Shooting from the Hip: The Media’s Inaccurate Gun Reporting
Regarding the devastating power of the .223, Kleinfield adds, with unwitting humor that disqualifies him as a reliable reporter on gun matters, that “[s]ome of the bullets fired inside the [Sandy Hook] school, according to a law enforcement official, ‘penetrated the glass windows of the classrooms and went into vehicles in the parking lot.’” Of course any bullet from virtually any pistol or rifle — including the lowest powered .22 and even many air rifles — would easily penetrate “glass windows.”
He adds that “[t]he .223-caliber bullet is a small, high-velocity round that has been used by Western military forces for decades, in part because it inflicts devastating wounds.” In fact, as a writer on Military.com notes, the .223 (or 5.56mm NATO) was selected “because it offered soldiers more ammo carrying capacity” than the larger .30 caliber rounds that had been in use. Moreover, as this thorough Military Law Review article on the controversy over hollow-point ammunition points out, the military has actually avoided the use of ammunition that causes the most “devastating wounds,” not only for humanitarian reasons but also because military “weapons and [their] ammunition were (and remain) ‘designed for incapacitation rather than lethality’ — which supported the prevailing doctrine that ‘wounding enemy soldiers increased the logistical burden on the enemy.’”
Virginia and other states actually ban the use of .223 rifles in deer hunting — not because it is too powerful and causes such devastating wounds, but because it is too small and weak to ethically harvest deer. According to Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Deer Project Coordinator Matt Knox: “We could argue ‘til the cows come home, but we err on the conservative side of achieving humane and ethical kills.”
Kleinfield does helpfully point out that the police found “‘numerous’ empty 30-round magazines for the Bushmaster rifle” and “a number of magazines for both pistols” (a 10mm Glock and 9mm Sig Sauer) Lanza had, but he doesn’t seem to realize that the presence of all these magazines with their “hundred of unfired bullets” strongly suggests that a limitation on magazine capacity would have had no effect on the lethality of Lanza’s carnage. True, he did use 30-round magazines, but Ms. Goode quoted the medical examiner’s observation that Lanza had fired “up to 11 bullets into each victim’s body.” Since there were 26 victims, it’s obvious that Lanza had no difficulty changing magazines.
Of course the shooter wasn’t rushed, since according to CNN’s timeline the police didn’t arrive until 20 minutes after the shooting started. All a high-capacity magazine ban would accomplish (assuming it would accomplish anything except driving up the price of the 30 million already in private hands) is that shooters intent on mass slaughter would bring more weapons (Lanza had three) and/or magazines. Indeed, a perfectly predictable but unintended consequence of banning high-capacity magazines would be to decrease the appeal of 9mm handguns and increase the popularity of more the powerful and lethal .40 and .45 caliber and .357 Magnum, since the main appeal of the 9mm has always been its higher-capacity magazines.
Kleinfield also helpfully quotes Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, who said “Mr. Lanza had killed himself as police officers entered the school, suggesting that he was prepared to take more lives had they not arrived.” Malloy added that “[w]e surmise that it was during the second classroom episode that he heard responders coming and apparently, at that, decided to take his own life.”
It thus seems likely that the slaughter of unarmed innocents, both students and staff, could have been ended much sooner if Lanza had been confronted much sooner with armed opposition. All things considered, attempting to combat mass shootings by emulating Australia’s experiment with prohibition would be rather like attempting to eliminate drunk driving by banning bourbon.
More: Illinois Democrats Move to Ban Most Modern Firearms
It’s the “too late to do anything” that got you where you are.
The US could get control over its semi-autos, just as it did the machine guns. There just needs to be political will, and time.
Australia also had a buyback of handguns, by the way. And we have far more stringent regulations for ownership. We can still _own_ a gun, but some effort is required.
Cute strawman you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.
We do not have a gun problem, we have a political problem.
That political problem is not the Second Amendment, rather the problem is the illegitimate attempts by politicians to tear down the amendment in reaction to exactly what the intention of the amendment is – to protect the citizenry against government tyranny.
If the political class feels that it is time to do away with that amendment to the Constitution then there are specific procedures for doing so, none of which are currently underway. The amendment says what it says and means what it means. “Shall not be infringed” is an unambiguous statement on the limitation of the Federal government, current laws and regulations notwithstanding.
You can be excused for not understanding the intricacies of the Constitution of the United States from your perch down under, but what is law there in Australia is not the law here.
Larry Correia has already refuted every single one of the gun-grabbers’ arguments.
The Left tries to side-track the whole argument by claiming that the 2nd Amendment provides for hunting and home-defense. The first shots of the American Revolution were fired for what? Redcoats coming to confiscate citizens’ firearms stored in a local armory. That’s what the 2nd Amendment is all about. And just as certainly, the Left’s gun-control obsession is about the exact same thing — disarming law-abiding citizens against the government. BTW, full-auto weapons are not outlawed or banned in the US (courts decided that was un-Constitutional) but the importation or manufacture in the US are prohibited. And you have to pay a $200 tax to the ATF when you buy one. The thing is, the restriction of the number of auto weapons to the number existing in the 1930s has raised the actual price astronomically. To the point where the crummiest greasegun costs in the 5-figures.
You are so right. More people were killed by their own governments in the 20th century than by invaders. Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot all killed more of their own citizens than Japan or Germany. Zbigniew Brzezinski presents a head count in his book, “Out of Control.” The message is that you must not trust your own government.
Hmm, really?
I don’t think so. Even with the soviets and mao, the death toll from inter-state war in the 20th century is still probably a fair bit higher.
Have a random link. http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm
That doesn’t include vietnam, afghanistan, korea …
Australia’s homicide rate is up 19%, assaults with guns up 69%, armed robberies up 69% & home invasions up 21%. – Australian Bureau of Criminology
According to Australia’s Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research ‘the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime’
Actually, none of that is according to the “australian bureau of criminology”, because no organisation with that name exists. There are a couple of state-based statistics groups with similar names.
Your claims are REALLY “according to” Howard Nemerov. Colour me surprised. You can find a little discussion that he and I had if you look for the thread titled “‘Gun Control Fails,’ Say Statistics from … Gun-Control Advocates”. Notice particularly the response under question 9, where he describes “australian bureau of criminology” as a “typo”. If only I’d realised that he’d been making this typo since 2009 …
Here’s your actual source:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2012/07/23/do-gun-bans-reduce-violent-crime-ask-the-aussies-and-brits/
I don’t even know where to start. Howard is just plain wrong about a lot of things, and he gets a bit grouchy when asked direct questions about his definitions or sources. If he’s your only source, I suggest starting over. Or check that other thread and see how his international comparisons collapse when challenged.
OK, how many tommy guns were in non-criminal hands at the time?
Have you not realized by now that any attempt to collect rifles will result in pitched battles beteen housewives (among others) and the authorities?
And as a result, you have a 9% higher crime rate that the US. Granted, gun violence is higher here, but I am sure that is comforting to the scores of victims of rape and other violent crime. G’day.
Did you get that statistics from howard as well?
Because it’s wrong.
You’re wrong Techno.
See how easy that is? Refutation without substantiation. So simple even a liberal can do it.
It’s easy to argue when you don’t have to come up with facts!
Start here:
http://masetto.sourceoecd.org/vl=43669681/cl=13/nw=1/rpsv/factbook2009/11/04/01/index.htm
That’s a nice chart for you. I can’t post more than one link, but when you’re done with that, go have a look at International Crime Victimisation Survey – it’s easily enough googled.
We had a weird spike in crime in 2001. Now, yes, that WAS after the 1997 law changes, but it was also before the handgun restrictions introduced in 2002 – so make your own mind up whether either of those were relevant. If you’d made a claim about crime in 2000/2001 you might have got away with it. But more recent data shows australia doing quite a bit better than the US across the board, and despite the endless shrieking from the murdoch press.
So you are Australian. That means you have no clue what is going on in America. Shre explains a lot.
For starters. There is no reason to pass any laws on semi-autos. First as that would be an unConstitutional infringement and second. ALL rifles were used in less than 500 homicides most years. About half the number of homicides that occur every year with hands and feet.
Simply put. There is no problem there to address. And certainly not one which woud require the Infringement of our God given Rights.
Aah – so I see that you have given up on trying to find an “angle” to try to catch me out on some sort of imagined error or inconsistency, and now you’re just falling back on the “nothing to see here” argument. Very wise.
John, John, John. I think you are probably a smart guy with a bright future, but I ask you to pay more attention to nomenclature, to the names of things and to adjectives that describe them. You failed with this: “The United States, in short, is awash in semi-automatic and other rapid-fire weapons…”
Other rapid fire weapons? I guess you mean any gun other than a single-shot gun that requires manual reloading before each shot, like, you know, a musket. I also advocate, not just to you but to everyone, that we use a term more accurate than gun control. Can we say “gun infringement” from now on? That’s what the Constitution forbids and that is what Australian citizen Techno wants for America. (Personally aside from thanks and best wishes I don’t give a sxxx what a any foreigner says concerning illegal infringement of my rights as an American.)
I also advocate, not just to you but to everyone, that we use a term more accurate than gun control. Can we say “gun infringement” from now on?
Sounds good to me (although it would be an uphill battle to change popular terminology).
While we’re at it, let’s stop referring to “semi-automatic” firearms, which have obviously been conflated in the public’s mind with AUTOMATIC firearms. A better term might be “autoloaders”. Really, that’s all a semi-automatic firearm is — one that does not allow you to shoot any faster, but does allow you to reload faster. (Is that a good thing? If you’re fighting for your life, why, yes it is. If you need confirmation, ask the next policeman you see why he’s not carrying a revolver.)
“…it would be an uphill battle to change popular terminology.”
Yes, but I’m sick and tired of the Left distorting the language for their nefarious purposes, so I’m going to start corrrrrecting them as of today.
The first thing you need to correct, when comparing crime-rates in different countries, is to define who the “we” is that you’re talking about in the US. The fact is that US crime rates among WHITE people is about the same as European rates. Think Detroit and Chicago if you’re confused. There is no one “we” in the US today. “We” are different races, and these races are really different. Race is not a social construct — my favorite example of the Left’s request that we believe their propaganda instead of our own lyin’ eyes.
One of the new “bait and switch” actions on the left recently has been the move to include semi-automatic and full automatic firearms as one group. Whenever we come across this tactic the response should be to ask if that liberal can drive a car. Then ask them if they can operate automatic and semi-automatic transmissions. When they respond, “I can’t drive a stick.” then point out semi-auto and full auto are just as different.
“Rapid-fire” is a nonsense term.
A “well-regulated” (which meant practiced and trained in the vernacular of the day) Revolutionary War-era musketman could fire 3-4 aimed shots per minute.
In 20 minutes, the time the Sandy Hook shooter had, he could have fired 60 to 80 rounds.
If unarmed people tried to interfere he had a foot-and-a-half of bayonet on his musket to see them off with.
Then, as now, the only realistic way to stop him was for another armed person to shoot back.
Rapid-Fire is not nonsense enough for Diane Feinstein… She uses the term “Spray-Fire”
We need to take a good look at the 2nd Amendment and also read the Federalist papers that explain those articles.
First, the 2nd was written with the thought in mind of protection for the individual States from all incursions, be they foreign or domestic. We are talking about a Militia of Civilians to protect the State and to use the weapons of the time, both military or civilian, what ever was available in the hands of the civil population.
This is the same today as it was then. We, the citizens, have the same position to protect our State against all incursions using all of the weapons, military or civilian, to protect our State against those same invaders, be they foreign or domestic. Therefore, we the citizens are given the right to keep and bear arms of all types and calibers to discharge our duty to our State. We are actually no different than Switzerland except we do not have any age requirement for Militia service.
This right to hold weapons in our hands has no restrictions and can have no restrictions as to type or caliber. As the weapons become more functional for our prospective enemies, so must the weapons we hold in our hands. This is the clause specifying ‘this right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’.
We have come from muskets to full automatic 200 round magazines and one day in the near future the ‘UN agreement on small arms’ will come to our door to take our weapons away from us. What will you DO??
He didn’t have 20 minutes, it was closer to 11.
The point being that he’d have to stop and reload, during which time he could have been challenged.
“…it’s obvious that Lanza had no difficulty changing magazines.”
He did have to reload and so no, he wasn’t (and couldn’t be) challenged.
Who was there to challenge him? When seconds count, the police are minutes away. And since it’s a gun free zone, the administration was disarmed, they could not do it either.
Your comment is a non-sequitur.
Oh yes, Techno, it sure takes a LONG time to change magazines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAFxgQmxbGI
BTW, this mag could very well be a low-capacity 10 round model and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.
The argument that magazine changes introduce time where the bad guy can be tackled by non-carrying good guys pretty well goes away with this example. You know what stops a bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.
We’re on to you, liberal trolls. What part of “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED” is unclear to you?
