The gist of the problem is that the article in question was advocating that You, Dear Reader, you need to buy a Steyr AUG as your varminting gun. You'll want to make sure to get the genuine 30-round box magazine (a 42-round box is also available, if that's not enough lead!), and also be sure to get one with picatinny rails on the top so that you can mount your reflex sights as well!

There's two problems I see with this position; first, the AUG is a semiautomatic rifle in a bullpup* configuration, firing 5.56 NATO rounds. And this is supposed to be a varminting gun? Did the lower 48 suffer an orc infestation when I wasn't looking? When I think "varmint", I think "squirrel, rabbit, raccoon" and similarly-sized things, and when I think "rabbit being hit with a round of 5.56", the image that comes to mind is "fine aerosol mist". It seems very excessive.

Second, reflex sights? I'm sure they're handy, but does nobody bother learning how to aim anymore. I've heard the old joke about Smith & Wesson making the world's first point-and-click interface, but this just sounds like a recipe for aerating the local landscape thirty holes at a time, rather than aiming at the target and hitting what you aim at.

So am I out of touch with the needs of the modern hunter, or is this really as crazy as it sounds?

*While the rest of this sounds like a bad idea, I'm fully in favor of the bullpup design. One of the first things I learned when being taught to shoot was "be careful when turning around, you might whap somebody upside the head with the barrel of your gun". This is especially embarrassing when the gun in question is a Remington 1890, and the owner checks the gun for wounds before the poor sucker with a cuff-mark on his head.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."