when I was a rising executive at an up-and-coming gun company, most people in the firearms industry regarded the AR-15 rifle as distasteful and dangerous, and they chose not to promote it at events.

Bald faced lie.

Let me point something out that I've seen in the military community for 50 years, but haven't heard anyone talk about in the modern assertions that the 5.56 round is so dangerous that it makes people's lungs explode.

One of the reasons the US Army is switching over to a 6.5 caliber firearm is because since the moment that the US military adopted 5.56, it has been considered a dangerously underpowered round.

Military personnel for decades screamed at the top of their lungs that 5.56 NATO may be very fast, but is outrageously small, and doesn't have enough "stopping power".

The political Left in this country explicitly argued that the weapon was designed to support the Military Industrial Complex's desire to buy nearly unlimited amounts of ammunition since soldiers in Vietnam were being told to basically spray-and-pray with the weapons to their hearts content, while not even being very effective compared to all other previous military weapons in history.

Now, "stopping power" isn't actually a real thing per se, and anyone who's actually familiar with ballistics really doesn't talk about it because the truth is that what stops a bad guy is where you hit him. Marksmanship matters a lot more than caliber.

HOWEVER, the secondary wound cavities from a 5.56 NATO round are way smaller than 7.62 NATO. Even with 20" barrels, these rounds are only effective on a point target out to 550 yards, and most grunts can tell you a story where they shot up a terrorist, who they knew was probably mortally wounded, but managed to run away because they were hopped up on amphetamines & khat so they were both high as fuck, and had dulled nerves. This entire situation is amplified when the soldier is using standard "Green Tip" ammunition which has an armor piercing penetrator which is great for going through armor & concrete, but actually causes the rounds to barely even slow down through flesh alone.

This is not the case with ye olde M-14 with the 7.62 NATO cartridge, because the bitch is so large that it hits people like a sledge hammer moving at the speed of sound.

Ahem:

Down on one knee, Howe swore bitterly as he fired. Everything about this situation was pissing him off, the goddamn Somalis, his leaders, the idiot Rangers... even his ammunition. He drew a bead on three Somalis who were running across the street two blocks to the north ... He was an expert marksman, and thought he had hit them, but he couldn't tell for sure because they kept running until they crossed the street and were out of view. It bugged him. His weapon was the most sophisticated infantry rifle in the world, a customized CAR-15, and he was shooting the army's new 5.56 mm green-tip round. The green tip had a tungsten carbide penetrator at the tip, and would punch holes in metal, but that very penetrating power meant his rounds were passing right through his targets. When the Sammies were close enough he could see when he hit them. Their shirts would lift up at the point of impact, as if someone had pinched and plucked up the fabric. But with the green-tip round it was like sticking somebody with an ice pick. The bullet made a small, clean hole, and unless it happened to hit the heart or spine, it wasn't enough to stop a man in his tracks. [emphasis mine] Howe felt like he had to hit a guy five or six times just to get his attention. They used to kid Randy Shughart because he shunned the modern rifle and ammunition and carried a Vietnam era M-14, which shot a 7.62 mm round without the penetrating qualities of the new green tip. It occurred to Howe as he saw those Sammies keep running on that Randy was the smartest soldier in the unit. His rifle may have been heavier and comparatively awkward and delivered a mean recoil, but it damn sure knocked a man down with one bullet, and in combat, one shot was often all you got. You shoot a guy, you want to see him go down; you don't want to be guessing for the next five hours whether you hit him, or whether he's still waiting for you in the weeds.

• Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down, pg. 208

Now, tell me about how the AR-15 blows out people's lungs, literally disintegrates children leaving only their shoes, and is universally renown for being too dangerous...?