Talk:Colt AR-15

It’s quite strange that under the mass shootings heading there is only one listed, -Port Arthur in Australia, where the AR-15 is irrelevant. It reeks of political bias. Almost every reader would already be aware of the AR-15’s link to American mass shootings so leaving it out (trying to hide it) just looks silly. It goes against wikipedia’s first pillar, a neutral view.

Jasemac132 (talk) 13:58, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Why is it irrelevant, it was there reason a law was changed? Slatersteven (talk) 14:00, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a fork of the ar-15 article. Someone felt that there should be an article dedicated to what they thought was the colt civilian commercial product-line, starting with the colt ar-15 sporter. This fork separates the colt ar-15 from including historical things that happened with rifles made by any other manufacturer, or even by military colts. Coincidentally, it also creates a grey area which I'm going to discuss in a different thread. Fanccr (talk) 21:15, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

That's not completely accurate. The Colt AR-15 is notably one of the original AR-15s (after the Armalite model, from which it was copied), copied today by several other manufacturers. It has its own article because of that history and notability, not because "Someone felt that there should be an article dedicated to what they thought was the colt civilian commercial product-line, starting with the colt ar-15 sporter". That sentence makes little to no sense.

As for the mass shootings, if the shooter didn't use a Colt made AR-15, then it would not belong on the Colt article. Try AR-15–style rifle for rifles made by other manufacturers. - Adolphus79 (talk) 21:28, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

It becomes a question of how many forks from the AR-15 article do you make and why do you make them. What content gets put where, what content gets duplicated, how many articles will have the same description of what being based on the ar-15 means?

Armalite sold the AR-15 to colt, there was no difference other than branding. Armalites being sold to the UK MOD nicknamed by UK forces as "the Armalite" became colt model 601s or whatever as Armalite sold it to Colt. So, presumably including even some Armalite marked rifles, and then, later, colt stamped rifles, identical in every way but markings, made on the same machines, presumably by the same people in the same factory to the exact same design changed markings from Armalite to Colt.

If anything... the interesting thing is the Colt AR-15 sporter line, which is both the same and a different thing.

From the military production of colt AR-15s including selling colt AR-15s, colt model 601 ar-15s to the US government with various vanity markings dictated by the customer. A few years later, in ~1963-1964, colt introduced the semi-automatic version of the model 601, the AR-15 sporter with 5 round magazine to the civilian public.

The confused person who created this fork probably intended to make the article about the colt Sporter, a semi automatic 601 with 5 round magazine sold by colt to the civilian market.

Would it be better to have an article on civilian sales of AR-15 style rifles, a sentence or two on how it fits into the larger story of civilian sales of ar-15. Maybe. In that, the colt AR-15 sporter may warrant a few sentences, 3-4 on it in general, maybe a list or chart showing the evolution.

When does further balkanizing a subject detract from how the information is presented. I'd say that this fork represents a poor organization of the information that detracts from the understanding and presentation of the information.

It leads to people having a poor understanding of the facts... almost deliberately... Fanccr (talk) 04:33, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

As below, I ask what reliable source you are citing for this content, you have failed to mention any source at all besides a blog's unsourced youtube video below. - Adolphus79 (talk) 14:59, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Also, saying "The confused person who created this fork probably intended to make the article about the colt Sporter" is very close to a personal attack, considering it was not just one person who wrote this entire article, you have absolutely no idea what anyone's "intention" was in their edits, and you have provided zero sources to support anyone being "confused" about anything. - Adolphus79 (talk) 15:03, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

I am not making a personal attack, I am explicitly assuming good faith. It was one person that chose to create this fork... I don't throw aspersions around like rice at a wedding that violate agf, or make vague, confused warnings... It's hard to tell at a glance without any fancy tools, but I guess originally this article was created with the title ar-15, originally the barest of stub articles, then someone merged it with colt ar-15 or something, I don't know, it's not particularly useful to try to tease the strains there. The article and the content area in general don't seem to be in a particularly good state.

But, back to responding to the original question, for whatever reason mentions of ar-15 pattern rifles have been scattered across a thousand different articles, diluted so much that no article on any one particular model of gun lists more than a handful of massacres. Fanccr (talk) 05:49, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I was watching a youtube video today and it mentioned the colt m-16 commando being sold by colt commercially in the US. It was stated to be around 1975. Was this sold on the civilian market? Was it law enforcement or government only?

This article seems to be pushing the narrative that colt created a hard distinction between the ar-15 sporter line and the m-16 line, which, obviously, didn't exist originally, when Colt was selling AR-15s to the UK and other countries. And that the M-16 line was law enforcement and government only. Was this actually the case? Or is that an invention of this article and the author? Fanccr (talk) 21:20, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source for any of that? Unfortunately, "a video on YouTube" is not reliable. - Adolphus79 (talk) 21:33, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0RvJP9QayY states, showing primary documentation, that colt was required, when the m-16 commando moderator was declared to be a controlled suppressor, to recall m-16 commands from it's distributors.

Possibly it's a logistics issue. Though presumably if they're select fire they'd be controlled firearms to begin with. It's a complicated situation. How exclusive were colts sales of rifles like the commando? Were they sold commercially? To the public? Fanccr (talk) 04:36, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Which part of YouTube is not a reliable source did you not read? - Adolphus79 (talk) 13:23, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

"Most videos on YouTube are anonymous, self-published, and unverifiable, and should not be used as a reference. Content uploaded from a verified official account, such as that of a news organization, may be treated as originating from the uploader and therefore inheriting their level of reliability. However, many YouTube videos from unofficial accounts are copyright violations and should not be linked from Wikipedia, according to WP:COPYLINK. See also WP:YOUTUBE and WP:VIDEOLINK. For illustrative, non-referential use, see c:Commons:YouTube files and Wikipedia:Image use policy."

It's not an anonymous account. It's the verified account of a well respected published author and researcher on firearms.

Did you read the full summary? Fanccr (talk) 14:14, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

And where are the sources for everything that was said in the video? Can you verify any of what he said as accurate? Or was he just making it up as he went? This is a YT account for a blog, not an official account of a news organization. - Adolphus79 (talk) 14:56, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

To quote that page:

"Some newspapers, magazines, and other news organizations host online pages or columns they call blogs. These may be acceptable sources if the writers are professionals, but use them with caution because blogs may not be subject to the news organization's normal fact-checking process. If a news organization publishes an opinion piece in a blog, attribute the statement to the writer, e.g. "Jane Smith wrote ..." Never use the blog comments that are left by the readers as sources. For personal or group blogs that are not reliable sources, see § Self-published sources below."

As we covered, the person in question is a professional.

"Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. Self-published material, such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, podcasts, Internet forum postings, and social media postings, are largely not acceptable as sources.

Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications"

Again, this source may be considered to be reliable as they're an established sme... as I said... whose work in the relevant field has been previously published by reliable independent publications... He's given lectures, academic talks, written books...

"Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources. While primary sources are appropriate in some cases, relying on them can be problematic. For more information, see the Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources section of the NOR policy, and the Misuse of primary sources section of the BLP policy."

As appropriate, this is using a reliable secondary source that is verifiable...

If you'd like to learn more, why not check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wp:youtube Fanccr (talk) 06:00, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

See wp:undue. Slatersteven (talk) 09:05, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

How does that apply? Are you comparing this to flat earth conspiracies? Fanccr (talk) 03:19, 16 February 2026 (UTC)