A brief touch-down on the current haps is required: More of the dry and boring to follow.

"Modern Sporting Rifle".
This is great. Such a self-contained, hermetically-sealed nomenclature.
It's a rifle, used for "sporting"  -  and it's modern.
It's modern for Christ's sake.
Three words, six syllables (Help me out numerologists) and yet, it says absolutely nothing.
It makes an acronym though: MSR. I came of age thinking of that as "Mountain Safety Research" (The folks who, in the '70's, blew the lid off the "ice axes are only made in Austria and of Elfin steel") but now it also denotes the...
(drum roll)
EBR!!
That would be: "evil black rifle".
Things this bad-assed rate, even demand - two acronyms.
Before I begin I'd like to cite what I consider to be one of the most coherent take-downs of this particular boondoggle you're likely to run across.
You can find it here.
Mad props to said site as well for the leading illustration.
The item depicted, just five little bits of steel and aluminum, leavened with a heapin' helpin' of good-old-American, pullin'-it-out-of-your-ass know how.
Although it's not mentioned in the text, its depiction warmed the cockles of my heart.
It is, of course, the "forward assist"; that "extra-special something" America's most deadly, yet lovable, gun was blessed with at an early age.
Think of at as way in which our brave soldiers could help-out in the heat of the moment. A place they could step in... say if their - God forbid - rifle jammed - which it almost never (always) did.
It'd be like going to the aid of a buddy in trouble; "Hey little buddy, got a round stuck in your throat. Let me punch this handy button provided for the purpose...

Or you can call it - like I do:  the button-that-shows-for-time-immemorial-that-this-is-a-crap-rifle-and-that-we-couldn't-fix-it. That button.
I remember reading about this rifle when I was a kid - and reading that it was a piece of shit.
The October 1967 edition of Mechanics illustrated carried an article: "M-16: The Gun They Swear By...and at!"
That was my earliest recollection of "the 16" and I do believe that I've never heard anything about it since that was any more complimentary. Nothing at least, that wasn't sales copy.
But this sorry excuse for an over-engineered, varmint rifle is still very much a force in the market.
And check this out. Lifted from a recent "showin'-off-your-guns"  round-pound.
To be fair, rational people posted photos of real guns as well.
We The Armed. "Rifle Pictures".
This guy though, he's put his forward-assist right out there. He's proud of his rifle as well he should be. Fifty years of relentless and expensive tweaking have gotten this turd pretty well polished and, re the ...button in question, well you don't drop an idea that works.
AR 15 buyers; like your predecessors you too can participate in your rifle's operation.
Use the forward assist. Be part of the process.
You're a team, your rifle and you.
This pretend-gun is just another episode in the ongoing history of the psychosis that is defense spending in this country.
Just finished reading "The Gun" by C. J. Chivers (I think). It's a book about the AK and is an okay book in general. The first half covers machine gun history that I've read lots of other places but it has one chapter concerning the M-16 which is the keeper.
It covers our nation's measured and timely response to the threat posed by the sudden appearance of "super weapons" that just came out of nowhere but seem to be buildable by... anyone.
Of course it took the US ten years to clue up to the existence of this  oddball but butt-simple rifle but when they did, many flat-hats were shit therein and assholes were jumped-through.
The cry went out: "In going against this titan, the AK47, is there no half-finished, conceptually murky, completely untried design out there that we might hurl into the breach and thus spare our national honor.?"
I guess my point is: This is a rifle that was rushed into production and immediately showed severe problems in the field.
Some they remedied but others... think: "forward assist".
But it's tres moderne. Check out the in-line stock and pistol grip. Brandy-new, right?
Oops. I left out the plastic stock. It appeared earlier as well, on the earlier AR-10, an actual, full-size rifle, firing a real, rifle round .308.
Regarding the in-line stock and pistol grip, let's hop into the not-very-far-back-machine and digress say... ten, fifteen years.
Snubbed by the Army in the same way as its sibling, the 1941 Johnson Rifle, one is the Johnson Light Machine Gun.

That would be it next.
Pistol grip, in-line stock. It would have kicked ass on a BAR 'cept... it's not a BAR. Ergo: not by John Browning and so it sucks.
See here how the Bren pulls down the pants of the venerable BAR - along with some Johnson info. 
Truth be told, an in-line stock and pistol grip can also  be found - back in the mists of time - on the Chauchat.
My experience with "the 16"  was ambivalent. It was fun to shoot and light weight so it was easy to carry around but the reality is, I shot it once to qualify in the Navy in 1973 and for four active years never handled another one.
In the guard I was a forward observer so we wouldn't even check them out if we could get away with it.
We never needed them. All  we did was sit on the hill, look through binoculars, talk on the radio and freeze.
When we did have to drag the weapons along only the rankest boot-camper would ever, ever fire the thing - on the occasion we were issued blanks for the weekend.
I don't have any feeling for it at all. if someone gave me one, I'd thank them - then trade it for an AK or something stupid like... tires for the car.
But our mad friend, the Ogre sees it as a symbol.
Given its enshrinement as being kinda-like our current infantry rifle, makes it emblematic in the cause to which we must remain steadfast. That cause being: "You're not the boss of me! I can own any sort of gun I deem necessary in the protection of kith and kin (klassy no?)"
Anyway, you can't let the camel get its nose under the tent.
First, they'll take the angelic AR 15. Next... Grandpa's old, wheel-lock triple-barrel.
Ultimately,  they'll come for your caulking guns and thereafter wind will whistle through your house, forever.

 They're not going to outlaw anything. At least nothing a grown-up would want.
So George... breathe... if the AR goes down, just switch to an AK, the peasant's gun.
You can make one out of a shovel if you've got the skillz.