“The NRA has estimated that semi-automatic weapons make up about 15% of privately owned firearms in the U.S.A. That would be over 45M weapons, but I suspect that estimate is far too conservative. If there are 118M handguns in private hands, there are probably almost 45M semi-automatic handguns alone.”
Those statistics seem way way too low. For instance, I’ve seen maybe several dozen hand-guns owned by various people other than licensed retailers, and I’ve only seen maybe 3 that were NOT semi-automatic, 2 of them antiques. Unless there are a lot more antique collectors than is my impression, I would have guessed that if there are 118M hand-guns, then there would be over 105M of them semi-automatic.
Ditto long-guns — rifles and shot-guns. I guess there are a slightly higher proportion of manual-pump shot-guns, and a few double-barrelled shot-guns, and there are a very few single-shot, high precision target rifles… maybe 90% or more semi-auto.
But, in the historical context of defending ourselves against initiators of force and fraud and ensuring the security of a FREE state, a lot more people should own selective fire and anti-tank weapons.
Well, Techno, there is a reason for us being able to possess those weapons. They protect us from a tyrannical government.
For that matter, they protect us from the tyranny of YOU. You, who would force your ideas onto the rest of us and disarm us so we never have the means or right to stop you if you encroach onto our personal sovereignty. And time and again, people such as you have proven that they will do so. Disarm us? Screw you and the rest of you Lefty Jackals.
You can have all of your fine ideas about gun control along with your disdain for our Constitutional Rights. In fact, if you like this so well, move to Australia then.
Sorry, didn’t mean to comer across as so jerky. I am incensed at this issue and the casual way some believe our Constitutional Rights are merely “a scrap of paper,” to be abandoned on a whim.
We are playing a shell-game if we don’t acknowledge that the TRUE PURPOSE of 2A is to enable the citizens to protect themselves, when the need arises, against their own government! To that end, we had better have, along with the Patriotic officers in Oathkeepers, a weapon to match the ones a renegade government might send against us! (Can you say “Ruby-Ridge” or “Waco”?) CAN YOU REALLY GUARANTEE ME THAT THIS ILLEGAL PRESIDENT AND HIS MARXIST GANG WON’T EVER DO THIS??? REALLY???
This is astonishing. The same people who declare that there’s a hidden meaning beyond the words of the constitution also declare that words which ARE there (i.e. the first clause about the well-regulated militia) have no meaning at all. Despite being the very FIRST clause in the second amendment.
I’m sure that, if the framers wanted people to keep an arsenal for use against their government, they’d have mentioned it. Just three words – “against the government”. It’s a lot shorter than all that guff about the “security of a free state” which nobody pays any attention to.
T-NO: “It’s a lot shorter than all that guff about the “security of a free state” which nobody pays any attention to.”
Techno knows, you’ve got to see it to believe it, from Australia what Americans pay attention to. We can close the Supreme Court down, lads. Techno can do their job free. What a deal!
Techno doesn’t seem to know any more about our Constitution and laws than a coral snake knows about Tasmania.
“On June 26, 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller (PDF), the United States Supreme Court issued its first decision since 1939 interpreting the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers an individual right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense. It also ruled that two District of Columbia provisions, one that banned handguns and one that required lawful firearms in the home to be disassembled or trigger-locked, violate this right.”
http://loc.gov/law/help/second-amendment.php
Well, Liberals seem to find any old meaning they want to in the “penumbra” of the Constitution, so why not find the meaning in the, you know, actual words?
Regardless of why you think the words are there, the SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED part is unmistakable. To anyone.
Five shooting incidents in the week leading up to Christmas here in Sydney alone and a shooting murder the week after. Two elderly couples in their 70s-80s attacked and injured in their homes on new years eve. Australia Post worker found guilty of illegally importing at least 150 Glock pistols. Politicians enacting more laws and restrictions on LEGAL firearm owners because they want to seem to be doing something. I could go on for pages like this Techno. In your case the arrogance of telling another country what they should do after screwing up your own is breath taking.
Sorry to hear the bad news, but as for me, thank you for your comment.
Two paws up!
“Five shooting incidents in the week leading up to Christmas here in Sydney alone and a shooting murder the week after”
I can find a report of a shooting death in sydney on the 19th, but I’m not seeing one since xmas – at least not in the press. If you’re talking about the one in punchbowl, it appears to be part of one of (ever so many) inter-family feuds that keep the media entertained. To quote the Detective Superintendent Michael Mclean, “There is nothing to suggest that any other members of the public.. need to be in fear of this occurring” (source of quote: ABC online)
But … so what? Yes, there are bad people in the world, and some of them have guns. And the daily telegraph makes sure that you hear about every single one of them. But our gun crime statistics still leave the US in the shade.
The week that sydney had that one shooting death, a town in rural pennsylvania had four: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2012/12/22/07/23/four-killed-in-pennsylvania-shooting-spree
“Two elderly couples in their 70s-80s attacked and injured in their homes on new years eve”
News year’s eve was appalling. As I’ve said before, I think australians have a very unfortunate relationship with alcohol, and very broken expectations about how to act when drunk. The new year’s eve road toll was up around 6 or so too.
“Australia Post worker found guilty of illegally importing at least 150 Glock pistols”
Hang on a minute – do you know if that’s actually gone to TRIAL yet? He was arrested in march (bail refused). I’m not sure if justice works that quickly. But yes, he does seem banged to rights. You’re probably also aware of the ABC 7.30 investigation into sydney airport customs – a problem that two governments have kicked down tho road, now (and albo has no excuse – he knew about it well before the government changed, because he was the guy that the whistleblower gave his report to in 2005).
But sure – a (allegedly) corrupt postal worker (allegedly) conspired with a freight operator and criminals to import pistols. And he got caught.
And our gun crime statistics STILL leave the US in the shade.
“Politicians enacting more laws and restrictions on LEGAL firearm owners because they want to seem to be doing something”
I don’t see anyone talking about tightening out gun restrictions right now. Since the handgun buyback in 2001 (i.e over ten years ago), there hasn’t been much call for changing the status quo.
“I could go on for pages like this Techno”
Oh, please do.
“after screwing up your own”
Not so much, no.
Don’t need “control” over semi-autos, moron.
There are 94 million gun owners in this country and over 99% won’t commit a crime this year. Gun owners (and guns) are not the problem. Hell, CCW holders are a more law-abiding demographic group than cops.
You really want to fix the problem? Lock the loonies back in the looney bins and stone ‘em to the gills on thorazine. Stop subsidizing bastardy with tax dollars. Expel illegal aliens with extreme prejudice and fortify the southern borders. Put young black urban males in concentration camps (ugly, eh?). These things are not politically correct, but if you look at the violent crime statistics, they are the primary sources of violent crime.
Personally, I prefer to take my chances with freedom. And firearms.
I HAVE BEEN STRESSING THIS FOR OVER A YEAR . IF THE FEDS TRY TO DISARM AMERICANS. ITS GOING TO BE HELL ON EARTH.NOW REALIZE THIS. WHEN THIS HAPPENS THE MILITARY WILL JOIN THEIR FAMILY .THEY WILL TURN ON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE U.S.A. AND THE FIRST THING THEY OR WE WILL DO IS TO REBEL PROSECUTE EVERY PERSON THAT IS FOR VIOLATING AMERICANS RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS., AND TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK, THATS WHAT IT IS GOING TO TAKE. THERE WILL BE SO MUCH BLOOD SHED THAT THE BODIES OF WATER WILL TURN RED.
When the U.S. had less gun control (1960) it had less mass shootings. Guns are not the problem.
Ok, but when america had no guns at all (say, the 13th century) there were NO shootings.
So as you can see … things aren’t quite that simple.
Yeah, and I’m sure all those tiny little 13th century women did just fine fending off their larger male rapists armed with swords.
Guns aren’t called “equalizers” for nothing. For a good education on the subject (assuming you actually want to education yourself and don’t just get your jollies being a troll) check out this essay:
https://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization/
Why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
Do you have a point to make? If so, will you let us know when you have it formulated?
Are you aware that the US is not Australia?
He also does not seem to know that America has over 300,000,000 people while Australia has only 22,000.000 and as such crime in a country that is 13.65 times the size would probably have 13.65 times more crime as a result!
Yeahhhh…. that’s why we talk about “crime rates” (i.e. per capita) rather than simple counts.
Techno, you seem like a thinking person so how about we look at statistics? If there are over 310 million guns of all types in the US then lets look at the number of mass murders committed with them. This year we have had about ten mass killings that I can think of and half of those were committed with pistols. So if we had five mass killings committed with semi-auto rifles, I refuse to call them “Military style assault rifles”, and add all of the deaths up we come to about fifty dead. Consider what percentage of the dead were killed by what percentage of the total long guns in the US. If we use the above figures of 110,000,000 long guns and divide that be 50 deaths and it comes out to be 2,200,000 long guns per death! In almost any safety study this wouldn’t even raise a red flag let alone call for any changes in present policy. No my friend, it isn’t the guns that are the problem any more than it is the water that kills in a storm. It is the force behind the gun and the force behind the water that kills and the implements are harmless until then.
So, by your reckoning, mexico would be much better off with exactly the same murder rate that it has now, but if everyone was simply given a couple of guns to keep in a cupboard. Not to use, but just to keep.
Because that would bring the number of murders per gun down. The number of murders wouldn’t change … there’d just me more guns to divide them by.
That’s a bit like trying to cut the road toll by making everyone buy a second car.
Do you understand now why that’s ridiculous?
Yes, the right to have a car with an automatic transmission needs to be infringed upon. That way there will be fewer deaths on the road, a very worthy cause.
Isn’t that pretty much exactly what happens? In most places, you have to pass a competency test to drive a car, and cars and drivers are regulated.
@Techno: in regard to political will……….there are some huge factors that gun-grabbers will have to overcome to implement their unconstitutional and illiberal schemes.
First, the “buyback” that Dian Feinstein is so “magnanimously” offering to placate her confiscatory proposals does not come anywhere NEAR the actual value of the guns she purposes to buy back, and consequently fails to meet a Constitutional threshhold. The Constitution REQUIRES compensation at fair market value whenever the state exercises eminent domain to confiscate property for its own purposes. She is offering $500 per AR15. The AVERAGE fair market price of an AR15 BEFORE her misbegotten bill was over $1,000.00, so she is proposing to steal 50% of the value of any “bought back” gun. There haven’t been any “$500″ AR15s for sale in this country for 20 years or more. That is an unconstitutional and illegal “taking.” Now, add to that the fact that BECAUSE of her proposed legislation, the fair market value of an AR15 previously worth $1,000.00 rocketed upward and is currently in the $2,500.00-$3,000.00 range. So if she forces a buy-back, she is literally ROBBING the owner of anywhere from 4/5 to 5/6 of its fair market value. There is no way in hell that any American would submit to such evil, REGARDLESS of the nature of the property being confiscated.
But it doesn’t end there. Feinstein’s legislation’s wording includes the following nuggets:
1) any existing privately owned weapons to be grandfathered by registration with BATFE as a NFA Class III item (think “machine guns”), requiring a $200 tax stamp per firearm meeting the new requirements. For some collectors, that which they purchased perfectly legally would now be subject to either thousands of $$ in taxes, or confiscation. Not to mention that the BATFE can take as long as a year to process ONE application under normal circumstances. What is a law-abiding owner to do to stay out of trouble in the interim? Add to that the certainty that (perfectly in line with the Cloward-Pivens leftist model) the system would be overwhelmed by a veritable flood of applications that could easily take several years to process.
2) any existing privately owned MAGAZINES of greater than 10 rounds capacity would have to be separately logged in as an NFA item, with its own application and $200 tax stamp. This would not only further crush the application process, but it is not at all uncommon for someone who owns a rifle like an AR15 to also own 20-30 magazines for it, and so this would constitute another $4,000-$6,000 in fees……….or confiscation. But it doesn’t end there……..
3) ANY firearm, pistol OR rifle, capable of ACCEPTING a magazine of greater than 10 round capacity would be a banned weapon. How ridiculous is that? Every single Glock 9mm sold in California with reduced capacity magazines restricted to 10 rounds for the past 30 years would be suddenly banned because they are CAPABLE of accepting a standard capacity magazine of 15, 17, or 33 rounds.
Here is my answer to anyone evil enough to try to ram this shit down my throat: ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ. I’m an old man and I’ve had a good life, and I know for a fact where I’m headed in the next life. As Edmund Burke is alleged to have written, “all that is necessary for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.” I refuse to allow evil to prosper. ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ.
One thing which people often overlok when comparing the United States to Australia is that Australia was originally a British penal colony. Ths suggests that the people down there are cursed with a tendency to blindly accept whatever the state tells them. The U.S. must NEVER become like that.
Erm … at least australia’s slaves got to go free (and, at least initially, were given land grants) after their sentence ended. They became full citizens.
