Chainsaw bayonet? USA Today gets Twitter-Smacked for Ridiculous AR-15 Video

in Authors, Current Events, Jordan Michaels

The members of the mainstream media demonstrate their firearm ignorance on a regular basis, but every once in a while they get caught circulating a total fabrication.

The latest example comes from “USA Today,” whose fine journalists developed and posted a video ostensibly covering the firearm used by the Texas church shooter.

The video begins with a prime piece of investigative journalism, outlining “WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE RUGER AR-556.” The presentation doesn’t cover any components that make Ruger’s AR-15 unique, but it does highlight the buttstock, the sights, the 30-round magazine, and the trigger.

SEE ALSO: Texas Hero Speaks Out About Stopping Church Shooter with AR-15

Then the video takes a turn for the (even more) hilarious. In an apparent attempt to make the Ruger AR-556 as terrifying as possible, USA Today covers several “possible modifications,” including a trigger crank, an “underbarrel 12-ga. shotgun,” and something they call a “chainsaw bayonet.”

It’s this last piece of fiction that blew up Twitter. Responses ranged from disgust to mockery. A journalist named Stephen Gutowski wondered how long he’ll survive in this kind of journalistic environment.

Others took USA Today’s brilliant idea and developed even more creative ways to improve upon it.

The NRA’s Dana Loesch hypothesized as to the attachment’s origin.

And Jordan Stein noted the fictional world in which this fictional attachment could be useful.

USA Today seems to have noticed the mockery, but the video’s creators aren’t backing down from their claims. The same day they posted the original video, they offered this “clarification.”

Possible? Maybe. But to include a “chainsaw bayonet” alongside other legitimate, commercially available AR attachments reveals the video’s true intention: fearmongering.

The good news is that the video spawned a nearly endless stream of hilarious replies. Check it out for yourself here.

About the author: Jordan Michaels has been reviewing firearm-related products for over six years and enjoying them for much longer. With family in Canada, he’s seen first hand how quickly the right to self-defense can be stripped from law-abiding citizens. He escaped that statist paradise at a young age, married a sixth-generation Texan, and currently lives in Tyler. Got a hot tip? Send him an email at [email protected].

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  • ozark ridgerunner January 25, 2019, 11:21 am

    Where does USA Today find these braindead reporters. Can you just imagine trying to support a rifle with the weight of a chainsaw attached to the muzzle end? Stupid is as stupid writes.

  • ejharb December 14, 2017, 7:50 pm

    I gotta admit,i wish it was real.
    I kinda want one,,,,,
    Thatll get me on the no fly with list.

  • kjj November 19, 2017, 1:23 pm

    How does that chainsaw bayonet work,is the throttle activated with the trigger? So as you are killing people with bullets at the same time you can cut them in two to make sure they are completely dead, no one left for wounded here at this massacre. Sounds like the fiction writers at USA TODAY have been watching a little to much Walking Dead. Are there writers 15 years old,? sounds like it by this fantasy piece!

  • Dan F. November 19, 2017, 9:20 am

    It strikes me that the chainsaw, weed-whacker, etc. bayonet accessory is a great idea. Bubba ain’t gonna buy one, but his wife might–to decrease the number of items on the “honey do” list. But I really love the sandwich bayonet. Can’t you just see the new butterbar in front of the troops? “Men–or whatever you’re identifying as this week. Fix your sandwich bayonets and prepare to charge that Taliban position. They’ll either surrender ’cause they’re starving or they’ll run ’cause those are ham sandwiches.” The light saber is just silly because it’s fiction–rather like USA Today.

  • Max Hoyle November 18, 2017, 1:05 pm

    Where can I get one of those fancy bayonets?

  • Jake November 18, 2017, 12:58 am

    Light saber… nailed it.

  • Lee Jones November 17, 2017, 8:07 pm

    I am trying to attach my weed whacker to my AR. That little plastic string can hurt when you get too close.

  • Scotty Gunn November 17, 2017, 6:11 pm

    It must be fun to go to work at your reporter job and just make up bullshit all day.

  • Patrick McWilliams November 17, 2017, 4:04 pm

    I’ve seen photos of H&R revolvers with bayonets and Iver Johnson break-tops with brass knuckle grip attachments. The percentage of such pistols sold with these attachments were insignificant, making them prized collector items. The wire cutter devices for the Lee Enfield rifle did at least attempt to serve a useful purpose. What the bayonet for the North American mini revolver was for I can’t quite figure out.

  • Harold November 17, 2017, 11:39 am

    I tried to make one for my HI-Poin 45 carbine ( no self respecting mass killer would be caught dead with one) with a HF pole chain saw, but keep running out of extension cord or cutting it up and it was terribly heavy when fully extended. Going back to my battery powered turkey knife idea.

