WASHINGTON—Shedding light on the enduring appeal behind assault rifle ownership, a Pew study released Monday revealed that more Americans were buying AR-15s to defend themselves from toddlers who found their guns. “Many Americans stressed that they felt safer knowing they had an AR-15 at the ready in case their toddler stumbled across a shoebox holding a loaded gun on the floor of a closet and started firing away,” said researcher Jonathan Lieu, noting that the majority of AR-15 owners told his team they purchased the lightweight rifle due to their recurring fears about waking in the night to their 2-year-old giggling as they shot bullet holes through the bedroom door. “One response we often heard was that it was a Second Amendment right for gun owners to defend themselves against their own young children. They also stressed that a baseball bat or pepper spray simply wasn’t enough firepower to take down their gun-toting kids.” Lieu added that many Americans also rushed out to purchase tear gas grenades after their children inevitably got their hands on the AR-15s.
No one can tell this is The Onion before the last 5 words, and even then your brain has to think twice.
Best headline I’ve seen from them in a while!
I, 1000%, did a double-take on that headline. And, it took me way too long to figure out what community this was.
They should have cited it as a Pew-Pew study…
The only way to stop a bad toddler with a gun is a good adult with an even bigger gun.
We need a militarized toddler police force to defend us from the bad toddlers
“Kinderguardians”
I smell a summer blockbuster with Duane “The Rock” Johnson.
I couldn’t tell if satire or not. Seriously I am European…
I’m American and I can’t tell either.
better buy an AR-15.
Just to be safe.
Two. You’ve got two hands, don’tcha?
not after guy fawkes last year, no.
It’s obviously satire, we buy AR-15s to protect ourselves from people ringing our doorbells.
Or if we need to go to Starbucks and clear the room of any wokeness before ordering that latte.
Customer: “I’d like a latte with oat milk”
Guy with AR: deactivates safety on rifle
Fwiw, many irl articles started off in the Onion first, before moving over into more mainstream media.
Yup, America is the place where money makes all your fantasies come true! (Sadly, this extends to Putin and his wealth as well, manufacturing nightmares just as readily)
I was recently deciding if I want to put the onion in my RSS feed for daily news consumption
I can see the tagline now:
The only “honest” source of “news”!
(In my head, only one of those two words are in quotes at any one time, but I dunno, maybe they flip back and forth rapidly like a chemical double bond?:-P)
Toddlers with guns is a serious problem.
Jokes aside though, this is like two months ago.
https://abc7.com/gun-safety-pregnant-woman-shot-norwalk-ohio-norkwalk-news/13410862/
I mean I
knewexpected it was the onion but I wouldn’t have been surprised either way. Also from Germany by the wayOnion has always been very good at criticism of US gun control laws. Lot of pieces on that
Silly Americans, just buy a Minigun! No way a toddler can operate a Minigun. I think.
They’re far better-suited to crew-served weaponry.
Crew-Served Weaponry
Gosh darn… What have they done to us to normalize this?
Oh, I’m pretty sure gallows humor is a long-standing generally-accepted response to terrible situations.
They can after completing compulsory machine gun training m
Time to let Old Painless out of the bag!
I have always found it a bit bizarre how some Americans will proudly advertise the fact they have loads of very expensive things in their house.
If I had a gun collection, and I live in a rural area with a lot of hunters so I assume plenty of my (European) neighbours do, I’d keep it quiet.
It’s because unfortunately, you only hear from the big mouths.
A lot of gun owners are quiet. In my concealed carry classes, not a single person fit the stereotype or even spoke about our guns. We follow the “speak softly and carry a big stick” mantra
What I find weird is that there’s only one type of gun owner. There is only one archetype and 100% of gun owners are that archetype
It’s also very bizarre that the party that wants guns to protect themselves from tyranny also want to give the government more and bigger weapons instead of, you know, making them weaker.
That’s when you realize that these assholes are not about protecting themselves. It’s about oppression.
That’s an AK he’s holding…
He’s the toddler.
Surely they also need armed guards.
Is it a bad thing that I thought this was real at first? Yeah, I think it is.
I dont subscribe to this community, but sometimes when I switch to all I see it as I’m scrolling. I hate that damn near everytime it almost gets me before I notice which community it is. I read the post title and for just a second I’m like, that seems just a little too much even for the fearmonger sites to try to pull over, and then damn, the onion has gotten me again. The onion never used to get me. I hate our timeline.
I thought it was at least plausible from many headlines of the US sites, but I am Canadian so not from there plus it didn’t quite pass the smell test before I knew it was satire…after confirming the source site.
Wasn’t there a the oatmeal comic about this?
How stupid must you be to do that. Everybody knows that an AR-45 takes way too long to reload and can only hold 20 charges. You’re way better with a Beretta 46 pistol or even a Colt. You will shoot much faster and the 19mm bullets can easily penetrate their soft skull. Plus toddlers usually dont aim very well so you should be fine anyway.
Honestly, just get them with a preemptive strike, the morons don’t even see it coming.
Lol when I saw this I thought of two options: satire or bad faith journalism. Glad it was the 1st.
Aren’t toddlers best fought with flamethrowers?
