AR15.com

Last updated
AR15.com
Type of site
Web forum
Available inEnglish
Headquarters,
United States
Owner2nd Adventure Group
Founder(s) Edward Avila
URL ar15.com
Commercialyes
Users 10 million (2013) [1]
Launched1996 (as mail list)
Current statusActive

AR15.com is a firearm-enthusiast web forum [2] founded as a mail list in 1996 and headquartered in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. It migrated to a bulletin board system, then finally a website which the owner called "the largest firearms website in the world", [3] [4] with 10 million users in 2013. [1] The company that owned the website also manufactured AR-15 rifles and was founded in 1996 by Edward Avila, who moved it from Farmington, New York, to Texas after passage of the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) Act in 2013. [3]

The forum was described by Politico as a significant "cyberspace" forum for discussion of the bump stock controversy in 2014. [5] The website was the subject of confusion over a 2020 Canadian government ban on an airsoft gun, leading to a demand by 170,000 petitioners for an apology to gun owners. [6]

It was bought in 2019 by 2nd Adventure Group, a holding company owned by Pete Brownell and Frank Brownell that also owns the online retailer Brownells. [7]

Removal from servers

The site's Domain Name System (DNS) registrar, GoDaddy, removed the site from its servers in 2021 following the U.S. Capitol attack. [8] [4] GoDaddy told Axios that the action was due to the site's failure to moderate content "that both promoted and encouraged violence". [9]

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, in a message from its president, condemned what it called the "de-platforming of gun sites" as a "dark harbinger" for discussion of controversial issues and an "indiscriminate silencing of opinion and debate". [10]

As of January 2021, the DNS registrar for the AR15.com domain is Epik. [11] [12]

Related Research Articles

A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As of 2017, 330.6 million domain names had been registered. Domain names are used in various networking contexts and for application-specific naming and addressing purposes. In general, a domain name identifies a network domain or an Internet Protocol (IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the Internet, or a server computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assault weapon</span> Terminology used in United States firearm legislation

In the United States, assault weapon is a controversial term used to define firearms with specified characteristics. The definition varies among regulating jurisdictions, but usually includes semi-automatic firearms with a detachable magazine, a pistol grip, and sometimes other features, such as a vertical forward grip, flash suppressor, or barrel shroud. Certain firearms are specified by name in some laws that restrict assault weapons. When the now-defunct Federal Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice said, "In general, assault weapons are semiautomatic firearms with a large magazine of ammunition that were designed and configured for rapid fire and combat use." The commonly used definitions of assault weapons are under frequent debate, and have changed over time.

GoDaddy Inc. is an American publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, and incorporated in Delaware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bump stock</span> Gun stocks that can be used to assist in bump firing

Bump stocks or bump fire stocks are gun stocks with a mechanism for bump firing, in which the recoil of a semi-automatic firearm actuates the trigger to allow rounds to be fired in rapid succession, in a manner somewhat similar to a fully automatic weapon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gun violence in the United States</span> Overview of the topic

Gun violence in the United States results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries annually, and was the leading cause of death for children 19 and younger in 2020. In 2018, the most recent year for which data are available as of 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics reports 38,390 deaths by firearm, of which 24,432 were by suicide. The rate of firearm deaths per 100,000 people rose from 10.3 per 100,000 in 1999 to 12 per 100,000 in 2017, with 109 people dying per day or about 14,542 homicides in total, being 11.9 per 100,000 in 2018. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicides, and 11,078 firearm-related homicides in the U.S. In 2010, 358 murders were reported involving a rifle while 6,009 were reported involving a handgun; another 1,939 were reported with an unspecified type of firearm. In 2011, a total of 478,400 fatal and nonfatal violent crimes were committed with a firearm. Gun crimes are covered by 18 USC 922 and 18 USC 924, which are the principal federal firearm statutes.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">.biz</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Association for Gun Rights</span> American gun group

The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) is a gun rights advocacy group in the United States. They maintain an affiliated PAC and a nonprofit legal foundation. Officially incorporated in Virginia on March 29, 2000, NAGR was founded by Dudley Brown as a national companion organization to Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. NAGR is a rival of the National Rifle Association and considers itself a more "conservative alternative" to the NRA. The group spends most of its energy attacking lawmakers deemed too soft on Second Amendment issues via direct mail, robocalls and low-cost television ads. The group has gained notoriety for its aggressive lobbying tactics and attack ads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AR-15 style rifle</span> Class of semi-automatic rifles

