AR 15 WAS NEVER meant for Civilian use says AR 15 Inventor.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/05/24/breaking-jim-sullivan-ar-15-designer-makes-some-controversial-claims-on-hbo-tonight/

Jim claims that the 5.56mm was, at the time of its introduction, the most lethal cartridge fielded by any army in history.

JIM SULLIVAN: “The hits on the enemy, were just fatal– almost anywhere. One guy had been hit in the ankle, and it killed him.”

DAVID SCOTT: “Why?”

JIM SULLIVAN: “They couldn’t stop the bleeding. I mean, there was just so much damage.”
DAVID SCOTT: “No matter where you hit the enemy, you’d take him off the battlefield.”

JIM SULLIVAN: “That’s right. It was more lethal than any cartridge that was fired by any army in, in history.”

This is controversial because I would argue that the 7.62mm NATO, .50 BMG, 14.5×114mm, 6.5×55mm, 6.5×50mm and 7.62×54mmR to name a few were much more powerful than the 5.56mm/.223 Remington which is essentially a varmint cartridge (I might go as far to say the .45-70 (designed by the US Government almost 100 years earlier was more lethal … although far less convenient .. I know which I would rather be wounded with).

Jim, who also designed the Ruger Mini-14 (a scaled down .223 Remington sporting version of the military M-14), goes on to say he never envisioned the rifle having any civilians applications:

DAVID SCOTT: “Did you ever imagine—“

JIM SULLIVAN: “No. Never even considered that—it had any civilian application.”

DAVID SCOTT: “Concern you at all?”

JIM SULLIVAN: “Of course, everybody gets concerned when there’s one of these school issues where children are killed by an AR-15. I mean, that’s sickening. But that was never the intended purpose. Civilian sales was never the intended purpose.

In 1955, the year before the M16/AR-15 was designed, the Director of Civilian Marksmanship (DCM) begun selling military surplus M1 Garands (military semi-automatic rifles) to the public. Therefor it was obvious by then that there was civilian demand for military rifles. Sporting semi-automatic rifles date back long before then to at least 1906 when John Browning’s Remington Model 8 was introduced to the market. Ten years after the AR-15 was designed Jim went onto design the consumer semi-automatic Mini-14.

Now Jim is an old man. His memory may have faded in the last 60 years and I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Jim goes onto say that a fully automatic M16 is not more lethal than a semi-automatic AR-15

DAVID SCOTT: “The lethality of the AR-15, is that reduced in the civilian semi-automatic mode?”

JIM SULLIVAN: “No.”

DAVID SCOTT: “It’s not?”

JIM SULLIVAN: “Same effectiveness. I mean, in fact,  the gun is functioning exactly the way the military model is in semi-automatic.”

This could be interpreted to mean that full auto is just as safe as semi-auto, so why are we not allowed full auto? I ask myself that almost daily!

We as a community have a lot to thank Jim Sullivan for. He is one of the great firearm designers of the 20th century. I will not judge him by a few comments on a cable TV show, anymore than I judged General Kalashnikov for comments he made in his later years. Jim has earned our eternal respect and gratitude.