Firearms: Sporting and Self-Defense Purposes

I could claim a myriad of sporting and self-defense purposes for a semi-automatic, combat-like rifle. I could say something like:

I enjoy preparing for the coming economic collapse.

I like playing Rambo on the weekends.

The Mayan calendar was wrong, but I know it's coming.

I enjoy three gun.

I've decided such a weapon is my best form of self defense.

But I don't need any of those justifications for owning and possessing my property. The right to keep and bear arms is a natural right enumerated in the 2nd Amendment. The natural right is not for some arms; it is for all arms.

The founders also wanted to make sure of one additional thing: that the common person would be an integral part of the defense of ones state, of ones military, as a citizen, as a private individual, with ones privately owned arms. A citizen needs an effective weapon that brings parity* with common military arms.


Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show Shoots Self In Foot
I'm glad to see that the major sponsors and vendor after vendor are abandoning the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, because they fail to see that shunning the black rifle or "tactical" weapons abandons the 2nd Amendment for a watered-down, "legitimate"-sporting-purpose privilege.

In the promoter's defense, Reed Exhibitions's markets the show as a "unique celebration of authentic hunting and fishing traditions." But the "modern sporting rifle" - I really hate that term, by the way - the modern sporting rifle has made major inroads into hunting and self-defense uses. Almost every maker of ARs makes a varmint version. Manufacturers of ARs and ammunition have been working for several years to develop systems that are effective for larger game. Some are not as scary looking, because they ironically have fright-disrupting camouflage. For example, there is the Remington R-25 in military-developed 7.62x51mm NATO.

http://remington.com/en/products/firearms/centerfire/model-r-25/model-r-25-rifle.aspx

And not to put too fine a point on the legitimacy of using military-style arms for sporting stuff - because we don't need to care - but the deadly-for-humans Springfield 1903 in military-developed .30 '06 bagged plenty of game, whether it was "sporterized" or not.

And not to belabor the point, but hunters putting ARs in the field "normalizes" the use of ARs. And once again, we don't need to care, but "normalizing" is one part public relations and one part "a right not exercised is lost" foil.

Michael Bane, putting it pretty well:

WE ARE UNITED!
I've read today about how hunters and shooters have "different needs," and how the NRA membership is "separated" from the NRA executive. Let me use a simple, easily understood word here:
BULL! 

*A couple firearms Acts put us at a disadvantage, illegitimately.