Why does a civilian need an AR-15?

First of all, lets discuss why people own guns: hunting, sporting, self-defense, enthusiasm, collection, investment, inheritance, and potentially as Ben Shapiro says, to protect against our own Government.

So why is the AR-15 such a hot button issue right now? What makes this gun "bad"? Is it because it looks menacing? Because its black and has a rail for flashlights? Because it has a removable magazine? Fact is a handgun with 10 bullets is just as deadly as a rifle with 30, it mostly depends on the skill of the operator. Some of things that make a gun an "assault" weapon are items that are entirely superfluous: flash hiders, bayonette lugs, etc, and they really serve no practical purpose, nor do they actually make them better killing machines in this day and age. A real assault weapon is one that is a fully automatic weapon, but the truth is, civilians can own fully automatic weapons, and they are out there - but you don't see many killings with them even though they arguably would be the "weapon of choice" as Piers calls it.

So now, I'll retort, why doesn't a civilian need them. Are you saying that people who have owned AR-15's for the past decade had no possible use for them? We've all of a sudden assumed that people are guilty and that if people have this gun, it'll be used for bad. Well there are something like 300 million guns in the United States, and 299,999,980+ of them weren't used in a crime today. It is pure political agenda to say that the actions of the insane or crazy should be used to restrict the freedoms of our entire nation, under the pretense that if we don't, we're not honoring the dead.

If we were going to take this path, why don't we outlaw all cars that can go faster than 75mph? How about all cars that look fast too. How about install a breathalyzer in all cars so that we can prevent DUIs? We don't do these things with cars because people are assumed innocent and responsible and the majority have these cars with legal intent and purposes. Gun owners should get the same assumption, but instead we're assumed to be negligent and irresponsible. Or they make the illogical conclusion that an AR-15 can only be used for nefarious purposes.

Furthermore, there are tons of statistics either way to show that a gun ban results in increased overall violent crime and burglary, and there are also plenty of examples that show that countries with high gun ownership rates have lower crime: In  the UK they banned guns, and their gun crime rate may have dropped, but  their overall violent crime rate went up dramatically, their home  burglary rate went up. The same happened in Germany when they  implemented a ban. Conversely, the Swiss have a gun in every home, but they have  the lowest crime rates and gun crime rates - why? its because their  society is "nicer", they're less "crazy" and they're more "polite",  which means these crimes happen because of our society, not because of  the guns. The statistics are moot, because you cannot compare other countries to the US, because we are  unique - in size, in culture, in people, in attitude, with a different history and different issues.

I think we can all agree that if its possible, making it harder to access guns if they shouldn't have them would be ideal, but banning guns won't solve the problem, and more importantly it tramples upon our rights.

Why should all gun owners be deemed guilty because of the actions of a individual (or the insane).