An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on or similar to the Colt AR-15 design. The original ArmaLite AR-15, its predecessor, was a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design and featured selective fire. ArmaLite sold the patent and trademarks to Colt's Manufacturing Company in 1959, resulting in the Colt AR-15, which removed the selective fire feature. After most of the patents for the Colt AR-15 expired in 1977, many firearm manufacturers began to produce copies of the Colt AR-15 under various names. While the patents are expired, Colt retained the trademark of the AR-15 name and is the sole manufacturer able to label their firearms as AR-15.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Assault weapons legislation in the United States</span>

Assault weapons legislation in the United States refers to bills and laws that define and restrict or make illegal the manufacture, transfer, and possession of assault weapons. How these firearms are defined and regulated varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction; generally, this constitutes a list of specific firearms and combinations of features on semiautomatic firearms. Assault rifles are defined by federal law in the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. The NFA specifically defines an assault rifle as one that can fire more than one round per trigger pull, i.e., capable of selective fire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">8chan</span> Imageboard website

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Forgotten Weapons is a website and channel appearing on YouTube, Utreon, and Full30, created and presented by Ian McCollum, that covers the history of antique, obscure, and historically important firearms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public opinion on gun control in the United States</span>

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Peter Royce Brownell is an American businessman. He is the Chairman of the Board of Brownells, a supplier of firearm accessories, ammunition and supplies based in Grinnell, Iowa. He is also Chairman of the Board and CEO of Brownell's parent company, 2nd Adventure Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epik</span> American web services company

Epik is a right-wing American domain registrar and web hosting company known for providing services to alt-tech websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist materials. It has been described as a haven for the far-right because of its willingness to provide services to far-right websites that have been denied service by other Internet service providers.

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<i>Miller v. Bonta</i> 2021 pending federal appellate court case regarding Californias assault weapon ban

Miller v. Bonta is a pending court case before Judge Roger Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California concerning California's assault weapon ban, the Roberti–Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 (AWCA). Judge Roger Benitez struck down the ban in a ruling on June 5, 2021. A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a stay of the ruling on June 21, 2021, which left the ban in place as appeals were litigated. The panel then vacated Judge Benitez’s ruling and remanded it back down after NYSRPA v. Bruen was decided. The case was known as Miller v. Becerra before Rob Bonta succeeded Xavier Becerra as Attorney General of California in April 2021.

References

  1. 1 2 Swaine, Jon (2013). "Automatic for the people: America's obsession with automatic weapons". The Daily Telegraph . London, UK.
  2. Stephanie Clifford, Shop Owners Report Rise in Firearm Sales as Buyers Fear Possible New Laws, New York Times (December 22, 2012).
  3. 1 2 Melody Burri (December 8, 2013). "Business blames SAFE Act for move from Farmington". Daily Messenger . Canandaigua, New York.
  4. 1 2 Michael Lee (January 11, 2021). "Amazon partner GoDaddy boots gun site from its servers". Washington Times .
  5. Valentine, Matt (December 1, 2014), "The Gunfight in Cyberspace", Politico
  6. Snyder, Jesse (13 May 2020). "Trudeau's gun ban appeared to target coffee and a toy;Confusion Conservatives want ban lifted, apology for gun owners". National Post . Ontario, Canada. p. A.6.
  7. F Riehl (5 June 2019). "ARFcom Interest Purchased by Brownells' Holding Company, 2nd Adventure Group". Ammoland Shooting Sports News. Ammoland, Inc. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
  8. "GoDaddy removes gun forum website AR15.com from its servers". Fox News. January 16, 2021 via Yahoo! News.
  9. Lachlan Markay (January 13, 2021). "GOP digital operatives aim to avoid "deplatforming"". Axios .
  10. Bartozzi, Joe (January 15, 2021). "DE-PLATFORMING OF GUN SITES IS A DARK HARBINGER". NSSF official website. National Shooting Sports Foundation.
  11. ar15.com DNS record via WHOIS, accessed January 16, 2021
  12. Allyn, Bobby (February 8, 2021). "'Lex Luthor Of The Internet': Meet The Man Keeping Far-Right Websites Alive". NPR . Archived from the original on 2021-02-09. Retrieved February 9, 2021.