Why don’t you just mind your own business and stay out of these conversations as you aren’t a citizen and have no interest in what happens in America?
I don’t’ see anyone here asking for you comments, so collect up your cousin Piers the fraud Morgan and keep your opinions to yourself.
The majority of American gun owners honesty don’t give a damm what other countries choose to do about their gun laws. We are not going to jump through hoops to keep what is our Constitutional RIGHT to have.
It is a profound waste of time and money to take away the RIGHT of law abiding citizens when the negligent fools that are in office don’t/ won’t protect our borders from illegal gun runners, murderers, human trafficers, and terrorists. If they want to nab a gun runner they can start by arresting the US Attorney General Eric Holder, the perpetrator of Operation Fast & Furious; Then proceed to his capo de tute capo, Obama and try him for high crimes,treasoness negligence and dereliction of duty.
Reduced unlawful firearms use by legal gun owners, by golly! (Of course, unlawful firearms use by illegal gun owners went up horrendously in Australia… they forget to mention that one.)
No. It didn’t.
But on the off chance that you think you’re right … prove it. Tell us where you got that claim from.
An article about it made press after the Aurora theater shooting in Colorado.
Why don’t you prove your counter claim. If you can. If what you claim is true, than you certainly can provide the proof that the previous poster is wrong.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand… <<>>
Sure.
Have a look: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/facts/1-20/2011/1_recorded.html
Those are build on the ABS statistics. They’re recorded crime data, no victimisation surveys.
Also
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/violent%20crime/robbery.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-27/authorities-target-illegal-handgun-trade/3976404
“On the eve of the 16th anniversary of the Port Arthur massacre, the Government has announced plans to amend Australia’s gun laws.
National figures are difficult to obtain, but in New South Wales, drive-by shootings are up 41 per cent in the past two years.
”
That can’t be right, Techno and other progressive/far left nutters have assured us that they solved gun violence in Oz with the Port Arthur gun bans thier government imposed in such a fascist way.
On a different note, I bet National figures are hard to get, and when you get a few they are likely manipulated by the progressives who populate all governments. Their agenda must be shown to work, and when it does not… they cover the truth like cats in the litter box.
Then they send out such as Techno to spread the propaganda and agenda via “talking points”. The current far left meme is that Oz as gun control model. You see the coordination in papers/media of all types. And with such as Techno here.
We on the right need to get as organized. Because the marxist are worldwide.
“On a different note, I bet National figures are hard to get”
Not for the civilised countries, no.
“and when you get a few they are likely manipulated by the progressives who populate all governments”
Yes. The crime stats for every country except america are padded by “progressives”. Or, at least, people who think a 1920′s understand of crime is a bit outdated.
“Their agenda must be shown to work, and when it does not… they cover the truth like cats in the litter box”
So all of the governments of the world are lying … even about homicide, which is far lower in australia (currently about 1 per 100,000 PA) than it is in the US.
“Then they send out such as Techno to spread the propaganda and agenda via “talking points””
I have no talking points – I’m responding to claims as I see them (and it’s been most informative). I’ve been doing it for a couple of weeks now, and wow … I honestly can say that the US is in a bad place, violent-crime-wise. And I can also say that the pro-gun has a huge head-start in propagating … let’s call them not-quite-truths.
And nobody has sent me anywhere. I just happen to have a lot of free time at the moment because it’s christmas. If you had this argument in a couple of months I probably wouldn’t get involved.
“The current far left meme is that Oz as gun control model. You see the coordination in papers/media of all types. And with such as Techno here”
ALL the papers? ALL the media? Have you considered that, just maybe, there might be some truth to it? If you look around, all the media and papers think gravity exists, too. If you look around and EVERYONE disagrees with you … you’re either a misunderstood genius or very wrong. Do you feel lucky?
“We on the right need to get as organized. Because the marxist are worldwide”
The US pro-gun lobby is very organised, and already very well funded. And I’m not sure I’ve ever actually met a real “marxist”
I have seen this where did you get the numbers/prove it argument from the anti-self defense crowd for quite some time now. So in the intetest of accuracy we need to translate US and UK/Aus crime definitions to make sure we are talking about the same thing:
Murder: Death by foul play in the all three nations. Hard to ignore the body.
Rape: UK/Aus: Rape, US: The more heinous crime of rape rape.
Armed robbery: UK/Aus: The lads just having some fun: US. Some thugs attacks you and takes your money or goods.
Armed Robbery victim potecting himself: UK/AUS: aggravated assault. US: Self Defense.
Home Invasion: UK/Aus: Friends you haven’t met yet: US: Armed robbery, assault, rape in your house.
Home Invasion victim: UK/Aus: Party pooper. See above if householder resists. US: Self Defense.
Nice!
Very amusing, but not actually true.
“Rape: UK/Aus: Rape, US: The more heinous crime of rape rape”
Er … wha? If the FBI actually counted ALL of them, you’d have a point. But it doesn’t. If the victim is male, it’s counted (by the UCR) as assuault (according to the UCR documentation). Unless violence occurs, it doesn’t count – and it explicitly excludes statutory rape unless violence was used (unconscious victim? your guess is as good as mine). And the definition of “rape” itself is very narrow – reflecting its 1920′s definition.
In australia, an unconscious or victim counts, if consent is not given. If the threat of violence is present, that counts, if consent is not given. Male victims actually count, in the australian statistics. But more broadly – ausrtalia counts sexual assaults, not just “rape” according to the FBI definition.
And try to remember that this isn’t a reflection on our laws – it’s just the definitions for the ABS headline crime stats.
“Armed robbery: UK/Aus: The lads just having some fun: US. Some thugs attacks you and takes your money or goods”
Well, no. That’s the same everywhere. The same goes for the rest of comparisons. And the idea that self-defence is somehow illegal in australia or the UK is just silly. If you _kill_ somebody while defending yourself, you can expect to be asked a few questions, though.
The problem with comparing statistics isn’t because our laws are particularly different – it’s because the FBI’s definitions mean the results are conservative.
In australia, if you’re assualted and your wallet taken – that counts as two crimes. In the UCR figures, that’s a robbery, but not counted as an assault (at least, that’s what their user guide says).
If australia and the UK adopted the current UCR reporting definitions, their crime rates would drop overnight.
You again!! Look, pick the inner city, say Chi Town, and I will take you to South Chicago and we can walk the streets while you ask the gang banger to turn in their arms. If you are successful, we can repeat in all major cities. Then you will go to each state and ask that anyone convicted of a crime using a weapon must have mandatory 20plus years to life with no chance of early release and or death penalty for murders committed with a firearm. If each state approves it then we will work on evicting every foreign gang from the US. Then we will ask each state to make it mandatory for every suspected person with MH issues to be involuntarily committed until they are shown to not be a threat to anyone.
Then after all that we can talk about the WON and his civilian army, the elite having armed private security guards as well as politicians and then we can look at disarming legal citizens. Until then bite me.
what was it our ‘most famous kenyan’ said, ‘i need an army just as large and well armed as the u.s. military in order to impose my final agenda’ (paraphrase)?
not 100% possible to be sure, so revert to plan ‘b’. demoralize, divide, obliterate their constitution, destroy their economy, put in place methods of destroying any dissent, and write enough e.o.’s to give the prez. dictator-like powers in a time of crisis.
so, he puts thousands of potentially and quickly armed deadly drones over our heads. check.
he seeks to continually confuse, demoralize and obliterate our military (benghazi, keep a senseless war brewing, screw up the rules of engagement, question allegiances, etc.). check.
allow unfettered access to all areas of our beautiful country by anybody crossing the festering sore that is our southern border by people who hate gringos and infidels. check.
put guns/weapons into the hands of as many drug dealers, murderers, etc. as possible to ramp up the drug war (fast & furious). check.
e.o’s in place. check. czars in place. check. media lap dogs on board. check.
seek under the table agreements w/ America’s old enemies for ?????. check.
take away honest elections. check.
take away from Americans as many guns as possible using any tactic necessary. working for checkmate. 41 million American hunters, veterans + other gun owners appears to be the last obstacle the would-be dictator needs to neutralize.
i would have included dumbing down 1/2 of the population, but that is already self-evident.
I wish there was an “up” button here! ^ + 50
Anyone who has at all seriously looked into the writings of the Founding Fathers, who wrote the United States Constitution after all, should know they wanted the American People to be able to have the same fire power as any standing army had – in fact, that was pretty much the whole idea – to be able, if needed (call it an insurance policy), to protect themselves against any standing army, foriegn or domestic.
I might add that John Kerry should more than agree as he has said that our troops are like a bunch of Genghis Khans.
Precisely.
Fully automatic weapons. Crew served weapons. Anti-tank missiles.
Yes, that’s right. That’s what the 2nd Amendment is about.
People, stop being afraid of it.
Stop surrendering the battle by agreeing that “nobody needs machine guns, and I don’t want my neighbor to have a bazooka”.
Give up the military purpose of the 2nd Amendment, and the battle is lost. We are already on the ropes. It may be too late, and intellectual cowardice isn’t helping.
Best response I’ve read in some time, from the comments on this article from American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/01/why_does_anybody_need_a_30-round_magazine_comments.html#disqus_thread
IT’S THE BILL OF RIGHTS, NOT THE BILL OF NEEDS.
It has now been 12 months since gun owners in Australia were forced by a new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by our own government, a program costing Australia taxpayers more than $500 million dollars.
The first year results are now in:
Australia-wide, homicides are up 6.2 percent,
Australia-wide, assaults are up 9.6 percent;
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)!
In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!).
While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since the criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed.
There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the elderly, while the resident is at home.
Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort and expense was expended in “successfully ridding Australian society of guns….” You won’t see this on the American evening news or hear your governor or embers of the State Assembly disseminating this information.
The Australian experience speaks for itself. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property and, yes, gun-control laws affect only the law-abiding citizens.
http://theobamafile.websitetoolbox.com/post/show_single_post?pid=1276138947&postcount=74
What? The criminals did not turn in their guns? Arrest them!
Who cares if a weapon was “designed for war”? The Brown Bess musket, which early Americans owned in vast numbers, was designed for war also.
And muslims are designed for war; But, are they automatic or semi-automatic?
More like cheap munitions – have a problem blowing up at random.
More important, they were a “Military Effective” weapon for personal ownership. In this day and age, a semi-automatic AR-15 is somewhat militarily capable.
If we kept to the strict letter and intention of the 2nd Amendment and the Founders, average people would own M-60 Machine Guns and Mortars, anti-tank weaponry and armored vehicles, because those are what are required to defend against “enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Wait, what? A semi-automatic handgun is every handgun which is not a revolver (or some kind of weird one-shot target shooting dealie). So I would guess MOST of the handguns in the US are semi-automatic.
And there’s nothing especially rapid-fire about them. I used to have a taste for revolvers. I could fire them every bit as rapidly as a semi-automatic — and they never jam!
I hate it when my articles about inaccurate gun reporting contain inaccurate gun reporting
Yea! I drive a stick shift truck; I guess that is a “semi-automatic” too.
An electric crock pot is a “semi-automatic” kettle. And my lawnmower is “semi-automatic”.
With a little ingenuity, modifying a revolver to fire every round with one pull of the trigger is possible. If I remember correctly, there are automatic cannons; Been on airplanes for about a century.
All modern revolvers are double action, i.e., a single trigger pull fires the gun and rotates the cylinder. With the use of speed loaders you can fire the seven shot version of the Smith and Wesson 686 revolver as fast as a M1911. The only difference is 8lbs of trigger pull.
8 lbs times 7 rounds equals 56 pounds. I get cramps just thinking about that.
I like my idea of one trigger pull to empty the gun.
And then you’re done. You broke your wrist and the gun blew up! Six chambers, one barrel.
“You broke your wrist and the gun blew up!
And you missed. Personally, I think the machine-gun restrictions just save the bad guys ammunition. Semi-auto at least makes them think about aiming.
Metal Storm has a 36 barrel prototype that has a one million round/minute capability. I don’t know if it comes with a pistol grip.
Seriously; There’s been many guns with 2 barrels that you could shoot simultaneously. (Double barrel shotgun, and Derringers of various calibers). And handgun calibers in modern revolvers up to 60 cal.
There’s also an auto-shotgun.
Hear hear! A simple search for videos of Jerry Miculek or Bob Munden in action with their revolvers can demonstrate the ridiculous lie / distortion of anti-gunners’ ‘rate of fire’ arguments, against ‘semi-auto’ firearms. ANY firearm can be fired swiftly. And one of the Columbine killers used a bag full of 10rd mags for his pistol.
Here’s one thing you might learn from other countries – althoguh Israel has gun control (“need to carry”), if you have a license on your person, you can carry ALMOST ANYWHERE – you just show it to the guard at the bank, supermarket, mall, school, whereever. Terrorism concentrateds the mind wonderfully.
