Not to Defend Joe Biden, but an “AR-14” is a Real Thing

Joe Biden doesn’t need me to defend him. The heir-apparent to the 2020 Democratic Presidential candidacy has millions of supporters across the world and millions of dollars in his campaign coffers. I’m just a nobody with a popular military-themed blog.

And it’s good that Joe doesn’t need me because he says and does a LOT of really stupid things. Self-inflicted wounds. Own-goals.  Real head-scratchers. Take your pick. If I was a Joe Biden supporter, I think I’d be hard-pressed to defend him from all of the things he gets himself into. At the same time though, lots of politicians that I do support say things that are… unfortunate… as well, so that’s not something that’s unique to the Biden candidacy.

Mr. Biden shot himself in the foot most recently during a loud argument with a Detroit autoworker over gun rights, where Biden can be heard explaining that no one was going to take the man’s “AR-14.”  Clearly, Mr. Biden meant “AR-15,” the kind that the guy he wants as his gun-control czar enthusiastically says that he’s going to take away from law-abiding Americans. But he said what he said, and the Internet roasted Biden on the gaffe… and Biden’s profanity-laced tirade.

I got to wondering, though, if there might actually be an AR-14. For example, I know there is an AR-10, and an AR-15, so it would seem logical that there was an AR-14… and maybe a -13, -12, and -11, too for that matter. A short Google search later and it appears that there is, in fact, an AR-14. By the way, this isn’t it, it’s just a funny meme I’m using to draw attention to this article and to make fun of people who react to the photo and headline without bothering to read the article:

On a side note, I think I’d totally buy something like the imaginary “gun” shown above. That doesn’t mean it’s an AR-14, though.

For those of who actually read an article before making embarrassing comments about it, this, apparently, is Armalite’s AR-14:

…and here’s a post about it on Quora:

So yeah, Joe Biden got some things wrong in that exchange in Detroit. He gets a LOT of things wrong, especially about guns. I’m especially thinking about his laughable admonition a few years back to “buy a double-barrel shotgun” instead of an AR because a shotgun is easier to handle, and to fire warning shots if you feel threatened. (umm… wut?) In the case of the AR-14, though, he wasn’t completely wrong, even though he probably didn’t know it.

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Scott Faith is a veteran of a half-dozen combat deployments and has served in several different Special Operations units over the course of his Army career. Scott’s writing focuses largely on veterans’ issues, but he is also a big proponent of Constitutional rights and has a deep interest in politics. He often allows other veterans who request anonymity to publish their work under his byline. Scott welcomes story ideas and feedback on his articles and can be reached at havokjournal@havokmedia.com.