  • KurtW November 17, 2017, 11:09 am

    Whew!!! They haven’t discovered my Tomahawk Missile attachment yet!!

  • Charles Penn November 17, 2017, 10:56 am

    Just search Google images for AR-15 chainsaw attachment. Idiots are out there that have actually created such a thing.
    Maybe that’s where USA Today did their “research”.

  • American USMC November 17, 2017, 10:19 am

    Good grief

  • srsquidizen November 17, 2017, 10:14 am

    I suppose someone with minimal tool skills –and even more minimal common sense– might decide to attach the chainsaw end of an electric pole saw to their rifle, thinking it’d be handy for clearing brush. Bad idea for several reasons but something like that, cobbled together by some DIY doofus who thinks he’s a genius, was probably posted somewhere on the ‘net. That could make totally gun-ignorant gun haters think something that idiotic is actually an commercially available accessory. It’s fun to watch their ignorant fear-mongering get exposed!

  • John Dodge November 17, 2017, 9:19 am

    USA Today has a history of intellectual dishonesty, a trait shared by all members of the socialist/leftist mentality.

  • Steve November 17, 2017, 8:33 am

    Finally, someone has the courage to expose the landscaping loophole for what it is. And it’s just a matter of time before the Spanish Inquisition begins to rail-mount soft cushions.

    • Steve November 17, 2017, 8:42 am

      Of course a chainsaw bayonet would be nice, and would give affected parties an effective counter-measure to the Knights Who Say “Nii!”.

      • perlcat November 17, 2017, 9:37 am

        I believe the proper tool to append is a hedge shears for pruning shrubbery. [dramatic chord]

  • Paul November 17, 2017, 8:19 am

    I love how they try to portray a “six position stock” and “heat resistant handguards” as some kind of upgrade……

  • joefoam November 17, 2017, 7:36 am

    The saddest part of this whole deal is that there are millions of weak minded people who believed this chain saw attachment to be a real thing because the saw it on their cell phone. God help us all!

    • Teddy November 17, 2017, 8:11 am

      Crazy but there has been a company around that sells a chainsaw attachment it’s $800 starting it’s by panacex

    • Dave Hicks November 17, 2017, 10:24 am

      Video game logic

  • Bellefourchebill November 17, 2017, 6:27 am

    A gun shop I used to work at in Deadwood, SD had picatinny rail “zombie killer”chainsaw on a Highpoint carbine. It used a rechargeable drill battery. They cost about $350 and came in several colors. Tourists from all over…especially from Europe and Asia wanted to be photographed with it but the installing its battery was off limits. Eventually someone from North Dakota bought it and the shop didn’t buy a replacement.

  • Blue Dog November 14, 2017, 7:18 pm

    It is sad that USA Today went with something so absurd (but not entirely outside the realm of possibility. You know more than one redneck out there has rigged a small chainsaw onto a picatinny rail mount, if by no other way than the liberal application of duct tape, even though that seems like something an SKS owner would be more likely to do) when there are so many real accessories for AR-15s that are very real threats to public safety, like bump stocks, pistol braces (yeah, y’all are all just shooting those one-handed and not willfully circumventing the NFA and making SBRs), improvised silencers/suppressors and high capacity, 30+ round magazines. I remember seeing replacement stocks back during the zombie craze (2012?) that were advertised as axe blades, but I think I remember that those were only available for AKs. Did they address the (incorrectly named) gun-show loophole? That anyone can buy one without a background check!

  • Mike Watkins November 13, 2017, 11:46 am

    The Left has been going with the theory “there is no such thing as absolute truth” for so long, it’s useless to try to correct them. I think a lot of them actually believe Luke Skywalker and Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street really are walking around somewhere.

    So it’s easy for them to believe the 7.62×39 round actually blows deer to pieces; all guns including single-shots are easily convertible to machine guns, and you and I and our fellow gun owners all harbor insane desires to massacre huge numbers of our fellow humans.

    The chainsaw bayonet is no stretch at all. They saw it on an internet meme, so it must really exist. And you and I all have one, or want one, for every “fully- semi-automatic assault sniper grenade launcher” we own.

    Best we can hope for us to immunize as many children as possible against the dread liberalism disease, before they reach puberty. That includes teaching them that nothing they see on a screen can automatically be assumed to be true: The United States of America is not an evil empire, Caitlin Jennings is not a woman, illegal immigrants are not all wonderful sweet hard-working folks, Islam is not a religion of peace, man-caused climate change is not “settled science,” etc. And teach them to shoot, not fear firearms, and teach them responsible gun handling.

    Do all you can with your kids, the neighbors’ kids, any others you can reach, and there yet may be hope.

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