There is one thing I would like clarified. Given that the second amendment does mention the militia, would it not indicate that the Federal government (which sets militia standards, as per the constitution itself) would have the write to know who owns each gun, or at least require the state to know, as per training guidelines? (I am not referring to what is right, but what is stated.)
It is my personal belief, substantiated by reading the thoughts of the founders and the findings in the SCOTUS Heller decision, that the intended purpose of the militia clause in the Second Amendment was simply to give our government the power to REQUIRE every citizen to keep and maintain the arms, ammunition, and equipment necessary to serve should the militia be called up. At the time 2A was written the militia was defined as all able bodied males 17 to 45 not otherwise in government service.
You are reading a strange language then.
The 2nd is quite clear.
…er… No. It was put in there, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, as a check on government power. Period. The government simply cannot grant or deny you rights that you already possess. That as the point. The Bill of rights was put there to tell the government, ‘The government can’t touch these rights, in any way, shape or form, for any reason at all, however good the reason.’
Thus, the old law banning fully automatic weapons was, by the Founder’s standards, un-constitutional. Same wrt licensing, registation, permits and any law or tax restricting gun owners and gun ownership.
Of course, now we’ve got laws everywhere either restricting these rights or denying them, completely. iow, we’re no longer living in a constitutional democracy. We’re already living under a tyranny.
Then, too, as the author implied, gun ownership in America is a part of the culture. Try to change any society’s culture at your own peril and only at the risk of your own life.
Er, no. We are a Constitional REPUBLIC. Any so called Conservative who uses the term Democracy to describe our form of government is highly suspect.
Agree with your other points.
OK, but my question above was that wouldn’t the constitution, under the clause stating that Congress sets militia standards, allow Congress to require that all gun owners report such ownership to Congress or their State? I’m not RECOMMENDING such a law – I would be against it – just asking why the constitution, as written, wouldn’t allow for it.
I read somewhere that the 2nd is actually a combination of two proposed amendments; Virginia wanted to be sure the states would retain the right to raise militias and Massachusetts (of all places) wanted to make sure the individual retained the right to keep and bear arms.
Maybe the framers wanted to keep the number to “10″ in the Bill of Rights to reflect the ten commandments, or just to keep the number manageable.
In fact, there were 12 proposed articles in the Bill of Rights. The last 10 were quickly ratified and are Amendments 1-10. The first article was never ratified. The second was ratified in 1992 and became the 27th Amendment.
You won’t see much of a change in Illinois crime rates since there are very few places where you can carry a loaded gun and these generally are not very crime prone anyway. Most crime takes place in Chicago and East St, Louis and there very few legal guns in these locatons.
What is likely to happen is that Illinois will get court ordered CCW with the ban and then the antis will claim their gun ban did it.
Forgot to add this link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/01/01/with-gun-control-cost-benefit-analysis-is-amoral/
If the AR is made for “war”, then their ignorance is being used for warfare.
I’ll turn in my guns when they surrender their ignorance.
Waiting . . . Techno and the rest of his paid staff are busy scouring the net with searches to find articles and data that fit their narrative, waiting . . .
We can debate stats and data, compare countries, argue over semantics until we are blue in the face. It is meaningless. Get control over your semi-autos, that is not the answer. Get control over the crime, not the tool. It is a human problem, not a tool problem.
It started with rocks, moved to spears, bow and arrow, gun powder was invented, then the H bomb. Man continues to escalate the game. The only thing keeping it even moderately in check is the few good men and women who are still devoid of selfish and evil intent that are able to meet force with force. You strip away the ability for those who wish to defend what is good and good will be lost.
Techno is a classic internet troll, challenging every statement, demanding cites to juried papers, quoting data out of context, and flooding us with strawman arguments to deflect the real issues. Then of course when anyone presents the requested information they find that Techno has left the building, gone on to any venue less resistant to his babble.
Everyone should read his postings for an excellent course in how the progressive left attempts to hijack what would otherwise be a reasonable discussion on most any topic and drive the conversation into inevitable frustration and name calling. Once having seen how he operates you need never pay the least bit of attention to any of his posts ever again for they contain nothing of value in and of themselves.
“Techno is a classic internet troll, challenging every statement, demanding cites to juried papers, quoting data out of context, and flooding us with strawman arguments to deflect the real issues. Then of course when anyone presents the requested information they find that Techno has left the building, gone on to any venue less resistant to his babble.”
Using the above; then Obama is a classic “internet troll” because the above quote describes what he does to a “T”.
Uncle Lar, if you want to get some documentation of what is happening, read this: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7522. It is a expose on the “Cloward-Pivens” strategy being deliberately used to try and bring down our economic system and substitute marxist socialism. Obummer is merely the current figurehead, but there are a lot of people involved, and the documentation is extensive, and sources which the left cannot refute (NYT, etc.) fully support the history.
“Techno is a classic internet troll, challenging every statement, demanding cites to juried papers, quoting data out of context, and flooding us with strawman arguments to deflect the real issues”
HALP! He’s scaring me with his questions!
I’m fine with you guys saying you just want guns, no matter what. And feel free to make bogus comparisons between US states and cities. My primary beef here (and on numerous threads before this one) is that the international comparisons (at least with the US or UK, and I’m pretty sure canada and israel) do not support your arguments. So if you try to USE those comparisons, and if I notice, I’ll become obsessed with arguing with you. I should stop, though. It’s taking up a lot of time that could be put to better use (and no, I’m not being paid to post here, I’m not part of any conspiracy, so just leave it out)
“Then of course when anyone presents the requested information they find that Techno has left the building, gone on to any venue less resistant to his babble.”
I think that, if you go over the last few PJM threads about guns, you’ll find that I do anything BUT leave the building. I have absolutely no problem with taking on your arguments, because I have the data, and you’re wrong. It’s not debatable, there is no ambiguity. The US and UK are safer than the US is, and the usual claims made about their crime rates by the pro-gun lobby are invariably wrong.
“Everyone should read his postings”
I agree.
“for an excellent course in how the progressive left attempts to hijack what would otherwise be a reasonable discussion on most any topic and drive the conversation into inevitable frustration and name calling”
Nope, I don’t want to engage in name-calling. That’s howard’s schtick. You can deal with the frustration by just accepting that you’re wrong about international comparisons on gun policies. Just stop trying to make out that the UK or Australian situations bolster your arguments, and then you’ll (probably) be fine.
And it’ll help if, before making rubbish claims about what hitler did, or how gun regulation works in israel or switzerland or any other country (particularly the scandinavian ones) … if you just them check first. Do a quick google, THEN post. Because the pro-gun lobby seems to be putting about bogus factoids that are just flat out wrong, and I think that’s been a cause of much embarrassment to people here over the couple of weeks.
“Once having seen how he operates you need never pay the least bit of attention to any of his posts ever again for they contain nothing of value in and of themselves”
Don’t look! Look away! Save yourselves! He’s swallow your SOUL!
You’re a tiresome lefty fool. At least in conservative circles there’s an old saw about Americans that still applies: The British go around in the World acting like they own it. The Americans go around in the World acting like they don’t care who owns it. We don’t care what some shithole country that we had to save or give back to its original owners after the Germans, Japs, or whomever the Hell else else took it from the wimps thinks about what we do here. Only lefties care about what the wimpy parts of the World think and want to emulate them. We don’t like lefties any more than we like the losers of the World. Oh, and one day, we’re going to have a serious disagreement with you people.
so. the lefties argue statistics, and the righties call them names. sounds legit.
@jack -
Don’t give a damn about their statistics, even when they’re true. Having bought a lot of statistics, you can get statistics to support whatever you want.
Thank you for that very convincing argument.
*sigh*
Art, you’re correct. But in all the bloviating by Tech?No we’re missing an important point. While he’s getting his thrill that somebody finally recognizes his existence, two Australian women were ‘sexually assaulted’ (he likes that term better than ‘rape’ even though government agencies define them as equal) and another victim was violently robbed. But Tech?No is not there to help. We’re supposed to be ‘civilized’ and let the police handle it. So instead of contributing to the social fabric, craven cowards like Tech?No spew on their keyboards, convinced of their moral superiority simply because they’re telling the world to stop practicing the civil right of self-defense. But will they ever help a crime victim? No. Will they ever stop a crime? No. Safely tucked away in their cave, trolls never have to face reality. All the time they’re telling us to be more civil, they’re contributing to the disintegration of civilization, destroying the social contract that if we are to have a civil society, decent people help those in need. Since violent criminals on average are 20-30 year old males, most of society is at a physical disadvantage for defending themselves or others. So we find a tool that equals the playing field. That’s why trolls contribute to violent crime, because the only people they can possibly control are those who had no intention of committing violence in the first place. The true predators love defenseless sheep like Tech?No. Except, of course, he never leaves his cave unless his internet connection goes down. So the rest of us get to pay the price for his Utopian hookah-pipe dream.
“(he likes that term better than ‘rape’”
Rubbish.
“even though government agencies define them as equal”
No, they don’t. But the RBA headline statistics don’t distinguish between them. You know that, so stop making out that you’ve been wronged because I pointed out to you that you can’ compare RBA stats with the UCR.
“But Tech?No is not there to help”
And neither are you.
“if we are to have a civil society, decent people help those in need”
Except … that’s not what you’re doing. By advocating for easy access to guns, and against measures to even _track_ their transfer, you’re PUTTING people in need. Those policies are arming the bad guys.
“Since violent criminals on average are 20-30 year old males, most of society is at a physical disadvantage for defending themselves or others”
That’s probably true, as far as it goes. But you’re simplifying things. In the real world, there is always risk involved in attacking somebody. I might be (older than 30), but suppose I bench-press 100kg, and kick like a mule? What if there are two of me? What if I have a can of mace? If I’m simply fitter or more inclined to play a robust sport than the bad guy, then he’s going to have a rough night.
Now …. suppose the bad guy has a gun. How does that make me safer?
Suppose I do have a gun but, because he’s not an idiot and doesn’t give himself away, he manages to draw first? Suppose there are two of him? Now you’ve got a problem – because THAT situation is far more likely to get somebody injured or killed.
“So we find a tool that equals the playing field”
Well, apparently it doesn’t. Look at your homicide rates, compared with other OECD countries. I don’t think it levels the playing field at all, outside of your daydreams. I think it gives the bad guys a cheap, easily concealable way to make sure they have the upper-hand from the outset (or at least think they do), and a quick way to eliminate a problem if things get out of hand. It’s also a tool that guarantees an escalation if the victim also has one. If the bad guy is intelligent and armed, than simply having a gun doesn’t (necessarily) make the victim any safer. It could get them shot.
“the only people they can possibly control are those who had no intention of committing violence in the first place”
Except, that’s not true. That’s why we have police and courts and prisons, to punish and deter. My attitude is that you should try to minimise the number of people maimed and killed in the meantime.
“So the rest of us get to pay the price for his Utopian hookah-pipe dream”
That utopian hookah-pipe dream is working pretty well in the places that it’s implemented. And ultimately, that’s the bottom line.
Well, as an Israeli, I would say that there is some basis for comparision. True, we are “need to carry”, but we have few “gun-free zones” and the fact that a large enough cross-section of the populace consists of soldiers (male and female) walking among the people with issued weapons serves as a similar protection against crime (even if they aren’t allowed to use them for the purpose) and government tyranny (beyond the existing tyranny of our unelected Supreme Court).
(Of course, it is possible that Jews still have some good habits left over from before the so-called Jewish Enlightment (haskalah) started messing things up.)
“According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2009 there were an estimated 310 million firearms in the United States (not including weapons on military bases), of which 114 million were handguns, 110 million were rifles, and 86 million were shotguns.”
I don’t know anyone on either side of the gun control issue that seriously disputes those numbers. It’s a fact that we have nearly as many guns as we do citizens, and more guns than we have adults. The nation is, as some love to point out, “awash with guns”.
So if guns are causing the problem why aren’t we having a Sandy Hook massacre every week? Hell, shouldn’t we be having one every DAY? Why aren’t we ankle deep in blood on daily basis? And why have Texans not been driven to extinction by the unremitting violence that results from widespread gun ownership?
What the gun control advocates refuse to admit is that there are no logical answers to those questions. If they were willing to think rationally for just a few minutes they’d be forced to admit that guns aren’t the problem.
The liberal can’t accept the premise that it’s the individual, not the gun, that causes harm (offensive use versus defensive use) in all cases. By suggesting a ban on large magazines they are being generous (for now) since what they’d really like to do is ban all guns completely. Feinstein said that if she had the power it would be: “Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in.”
This is about control and by her statement she reveals her control-freakness. The Left looks at the masses with disdain as they see themselves as ‘above’ the peasant class- a class that needs fewer liberties and more regulations due to their uncivilized nature.
We owe them a debt of gratitude for providing State resources to protect us from all harm. As those who are dependent on the State for welfare, food, housing, etc, we should depend on the State for our security too. Ain’t Utopia grand?
