By DOUGLAS HELLER Dec. 14, 2015

WASHINGTON – At a press conference today, an AR 15 sporting rifle addressed concerns that sporting rifles around the United States are facing unfair and systemic discrimination.

“Something that I want to make perfectly clear,” said the sporting rifle as it adjusted its high-capacity 5.56-caliber magazine, capable of carrying up to a whopping sixty rounds, “Sporting rifles are being maliciously characterized by the anti-gun lobby in this country as “assault rifles,” an unfair and entirely hurtful descriptor, as we’re little more than civilian-model hunting rifles.”

Able to fire a round with just a trigger-pull – rather than having to manually load one bullet into the chamber at a time like traditional hunting rifles – the sporting rifle quickly cracked off five shots in half as many seconds before continuing. “To call something like me, a perfectly harmless firearm that is incapable of facilitating something as horrifying as a mass shooting, an “assault rifle” is cruel and dehumanizing.”

The sporting rifle was quick to dispel any myths that sporting rifles as a group were in any way a threat to the general public. “Look at the M16! Now that thing is capable of select-fire, which makes it way more dangerous. So when you think about it, it’s really just dumb to refer to me as an assault rifle. It’s truly ignorant. I mean, I’m only even capable of semi-automatic fire… unless of course you “bump-fire” me into a fully-automatic weapon capable of spraying a room with an entire magazine in mere seconds, simply by purchasing a modified grip or just with the crafty application of a sturdy rubber-band.” The sporting rifle snickered and added, “Regulate that, Obama!”

The sporting rifle took a moment to zero-in its holographic sight – which provides pinpoint accuracy in any lighting condition, from the blaring midday sun of a college campus to the confusing darkness of a movie theater – before offering its closing statements.

“In short, sporting rifles have been demonized in this country thanks to nothing but spiteful, harmful politics and a government intent on taking away our civil liberties. If I hear myself or any other sporting rifle referred to as an assault rifle one more time, I swear I’m going to have an aneurysm.”

The sporting rifle then folded up its modified stock, making it easily concealable within a backpack, and was taken to a local high school, where its responsible owner then used it to assault 26 people within 20 minutes, killing them all.