put my trash outside without it being in something fully bear-proof, it will have a bear into it within a few days. Cook something nice, leave a door/window open to just the screen, and you might have a bear, moose, or something else in your kitchen one day. Police response time is 30 minutes on a good day.

AR15 is a lighter, lower powered gun than your typical hunting rifle; the energy of a .223 bullet is a lot lower than a .30. The capacity is almost irrelevant, changing multiple mags is no problem for anyone with decent training. I am the kind of guy that loads only 5 rounds in each 10 round mag (sport shooting), so changing mags is as natural as firing the next round. People telling that "high-capacity overpowered mass destruction weapons" should be forbidden, on the other side...

A muzzle brake might do wonders for you. I can't speak for 300WSM, but in 308, a muzzle brake takes it from "I'll shoot 10 rounds and regret it the next day", to "I'll shoot 50 rounds and stop from soreness, but have no shoulder bruising the next day."

People who don't own guns tend to think of AR-15s as something exotic or particularly dangerous. Those of us who own guns tend to just think of them as the default rifle, for various reasons.

You're saying "why wouldn't some other firearm suffice", while we just buy ARs unless that default is somehow unsuitable.