110 Million rifles, yet only 323 murders (2.5% of the total murders) were committed with rifles.
3/10,000ths of 1% of the total rifles in the nation. Yet Feinstein et al would criminalize all the rest.
For those Americans who ask the question about why America can’t be more like another country that took away guns from their law-abiding citizens, I say, “Pack your bags, give up your citizenship and move to that Utopian country you long for. Oh, and don’t let the door hit you in the backside”!
None of those countries that they pine for had or have a Constitution like America that guarantees your natural, God-given rights. These knee-jerk reactions to tragedies such as Newtown do nothing to solve the real problem. Writing another gun law or restriction does nothing to affect a criminal, laws only affect the lawful.
Another law or ban is worse than useless.
Some points:
The myth that the 223/NATO 5.56 is particularly deadly is an out growth of the Vietnam era Army propaganda directed at troops who already had experience with the more powerful 308 Winchester cartridge. It was supposed to reassure the troops that they had a weapon superior to the M-14. It was a blatant falsehood. The 223 is the least powerful centerfire cartridge available. It is the next step up from the 22 Winchester Magnum rimfire round. It is not even the most powerful 22 caliber round available. Both the 220 swift and the 22-250 have 50% more energy than the 223. Also the military no longer is enamored with full automatic fire. The M-16-A4 used by the Marines and the Army’s M-4 carbine only have a three round burst setting. The burst mode is designed to increase the lethality of the weapon as all three rounds are going to the same target.
Murder rates in the UK and Canada have always been lower than the US. I don’t know about Australia but I suspect that is true there as well. It is a matter of demographics. I think it is an indisputable fact that the lack of a citizen’s right to own a gun is a major factor in making the UK the least safe country in the developed world but I think the primary factor that makes the UK a paradise for violent criminals is the legal system. Effective self-defense is virtually illegal. If you defend yourself you are as likely to end up charged than your attacker. It has created a citizenry that is passive in the face of an attack so violent criminals have a free reign. In the UK it’s “don’t bring a gun to a knife fight” because you can’t use the gun even if your life is threatened.
Pro-Second Amendment groups need to focus the argument on the tradeoff between banning guns and reducing the firearms murder rate, and the increase in other violent crimes that have lower lethality. How many more rapes, assaults, muggings and home invasions is it worth to reduce the already relatively low murder rate, e.g., 1-20,000 if you spread the risk uniformly across the population? Of course the risk of murder is not uniformly spread. 50% of the murders occur in the African American population. Crime statistics also show that anywhere between 67% and 90% of murder victims have prior felony convictions. The question I have been posing to gun control advocates is “how would you like your wife/daughter/sister/girlfriend/mother to face a rapist – with her bare hands or with a gun?” We will do a better job of protecting our Second Amendment rights if we make our opponents think about the tradeoffs. Murder is an abstraction for most Americans. Getting mugged or raped is not.
.
According to 2010 UN crime statistics the incidence of violent crime in the UK is five times that of the United States. Frequency of rape in Great Britain is twice that of America, while in Australia it is three times more likely.
Gun violence in both countries has always been lower than in the US, but has risen dramatically since the imposition of draconian gun control.
Though it may be old and trite, the observation that when guns are outlawed only the outlaws (and government, but I repeat myself) will have guns.
I was out at the gravel pit shooting one day. I had my (currently) $125 Mosin. Another guy had his Rock River Arms $3,000 AR-15 with a $5,000 scope on it. Just sitting side by side, you could feel how much higher my muzzle velocity was than his. He asked me about my Mosin, so I told him how it was a much better sniper platform than his AR with a much better round, and it was a virtually indestructible gun, and one of the most accurate iron-sights weapons I’ve ever fired. I let him fire a few rounds. I think he was impressed.
.223′s always DID seem terribly underpowered to me. Now, if I had one of those .308 AR’s or a 7.62x54R model…
At the most I think we will see a federal ban on the new manufacture of certain magazines or rifles, sensible or not, because it makes the politicos look like they are “doing something”.
8.mzk1
Americans flip out when they see anyone except a uniformed police officer with an open weapon. We just never had it here and I know it amuses Israelis when the tourists gawk at the soldiers with their rifles and regular dressed folks with sidearms.
Depends on where you live.
I live in Virginia where open carry is legal and the police are well versed in the Virginia Constitution. I can open carry anywhere with being hassled by the police. I generally conceal carry in Arlington, Alexandria and Falls Church but when I carry in the open people just assume I am a cop.
When I am in Colorado, outside of Boulder, Denver or Aurora, I openly carry a full size M1911. For those who don’t know it is an 8.25 inch long military handgun that sticks out like a sore thumb. I find it is a great conversation starter.
I suppose people could get used to it which would be a good thing. I have always thought we have too many conceled permits and not enough open ones.
Well, some places yes, and some places no. Newport News seems to have a big problem with it.
If you aren’t on VCDL’s mailing list, you should be!
http://www.vcdl.org/static/va-alert.html
Alaska has open carry and concealed unless prohibited as well as a formal permitting process for reciprocity. Once you’re out of town, most vehiles will have some sort of firearm(s). Once you’re out of town, you’re not at the top of the food chain, so 12 guages with slugs are very popular; I don’t leave home without it. Anywhere in Alaska, somebody in your field of vision is going to be armed. Out of town, most everybody is going to be armed, most openly. You rarely, almost never, see open carry in town except the ocassional tubby bearded guys trying to make a point on the 4th of July or some such. We have some gun violence but it almost always involves young men, usually non-white and often immigrants, and drugs and/or alcohol. The last good shootout was outside a notorious club and involved Russians, one of whom is dead and I’m told the other soon will be; he shot the wrong guy. The last burglary I can recall was a couple of punks tried to rob a guy in his house – probably drugs were at the root of it – and he pulled a pistol and killed them both. Burglar is not a common profession here. Rape is all too common but the most common victim is a homeless inebriate who probably couldn’t defend herself even if she were armed. Alaska’s horrendous rape statistics would improve dramatically if we could get around the ACLU and get the inebriates off the streets.
You blithely say ‘at the most’ as if that is tolerable at all. It is not. A crminalization of ANY class of arms in this nation will be a declaration of war upon its citizens and will be responded to as such.
Here is a proposal to reform gun laws many conservatives could embrace. I am not sure what the author means by National registry, I won’t accept ANY national firearm registry, but maybe I misread it, BUT there are many other proposals in this article most conservatives will like.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/01/bruce-w-krafft/a-compromise-gun-control-bill-i-can-live-with/
We just think it makes us safe. The uniforms help. And yes, we push people carrying fully-automatic weapons to get on buses.
And although I’m 100% against the female draft, there is nothing as cute as some tired 18-year-old girl in fatigues sleeping on the bus with her weapon (between her and the wall, and with the clip removed, of course) in her hand.
(In Texas too?)
And yes, we are getting more American, unfortunately, increasing gun control.
Why can’t we copy the good things in America, like having the Supreme Court chosen by elected officials, or starting Knesset sessions with a prayer, or respecting chaplains, or (at least) debating an abortion ban, or….
Well, we did save our economy with supply-side economics…..
There is a reason that police do not go through those bloody Chicago neighborhoods where there have been over five hundred murders in 2012. The reaon is not the search and seizure rues, neither Rahm, nor his pal Eric Holder give a rat’s patootie about the law. No, it’s that if they tried there would be a bloodbath. I am not sure how many dead and wounded cops it would take in Chicago or Washington, DC, NYC or LA but I know that the LEOs down here would suddenly catch a bad cold if ordered to go on a weapons search. Most criminals would fight. Some, ordinary, law abiding citizens would fight. And Kevlar won’t stop a deer rifle shot.
Meanwhile, exactly why are no major media people asking exactly why it took twenty minutes for the police to respond to reports of shooting in progress at a grade school. If it takes that long for them to respond to children being shot, I’ll try to protect my own family, thank you.
I carry a gun on my person because it is easier to carry a loaded 2 pound gun than a 250 pound cop, plus I can’t afford a 24 hour 7 day a week cop hourly wage, even if I could carry one around with me!
The article omitted something important about Switzerland:
While Swiss citizens who are part of the militia get to keep their guns at home, those guns aren’t loaded anymore.
Since 2007, Swiss citizens don’t keep ammunition at home. In case of emergency, they obtain ammunition from the local armory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
That’s their fault for not having a Constitution that protects the rights of private citizens against unscrupulous and over-zealous Leftist politicians who must continue to play to their knee-jerk base of moonbats. Know what I’m talking about, Sinzie?
BTW, sinzie, I read that link of yours. I didn’t see anything that says their guns are unloaded. Where did you get that strange piece of information?
?????????????? Swiss citizens don’t keep ammunition at home.??????????
And we know this how?
Guess this Swiss guy didn’t know he couldn’t have ammo.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWITZERLAND_SHOOTING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-01-03-06-59-22
I read the same article you got this information from. While it is true that the Swiss Military does not distribute ammo, it is readily available for any citizen to PURCHASE at any local gun store. Why did you leave that part out?
Swiss citizens can still freely obtain ammunition suitable for those military rifles from commercial sources. The restriction / return of the sealed 200rd battle packs of ammo to their armories was the high water mark of their own gun grabbers, achieved in 2005-6. The Swiss unwisely compromised with their leftists, who had wanted the rifles themselves rounded up and kept locked away.
I’m still unfamiliar with any official report of the Sandy Hook mass murder that would confirm the oft reported media assertion that the Bushmaster was used in the incident. With the exception of the medical examiners oral statement that evening indicating wounds caused by. 223 rounds (but there’s little reason to automatically assume that an ME in an upscale county in Connecticut is well versed in identifying gun shot wound calibers) no other report has cited any official source indicating that it was used. Other than the ME, every other time the Bushmaster was specifically identified, of which I’m aware, it was found locked in Lanza’s car.
Does anyone know the truth about the weapons used in the New Town massacre? This is the sixth version of something any rookie cop could readily define. The school rooms must have been filled with spent casings. I have read that those babies were killed with variants of a shotgun, rifle, or hand gun. (My latest is that they were killed with hand guns.) The reporters/ officials are either liars or incompetents.
If you study the many weapon characteristics, you can optimize the selection of a type of weapon for a particular purpose. That is what armorers do, both in the military and police forces. But any firearm, with repeated close range hits on a baby’s body would be devastating.
There is no significant distinguishing characteristic among firearms which would accomplish the goal of reducing America’s current murders (excluding machine guns and very large calibers which are already covered by law.)
Another gun ban law would be an ideological stupidity. The obvious elephant in the room is the differences between American and other cultures, and it would be profitable to study why this is reality. In one sentence, if we changed the collapse of our families, returned a functioning adult male father figure, if we managed our criminally insane, and if we reduced the gun violence in our black communities (not them, us), we could drastically reduce our murder rate.
But there are powerful forces who do not want to solve the real problem. First,”Thou shalt not lie” then, ” thou shalt not murder.”
When the report of the shooting first came out, there were 2 sidearms found at the scene, a Glock and a Sig. A little later there was video footage released of a cop taking what was alleged to be the Bushmaster out of the trunk of a car. That was the original Assault Rifle connection. The problem was, that footage was shoot at night. The shooting happened in the morning and the footage was released during the same day. One could also question how or why Lanza would shoot all these kids, go outside and place the rifle in the car and then go back inside to shoot himself. 9mm and 10mm shell casings look nothing like .223 casings and would be all over the floor. The Medical examiner appeared in front of the cameras to make the statement that all of the victims died of wounds inflicted by the long gun. His tortures statement was worded more like some legal parsing that Bill Clinton would come up with so who knows what those twisted words really meant. In the Colorado shooting 50 people were shoot with 17 fatalities. In Sandy Hook there may have been one injury but otherwise ALL died. Generally there are many more wounded that killed. There is a whole lot to this story that does not pass the smell test, but remember it’s not like the news media to make up stories to cover up actual events. Next thing you know they will be blaming terrorist attacks on youtube videos!(That couldn’t happen, right?)
Exactly. Your thinking is correct; there are obvious facts which should have been instantly, positively defined, e.g very dissimilar spent casings. But they were not, still are not. The coroner identified terminal ballistic effects (wounds) consistent with a .223 long gun “found” in the killer’s car.
None of this would contribute any real meaning to a gun ban debate, unless there is a vested reason for simple straight answers to be muddled. Or incompetence. I ask what happened, and why the grossly diverse reportings?
I do not believe we know the basic truths about New Town.
This just came up on facebook. Aparently two of the Sandy Hook “parents” that posed for the cameras are actuslly actors who work for the government and live in Florida!http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=516836478337036&set=a.128766093810745.15984.100000320640644&type=1&theater
Yep. The internet is TOTALLY going to make mainstream journalism redundant …
/sarc
I’m sorry to hear that you believe such utterly ridiculous nonsense on facebook. Why would “Big Government” bother? Do you dispute that 20 kids were killed that day, or was that fake too? So if the Big Government Gun-Grabbing Conspiracy wanted grieving parents, they hardly needed to truck them in from florida – they were everywhere, that day.
Sheesh.
I have seen some pretty absurd claims along these lines, but the “actors” in the top photo don’t look anything like those in the bottom photo.
Nothing new here, in the run up to the ’94 AWB, the nightly news would constantly run footage of an M16 firing full auto, claiming this was the type of weapon targeted.
On another note, perhaps these weapons are chosen by lunatics precisely because they are proclaimed by the media and politicians as ideal for killing lots of people quickly, creating a morbid feedback loop.
This. Exactly this. Right down to their common adoption of the ‘trenchcoat mafia’ / black-suited mall ninja outfit, which keeps being misreported as ‘body armor’ when the killer buys a $30 black cordura fabric ‘tactical’ vest to carry their armaments.
Wait… does this mean that I’m going to have to start buying my bourbon in those teensy, tiny airline bottles? Dang! I better stock up on the liter bottles real fast!
What needs to be done is to address violence in America, and the world.
Compare violent crime statistics between here and Europe, we end up looking much better then when the focus is solely gun crime.
We need to change the argument away from guns, and towards overall violence.
There was a very interesting article a couple weeks ago about the nature of gun-related homocides in America’s larger cities. They found that in Baltimore, fully 91% of homocide victims had criminal records, some quite extensive. In other large cities, the percentage of homocide victims having criminal records was well over 70%. It seems that in those cities, most of the homocides were criminals killing other criminals. Imagine that.
It has also been reported recently that a high percentage of homocides are directly due to battles over the sale of illegal drugs. As long as drugs are illegal and people want them, criminals will step in to fill the market need. The exact same thing happened with Prohibition back in the 1920s, greatly expanding the size and power of organized crime. If you want to cut down on drug-related homocides, legalizing drugs would be a step in the right direction. While I don’t use drugs and would never advocate them to anyone else, the current policy is failing. Einstein once said that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome. By that standard, the war on drugs is insane.
As a former Baltimorean, I can tell you one big problem is that the City Council is pro-criminal. When we got a guy out of NYC to try to reduce the crime rate, they tied his hands. Also, the State legilature has criminal lawyers who endanger the public for personal gain.
How about if we put in laws that state if you’re convicted of forcible rape, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, attempted murder, or membership in a street gang, you have five years to have a successful appeal, and then we execute you by lethal injection, first offense? To paraphrase the great Ron White, “You kill us, we will kill you back.” Last I checked, capital punishment has a pretty low recidivism rate.
membership in a street gang?
Sheesh. Get a grip.
Still waiting, and waiting very patiently, for the New York Times to speculate on what would have happened to the family in Cheshire, Connecticut, wiped out by armed intruders, had that family been armed. I’ll turn in my weapons. Sure, I will.
Newsflash: Full automatic firearms are perfectly legal for Americans to own. You only need the requisite paperwork (permit) after paying $$$ to the Government you can purchase one of many types of full-auto “machine guns.” You need to have around $16,000 to do so (for a gun built before 1986), which is why you will NEVER see one used in the commission of a crime. The “automatic weapon” argument is red herring used by the ignorant for the ignorant. But then, the anti’s never let facts get in their way.
I’m tired of hearing about Australia in these threads. Why do we constantly argue about Australia? They don’t have a 2nd amendment, never did. We didn’t start out as a penal colony either. So just shut up and enjoy your disarmed society.
Illinois looks like it will soon ban possession of ALL semi auto firearms (pistols, rifles and shotguns) statewide. We’ll be able to see first hand how effective that will be. When it fails miserably, they (the Liberals) will say that if only the neighboring states had the same restrictions, utopia could be realized. The argument is ALWAYS: “We need to do more to make us safe.” That, of course, translates as restricting the rights of law abiding citizens. My plan will be simple: Illinois will be off of my travel plans for good.
I have a suggestion for the gun banners: If you want to rid society of firearms, which we all know is your ultimate objective as evidenced by 20,000 unconstitutional gun laws already on the books, then repeal the 2nd amendment. Instead of trying to chip at it around the edges, grow some stones and come at us head on and be over with it one way or another.
I dare you.
Perhaps some of the misconception about fully automatic weapons comes from the movies and TV. I can’t count the number of times they’ve shown every two-bit gangbanger letting loose with a fully automatic weapon. Since, as you accurately point out, it’s very difficult and expensive to legally buy fully automatic weapons, that would imply that those gangbangers got the weapons illegally. Imagine that, criminals breaking the law. Who would’ve thunk it? If tons of illegal drugs can find their way across our borders every week, it wouldn’t be too difficult for illegal weapons to also come across.
There’s been only 2 registered ful-auto weapons used in crimes, and one of those was a duty weapon misused by a police officer.
This is incorrect, and irresponsibly so. A 30 round magazine in a semi-auto rifle is NOT a “high capacity” magazine. It is a normal capacity magazine. We should not be using the slanted terms of the enemies of liberty. Words matter.
High capacity magazines (75 rounds or more) are expensive and uncommon. (And most of them are unreliable.)
Not that the capacity of the magazines is relevant.
Reloading is a leisurely activity for killers in gun-free zones like schools.
Having worked with various magazine-fed arms over the years in my job, I can attest to the fact that even normal- capacity magazines have problems.
On the old Thompson sub-machine gun, the 100- round “C” drum rarely fed properly if it had more than 70 rounds in it. The 50-round “L” drum was considerably more reliable- if loaded with 40 rounds. The 30- round “stick” magazine worked- if you only put 27 or 28 rounds in it, otherwise it tended to misfeed the last couple after a bit of wear on the spring. The 20-round box, that barely protruded below the pistol grip(s), was the most reliable. It worked best with 18 rounds.
The Browning Automatic Rifle, the FAL, Heckler & Koch G3, and other such rifles have 20-round magazines because they don’t feed reliably with larger ones. At one time or another, every army that ever used any of them tried to develop a reliable 30-round magazine for use in one as the Squad Automatic Weapon. None of the 30-rounds ever worked very well.
The British Bren light machine gun, and the Czech ZB-26 it was descended from, both had 30-round magazines that fed in from the top (trying to use gravity to give the spring some help). Again, they tended to act up if the magazine had more that 27 or 28 rounds in it.
The 30-round AR-15 magazine isn’t really a 30-round. Originally, the Armalite rifle was designed to use a 20-round magazine; then, the Army requested a 25-round. When units in South Vietnam requested a higher-capacity magazine for the M-16 to match the 30-round in the AK-47s used by the Viet Cong and NVA, some “genius” in Army Ordnance found that he could put 30 cartridges in the existing 25-round box. Thereby overstressing the spring and causing feed failures.
(A friend of mine who is a Marine veteran of Hue says that the four rules for keeping the M-16 running are;
1. Keep it clean.
2. Keep it clean.
3. Keep it really clean, and
4. Never put more than 25 rounds in the “30-round” magazine, or more than 15 in the 20-round.)
BTW, the AK magazine tends to go on strike if you put more than 25 rounds in it, as well.
As for pistols, the hardest thing Beretta had to do in developing the M92 aka M-9 9mm pistol was getting the 15-round magazine to feed all 15 rounds. It’s actually a slightly-lengthened FN P-35 “Hi-Power” 13-round magazine. And the British Special Air Service used to gig anybody who put more than 10 rounds in that one.
On the whole, I prefer double-action, or even single-action, revolvers. I’ll take five or six almost-certain shots over a dozen or so “maybes” any day.
cheers
eon
That’s still not a valid reason for banning anything. It’s up to individuals, exercising their individual liberties, to purchase and own and carry (keep and bear) whatever they want to do. Restricting a right is never the answer. The whole idea that magazine springs “take a set” has been disproven. It USED to be true, but modern metallurgy has put the kibosh on that. It isn’t packing them down that causes malfunctions, it is the repeated cycling of the spring—loading, emptying, loading, emptying, ad infinitum—is what causes magazine springs to eventually fail. For that reason, many MODERN DAY (with all due respect, the Vietnam War ended more than 4 decades ago and equipment has improved in the meantime) spec ops personnel and others will load a 30 round mag to 29 rounds as a hedge against failure, but when in combat theaters they are often cycling the same magazine spring over and over again. Also, when comparing the ruggedness of GI magazines to commercially available products like Magpul’s P-MAG, the P-MAG is a clearly superior product and continue to function under very adverse conditions, like sand in the magazine, which the GI mags won’t do.
The problem with “larger than normal” capacity magazines such as the 100 round mags is that their are compromises in the magazine design to make room for capacity. But I’ve slung my share of 5.56 downrange, and I’ve never had a magazine failure in an AR, particularly when using the P-MAGs, which are flawless and rugged as hell. Now dirty ammo and a dirty unlubed rifle are another thing entirely, as are dirty and unlubed magazines; but never have I had any failures traceable to a magazine being filled to capacity. Cleanliness is next to Godliness.
We most likely don’t want to talk this up much but there is a method of firing a semiauto that results in full auto.It’s called bump-fire. The weapon is held at the hip with the thumb through the trigger guard and anchored on a pocket or belt loop. The left hand grips the fore end stock and pulls the weapon forward, causing the thumb to release the trigger. Recoil pushes the gun rearward but the continued forward pressure from the left hand pulls the gun forward again resulting in repeated rapid trigger pull. A firmly anchored right thumb combined with a strong pull of the left hand will squeeze off rounds just as fast as a full auto M16 or AK47.
You can do it but you aren’t going to hit anything. Aimed semiautomatic fire beats full auto spray and pray any day. No “modern sporting rifle” outperforms the basic M-1 Garand in sustained rate of fire or lethality. (The M-14 is just an M-1 with a detachable magazine rechambered in 308 Winchester. It should have been designated the M-1-A1)
Which is why you see them called M1A’s all the time.
Indeed. “Bump fire” is really “chump fire”.
The only real uses for full auto fire are room entry and repelling mass wave attacks, a la Bonzai attacks in WWII or the wave attacks in North Korea.
Well, and for fun. Cranking off a full 30 round magazine in one burst is just a BLAST!
(Especially when you know some other poor sucker is going to have to clean it.
)
You forgot to mention engaging low-flying aircraft (drones?) as an application for full-auto fire.
Yes, I forgot that one. Thanks for the correction.
It’s called the M-1A because the M-14 is the military designation and you can’t sell military firearms to the public. When a civilian buys the Beretta M-9 pistol it is called the Beretta 92FS instead.
Mark: The first combat use of the M-1 was by the Philippine Scouts in 1942 in the Battle for Bataan. The troops put up a wall of lead with their Garands that stopped an elite Japanese regiment in their tracks. Well aimed semiautomatic rifle fire will stop more target per unit time than full auto. Most full auto rounds are wasted on empty space. Spray and pray is what machineguns are for.
Especially quad .50s.
Let’s take a hard look at the logic of gun bans.
You first make gun free zones to protect us from our fellows, like they are going to kill us on sight. The argument speaks to the sanity and decency of those making it. Never mind the idea sells.
Once you present an opportunity for riskless slaughter in a ‘gun free zone’ someone is going to take advantage of the situation. Being crazy does not equate with stupid.
You then have a lot of dead, more than if the attack had happened outside the the zone where armed resistance is more probable. You then claim the policy failed because the restrictions were not broad enough, and demand more.
Lost to everyone, except the authors of the policy, is that there are a lot of preventable dead needed to make their point. Less delicately, the liberals want others to pay with dead children so they can have their policy: innocent life means nothing to them. Stalin said much the same about omelettes if memory serves.
Until we understand that the Left’s policy in this manner is mean to get people killed, the more the better, we will not have an honest debate. Saving life rather than feelings should be the key.
It’s the evil of the left’s collectivist thinking: http://www.forbes.com/sites/harrybinswanger/2013/01/01/with-gun-control-cost-benefit-analysis-is-amoral/
Dear Techno;
First off there isn’t a problem. The numbers just don’t bear it out.
In any normal distribution there is 4% on the extremes, but Guns just don’t seem to make even the Normal Distribution – unless you count defensive uses of Guns.
With 310 Million Firearms in the United States – the FBI calculates that a gun is ‘USED’ (that means just shown on occasion not shot) in 300,000 crimes a year.
Due to your Mathematically Challenged state I’ll help you out – that’s One Tenth Of One Percent. Or One Fortieth of an expected Extreme in a Normal Distribution.
That means there must be some sort of Control on the activity to create the downward diviance.
If we go to actual Shootings that number is around 52,000. (Not Murders, Shootings both fatal and NON Fatal. – this does not include accidental or self inflicted.)
That is less than Two One Thousandths of One Percent. or roughly One two hundredth the expected Four Percent found in a Normal Distribution.
Numbers that miniscule aren’t a problem!
And when you calculate how much the numbers above will go up (based on both the Austrailian and British models) the solution will be equivelant to pouring gas on a fire – it will exaserbate the non-problem into a REAL Problem.
Now, you want to really drive him insane? Compare those stats to the rates of serious injury / death from:
-football
-baseball
-cheerleading (yes, cheerleading!)
-swimming pools
- probably a hundred other things I could name if I had the time
I doubt it’d do him any good, but for the genuinely open minded it’d be an eye opener.
When adjusted for frequency – your child is 22 times more likely to drown(and die) by accident in your swimming pool than to shoot himself or a friend by accident (shoot not kill) with you ‘gun in the house.’
P.S. It goes to 28 times more likely if you change it to shoot and kill.
Just so. More infants and toddlers drown in toilets and buckets than are ‘killed by guns’
According to the CDC fatal injury search engine, 891 people aged 16 or under drowned in the US in 2010.
That’s compared with 4,276 non-fatal shootings, requiring medical attention, for children aged 16 or under in 2010. Recorded fatal shootings for the same year and age group were 782.
Google “WISQARS”. Check for yourself.
American kids are MUCH more likely to be shot than drown.
I’d love to know where you guys get your information from. It’s like you live in some parallel truman-show world, where everything agrees with the NRA.
You just confirmed his statement. More children are killed by drwoning than by guns, according to your posting.
Go read the comment I responded to again.
“With 310 Million Firearms in the United States – the FBI calculates that a gun is ‘USED’ (that means just shown on occasion not shot) in 300,000 crimes a year”
I have no idea where you’re getting those figures from. That covers the 2010 armed robberies alone. There are bloggers who claim there are 300,000 DGU’s a year, but it’s pretty speculative.
“If we go to actual Shootings that number is around 52,000. (Not Murders, Shootings both fatal and NON Fatal. – this does not include accidental or self inflicted.)”
I’m eager to know how a non-accidental, non self-inflicted fatal shooting can be something other than a murder …
Again, how do you get that figure? If I go to the CDC website and use their very convenient search engine “WISQARS” to look up non-fatal firearm injuries (not BB guns, and injured badly enough to present at a hospital) for 2011, I get the figure of 73,883.
If I exclude the unintentional shootings, I get 59,208.
But here’s the problem … why are you excluding so many shootings? Why not just look at the total firearm toll for a year? Add the (hospital-treated) non-fatal injuries to the fatals for 2010 (the last year with available fatal data) and you get 73,505 + 31,672 = 105,177 americans killed or injured by a firearm.
“That is less than Two One Thousandths of One Percent”
Now it’s more like 1 in a 3000, and it’s just the ones recorded by the CDC.
“based on both the Austrailian and British models) the solution will be equivelant to pouring gas on a fire – it will exaserbate the non-problem into a REAL Problem”
You’re relying on the ridiculous “shots fired per gun” ratio. As I posted elsewhere, that’s like trying to improve the traffic deal toll by making everyone buy a second car. Or improving mexico’s murder rate by giving everyone a bunch of guns to keep in the cupboard. The actual number of murders won’t go down, but your statistic will.
Heck – why not use the amount of ammo in circulation instead? Murders per bullet-owned-year. That’d give you a REALLY small figure.
And while you’re comparing those swimming-pool accidents, consider (from the CDC search engine) that 4,276 of those non-fatal hospital-presenting shootings in 2010 are for children aged 16 or under. 757 of them girls. 782 fatal shootings in 2010 are for kids aged 16 or under.
Progressives, movie makers & violent videos are responsible for the social meltdown that inspires a Columbine, a Tucson, a Virginia Tech, a Newtown Connecticut unstable moron to acts of self-aggrandizing violence.
Progressives, in removing individual cultural constraints in the spirit of “if it feels good, do it”.
For unspeakable violence common in movies it goes without saying.
Self-righteous anti-gun “stars” some of the worst exemplars
Barack takes advantage of Newtown to pontificate, but what about the years of nonstop unspeakable violence in his own town, Chicago, including 6 slaughtered on New Year’s Eve alone ?
Barack, reportedly, said he wanted to be president so “men with guns” would be around his daughters, protecting them. DiFi’s own concealed carry permit, reportedly, just expired.
All the DiFis and Baracks of the planet can do is blame the weapons themselves, attempt to take advantage of tragedy to promote their unwavering agenda of control.
They’ll never fault the cultural corruption and destruction of the family that have been the unrelenting agenda of the Left for decades and now bears its own appalling fruit in American culture.
Thank you for identifying the constitutional supports for gun ownership, beside the 2nd amendment.
In my opinion, in defending our right to arms, it is a mistake to be drawn into arguments about technical details or appearance. Let the anti-gun crowd have their opinions about whether a gun is ugly, or is designed for battle. Some are undeniably unattractive to the non-discerning eye, and any reference to war is unappealing except in the context of patriotism and civic duty.
Some clothing is uglier than others: compare a bright, colorful Hawaiian shirt with the popular, drab camo seen everywhere today. Do they each display a different mood? Of course they do, not necessarily aggressive.
Some tools are strictly utilitarian while others may be more artistic in form. Compare a standard fisherman’s kit knife, made for skinning and scaling fish, alongside other “edged weapons” designed for samurai warriors or Harley bikers. Do they have different eye appeal, and do they suggest different attitudes? Of course they do, not necessarily criminal.
The arguments against gun ownership that are based on aesthetics or the natural disinclination to violence are legitimate, but they are not superior to the principles behind the 2nd amendment: that government belongs to the people, not the other way around.
…it is a mistake to be drawn into arguments about technical details or appearance.
I agree with that.
It’s a mistake, in fact, to be drawn into any of the little cracks and crevices the Left presents on any topic, because being drawn in gives the manufactured premise credibility while the larger point is obscured.
In the case of guns, the larger point is a free people’s defense against tyranny.
We’ve become such an urban, soft, and peaceful Country that few people are used to seeing any of the tools that can be dangerous or used effectively as weapons. I was in a downtown watering hole in Juneau during cruise ship season. A friend of mine came in and sat at the bar beside me. I pulled out my brand new Myerchin “Rigger’s Knife,” a combination knife and marlinspike very useful if you run a boat, to show him my new toy. He looked it over and then pulled out his old Case riggers knife and we were sitting there drinks in one hand, knives in the other comparing notes when a waitress came over and asked us to put the knives away because people were scared and complaining.
Now admittedly, riggers knives helped give dockworkers their bad reputation with one side a blade and the other basically a short spear, and somebody who’s handy and has a well-broken in one can flick it open like a switchblade, but really, there was absolutely nothing threatening about that situation. It was just unfamiliar and involved things people thought dangerous. The riskiest thing most people do in much of America is take the label off the mattress and lots of them are scared to do that!
Does anyone use pencils or ink pens or their hands or legs or use pliers or screwdrivers of any sort. I can use any one of those listed above to kill someone with!
I have the ability to also kill you with a pocket knife of any size or even a butter knife, I can cram enough peas up your nose take a piece of plastic or hemp rope and kill you, I can kill someone with a Chicken Pot Pie!
I can total out a car or a parking lot with a hamburger or ham sandwich if I wanted to. I can burn your house to the ground with you in it with two sticks, I can take two sticks and take out a battalion of a brigade, I can take one finger and render you helpless if I want, leave guns alone it is the person that needs control not an inanimate object like any gun called by any name.
So….basically here we go again!
Another article stating that these children at Sandy Hook Elementary were killed by an AR-15 .223 cal rifle IN the school, when the police reports clearly state that this weapon was found either in the back seat or trunk of Lanza’s car.
AND WAS NOT USED for the murder of these poor helpless children!
Personally I’m getting quite tired of the lies perpetrated by the media, and I think it’s high time we started to look at licensing media reporters and even doing a few background checks on them to make sure that they can’t keep spreading their lies!
Let us call a spade a spade.
All this discussion of “sensible gun laws” and banning “assault weapons” is nothing but obfuscation meant to prevent citizens from seeing what politicians really intend to do – namely disarming the mostly White law-abiding population because those are the folks who will resist force with force. Law-abiding citizens using guns to protect themselves and prevent crime is of no interest to the government, since robbers, rapists, etc, pose no threat to the government itself; in fact the government hopes to see more crime so it can use the excuse of crime to extend its powers over its now defenseless citizens.
The truth is that every Marxist/Leninist/Communist government absolutely MUST totally disarm its population in order to force its Leftist ideals upon its people. If its people are not totally disarmed first, they will rebel and the lives of government officials will be in grave danger. Lenin knew this; Stalin knew this; Khrushchev knew this; etc, etc. But this axiom holds even for non-Communist governments, when those governments intend to assume dictatorial powers. Remember the first act of any Right-wing dictator is also to disarm his population.
We are now seeing the US Constitution being attacked as the first step toward its elimination. Wait until Obama has a chance to appoint several Supreme Court justices, and I expect the US Constitution will be discarded as a “racist relic of White rule”. Once the Constitution is abandoned, the existence of Congress itself will be questioned as being nothing but “obstructionist” to an efficient government. After Congress is eliminated, the US Supreme Court will be disbanded next, or simply turned into a rubber-stamp body.
Then we will have the same workers’ paradise as was the old Soviet Union. But if the CCCP was such a paradise, one wonders why the KGB Boarder Guards fortified the entire border (minefields and all) only on the inside to prevent anyone from escaping, rather than on the outside to prevent all the people wanting to come into the Socialist paradise. Remember that the old Wall between East and West Germany was also fortified only on the inside (the side facing the Communist East German side). I guess it was to prevent all those desperate citizens of Capitalist West Germany from crossing the Wall into the East German Workers’ paradise.
The final result of all this is that after Obama’s 4th, or 5th, or 6th term in office, the United States will finally have its closed and fortified borders with Canada and Mexico. But I bet all US border fortificaions (minefields and all) will be located on the inside.
Brief point about the .223. Fundamentally, I agree with all of said points and abhor gun control, but, the .223 is known for creating nasty wounds. Not necessarily fatal wounds, but, nasty wounds. Given the high velocity, low mass, and actual shape of the bullet, the .223 flight path degrades very easily. The detailed ballistics are beyond my level of education. Much of the complaints that I’ve heard from those in or out of the military is that it lacks penetration. Small barriers like brick walls have provided adequate cover for targets, and there are stories of servicemen unloading entire magazines into bushes that had targets in them and not hitting the target, because the branches were enough to defray the rounds trajectory. Probably, that’s an exaggeration, but, it relates to the topic at hand. Upon contact with human tissue, the .223 tumbles creating a much larger wound with greater damage. This is a feature, not a bug. Compare this to the old 7.62x39m (ak-47) round that the Chinese produced during Vietnam. That round had a very strong flight path and created so called “pencil holes” because the wound was so straight that you could put a pencil through it. If the round missed a vital organ, there’d be a good chance you’d heal quickly and be right back out there in a couple of weeks. Of course, newer production has introduced changes that better mimics the .223, and the Russians actually abandoned the AK-47 in favor of the AK-74 which fires a round similar to the .223 for exactly that reason. Similarly, that’s why it’s considered inhumane in a lot of places to hunt with. It doesn’t have enough kinetic energy to reliably kill anything much bigger than a human, but, it’s perfectly good at maiming. Again, I abhor gun control and have no issue with civilians owning the AR-15, etc., but, I also appreciate accuracy in these sort of conversations, particularly if the point of the article is (deservedly) criticizing the media’s lack of knowledge.
The tumbling effect has been exaggerated. Military rounds are full metal jacket and tend to be through and through. However, if you hit something hard like bone the smaller round loses energy pretty fast and may tumble at that point. However, the 150 grain FMJ 308/NATO 7.62 round creates a large internal shockwave that causes a lot of soft tissue damage. If you have ever been deer hunting with a 30-06 or 308 you know that a good solid hit to the chest will almost always drop the animal in its tracks. Unless you hit the spine or the heart with 223 you will spend the next few hours tracking down the wounded deer. Works the same way with people. For any given velocity regime lethality rides on mass.
Same thing with a pistol calibers. A large slow chunk of lead like a 230 grain FMJ bullet from a 45 is much more lethal than a higher velocity low mass FMJ 115 grain 9mm bullet. While you can match or exceed the standard 45 FMJ round with a modern 9mm +P jacketed hollow point round, the application of the same technology to 45ACP reafirms that mass is the king of lehtality.
It may well be exaggerated, but, it should not be ignored. Ultimately, I agree with everything you’ve said, though I do have a fondness for .357 revolvers over the 1911 that has little justification other than personal preference.
You design the shape of the munition to do certain things when in the body. During Nam, there were things called fleshette rounds – essentially a bundle of tipped darts that would be aerodynamic in the air in flight (align with the flow) and go unstable and tumble wildly in a fluid. They were tested against animal skins full of jelly and the Reynolds number of the fluid was used as an input to the aerodynamic shape of the projectile. Don’t know about the .223 round, but suspect its shape is based on some of the same aerodynamic criteria. Cheers -
The 223 round is a descendant of the 222 Remington which had about the same characteristics as the 223. It’s a varmint designed with coyotes and similiar pests in mind. It wasn’t designed to tumble. It was actually the rifling of the early M-16s that was responsible for the instability. It’s a crappy round. As I said the 22-250 a much more powerful round. The 243 Winchester is a much better round for varmints and medium sized game.
I have shot dozens of deer with a cartridge that competed with the .223 to become the military round. I have a Sako Vixen chambered in .222 Remington Magnum, and it is a deadly deer killer. Shot in the head, neck or behind the front shoulder they drop in their tracks. I used 55 grain Sierra spitzers, and the bullet mushroomed well, did not fragment, and transferred energy very well.
Anytime you are shooting ANY animal, shot placement is everything, and a wounded deer will run away shot with a 30-06 or even 300 Magnum if gut shot. These small cartridges are sweet shooting and accurate, and if you don’t have a killing shot, you don’t take one.
I know my Mini-14 in .223 is the only gun I have that I can’t really fire accurately. The thing has such a nasty crack that it makes me flinch and I’ve just never gotten very accurate with it. Foolishly put a “muzzle brake” on it, a flash suppressor would be illegal in too many places, and that just made it worse by focussing more of the sound back towards me. Not my favorite gun, but if I had a crowd of zombies heading down my street, it would be pretty useful until they got in range of a Saiga 12 loaded with buck and ball or buckshot.
I don’t know what the military uses but I have some Korean NATO 5.56 that I bought a bunch of and I’d hate to know I had to use it at night; thing looks like a flamethrower!
Supercially the 223 and 5.56 are the same round but the NATO standard round is more powerful. I don’t think the mini 14 is rated for 5.56. I wouldn’t use it.
I find 223 a benign caliber. My least powerful centerfire is a 243 Winchester which is a necked down 7.62 X 54 round. It’s muzzle energy is almost twice that of a 223/5.56 round.
Lots of guys here have .243s for their Mountain Goat and Dall Sheep guns. The only trouble is they aren’t big enough for a Brown Bear/Grizzly unless you make a perfect shot, no easy thing when one’s coming at you at 40 mph, so you have to carry something else, e.g., a 12 guage, or somebody in the party has to have one.
I’m as poor as a church mouse right now because we’re buying a new house, but if I can get one before they’re all gone and banned I want a Saiga .308 or some other .3n that packs enough wallop to deal with light cover. It’s easy to “unsporterize” a Saiga back into an AK except a semi-auto, but I’m sticking with wood on my Mini and I’m refitting my Saiga 12 with wood as well and in a nice, warm, friendly American brown walnut, not that well-known and easily recognized Russian red birch laminate. I want my Saiga to look more friendly!
There is more expertise in these replies than I have ever read in the normal media. Designing a weapon, and projectile is similar to designing a golf club, or any other man made devise. You must decide on primary characteristics and sacrifice secondary characteristics, separate the “gotta haves” from the “wanta haves”. The 223 M-16 round, initially was developed for short range, massive suppression fire, with rifling twist ratios and stability ratios which increase terminal ballistic results (inside the body), big wounds. It is poor at penetrating hard targets; even twigs will deflect the trajectory. It has been modified to alter some characteristics, e.g. M-4 (of which I am ignorant, my information is dated.)
It is wholly different from the 30-06, M-1 design, which was a main reason that the US won two world wars.
The 357 is a beefed up 38, developed to provide the stopping power of the 45 M1911, without the disadvantage of toting a heavy brick. IMHO these are the best hand guns ever developed. The macho magnums have limited advantages, and bad trade offs. The 9MM never was any good, but experts have told me that the +P jacketed hollow point round is real. I don’t know.
The near perfect weapon would weigh 1 oz. over an entire life time, but instantly morph into a 155 howitzer during a few seconds of terror. The perfect solution is peace on earth. Both need our increased efforts. But the 2 nd Amendment is a gotta have until a more perfect union is realized.
The .380 and 9mm single stacks are very concealable even if you didn’t play linebacker or lineman. I’ve spent my whole adult life at anywhere from 150 to 180 pounds on a six foot frame; I can’t carry a 1911 under my suit jacket without looking like a low-rent good fella. I had very good reasons at a couple of periods of my life to carry a weapon but I still had to show up in a suit and tie. A good shoulder holster and an understanding tailor will make a Walther PPK/S or similar invisible under even a well-tailored suit. There’s a reason the movie James Bond carried a PPK; they’re reasonably effective and they look good.
I’m not a handgun guy; the PPK/S is the only modern one I own, but there are times when the concealed handgun is the only reasonable/appropriate means of protection. In those times it really needs to be concealed. You can strap on your thigh holster and .45 for the 4th of July parade to make a point, though I don’t think it is a good point, but if you are in a situation where you have to deal with dangerous people in confrontational situations, but don’t want to/can’t convey the message of ugly guys with bulges in their jacket, you really need a small, svelte pistol, a good holster, a good tailor, and really good shooting skills. A big ol’ .45 will knock a bad guy down even with a “wing shot,” a .380/9mm will hurt him bad, but it has to be a good shot to take him down in one. And, Hell, there’s some out there that are just as dumb as bears and such and you can put one right between their eyes and it takes them awhile to figure out that they’re dead.
I carry a full size 1911 and I have no problem concealing it. The 1911 is fairly thin so it doesn’t print. In many ways it shows less than my modern double sta k compact 9mm. It’s what you wear and how you carry it that determines concealability. LL Bean clothing is great for CCW. You don’t look like Johnny Tacticool.
“The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
~Thomas Jefferson
*ahem*
Have you thought to try to find an original source for that quote? When did jefferson say that? In what letter? In which article?
I’ll give you a hint … it’s made up.
Like most of the pro-gun argument.
Unfortunately Techno is right about THAT quote. The “liberty teeth” quote from Washington is also bogus. Don’t use it.
There is only a literal handful of words having overlapping definitions available to describe “marksmanship.”
The historical basis for the 2nd Amendment was captured poorly in words and was mostly lost. Current discussions on the 2nd Amdendment mostly miss it. Note that Pres. Washington said avoid foreign entanglements because we did not need them. Even worse:
HOLLYWOOD TRAINS THE WORLD ABOUT GUNS IN TWO WAYS
People respond to real world issues from their Hollywood training. There are two types of accidental training:
–The mechanical requirements of drama.
–The need for excellent visuals.
The mechanics of good drama requires introduction of major props. The gun will be introduced before it becomes used by a character. “As the hand reaches in the drawer for the check book, deeper in the shadows lurks the butt of a deadly and threatening Smith & Wesson product!!” See this and in a few minutes there will be a firearms felony in Living Color. See 10,000 repetitions of this and one believes the object moves the action of the character. The mechanics of drama becomes training as how life happens.
Powerful images please audiences. John Wayne, George Peppard, Stallone, or one of the current incumbents has a fierce, righteous scowl on his face. At his waist he holds an industrially-menacing Assault Rifle. He holds the trigger down as the Assault Rifle does machine-gun firing. Giant white sausage flames flutter from the muzzle; spent brass dances in the air, as off in the incredible, physics-defying distance the epitomes of evil fling arms and twirl in death. Repeat that 10,000 times and one acquires beliefs relating to the magic power of assault rifles or anything looking like them working like Death Rays.
Hollywood’s training plagues the Army, beginning in Vietnam. Line soldiers in Rest/Recreation in Vietnam were tested on paper targets at a 50-meter range, shooting to maximize hits in one minute of firing.
In June 1775, General Washington asked Congress to form a company of Mid-Atlantic rustics to go to the Siege of Boston, bringing their own rifles. These people can be the yardstick, with their technology from over two centuries ago.
The line soldiers tested in Vietnam had 75 times the firepower (firing about 300 rounds/minute: Muzzle Statistics) of the 1775 rustics. When the targets were scored, the line-soldiers were found to have 0.25 (one-quarter) the hit capability (Target Statistics) of the rustics. It was a horror story. They were averaging one hit per minute out of 300 rounds. The flintlock folks could do four a minute as that is how many they could fire. Any one of these tested individuals, if guided by an officer screaming at them to do it in the Army way, could make 30 or more hits per minute by firing one shot at a time.
In live fire, the Army training flaked off and they reverted to Living Color Hollywood Marksmanship Training, and they clung to it. The bullets all go high and to the right because of the laws of physics. The barrel’s line of thrust is to the right of the person’s center of mass, and much above it, and forcefully pulling the trigger moves the rifle to the right also. The Army calls their behavior “Spray-‘n’-Pray.” The Army contemplates altering the Assault Rifle to fire no more than a 3-round burst on full automatic.
In unexpected jungle encounters (Meeting Engagements) when the US soldier fires first, he hit the enemy in one out of six instances (distances from 6 feet to 40 meters). The rustics in those situations would always hit if firing first, for psycho-neurologic reasons (long story). General Washington knew all that about the rustics. He did not anticipate the rustics would drive British recruiting to zero so Hessians had to be hired, but that is another story.
The Hollywood Training is accidental. The beliefs, though in Cloud Cuckoo Land, are fervently held. The consequences are real. Everyone is affected.
This proof has been around since Vietnam, but no one pays attention to it.
Assault Rifles have been illegal since 1933. The AR looks like an assault rifle but it is not an assault rifle. If you dress like a cowboy, you are not a cowboy.
People whose reality is determined by Hollywood believe that there is no difference between Muzzle Statistics and Target Statistics.
I really enjoyed your post and think it strikes to the heart of the matter in more than one regard. Back when the NRA was invited into schools to teach gun safety and marksmanship people were taught to respect rifles and know their reality.
When I was around 12 or so I remember a story in American Rifleman, about the fact that Germans, upon first encountering American infantry in WWI assumed the US had developed extremely accurate machine guns to accomplish what they did, in fact, with bold action Springfields and Enfields. In the same short story a French general claimed he could always tell which Germans had been killed by the Americans. . . because each had a .30 hole in his forehead.
Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of the fact that being an a rifleman in America is not only a right and privilege, it is also a responsibility.
I am proud to have been raised amongst American riflemen.
That was probably back when the NRA was a pro-gun-control body, rather than the industry lobby that it has become since the 70′s.
See John Ross’ novel, _Unintended_Consequences_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_Consequences_(novel)
After several sell-out hardcover printings, maybe it’s now time for it to come out in paperback.
Well, if liberals and the far-left want to ban guns, then they should do it the legal way and go for a constitutional amendment. It’s getting real old now for Congress or the President (through Executive Orders) to take away our constitutional rights without going through the process of amending the Constitution.
Either we HAVE a Constitution and the laws that go with it, or we don’t. But Obama has made it an art form of by-passing Congress to enact his own laws (from changing the rules regarding welfare reform and giving illegal aliens rights they do not currently possess, to hiring a boatload of “czars” to change or create rules and regulations that affect many Americans). And Congress is just as bad in passing laws without any public debate or even review (we just passed a major tax bill at 3 AM on New Year’s Eve that nobody even read, let alone had time to discuss and debate).
This is NOT the way the Founding Fathers envisioned it, and if liberals want to really “transform” this country, then need to start doing it legally and not illegally like they HAVE been doing over the last four years. Because, if they try the same thing with guns, that is one issue A LOT of Americans are NOT going to tamely submit to. In fact, it could start an outright insurrection. I really don’t think this is a road Obama and the liberals want travel on.
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NON MUSLIMS MUST HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS!
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Thank God I live in New Zealand. Our gun laws are very strict, and while it would be stupid to pretend that nobody is ever shot here, we don’t ever have anything like Sandy Hook, Columbine or Virginia Tech. We had one in a small town 23 years ago, where 13 people were killed, but the few mass killings that we’ve had-none since the 1990s-were family ones, not some lunatic opening fire on strangers. We had one in 1941, which means three in two hundred years where someone opened fire on all comers and 26 people killed this way in two centuries. The other 7 have been either family members or people known to the killer, and the number killed in each was very small. Our three mass shootings have killed 26 people in total-the same as Sandy Hook. And in one case, several victims were friends and family (not that I think that makes it all right) not strangers. 26 victims. How many died in the USA last year at the hands of someone who walked off the street with a gun ?
God-given right be damned; don’t the victims have a God-given right to not be killed by someone who has nothing better to do that day ? Remind me to stay where I am, where my neighbour doesn’t have an AK47 in the pantry or the person ahead of me on the road may make a rude gesture and swear at me if I cut in ahead of him, but won’t blow my head off.
Were I not an atheist, I would heartily join you in thanking the diety that you live in New Zealand. . . or anywhere else in the world besides the US. We have more than our share of simple minded.
The real problem here isn’t the rifle you see, it’s the hammer:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/03/FBI-More-People-Killed-With-Hammers-and-Clubs-Each-Year-Than-With-Rifles
“Thank God I live in New Zealand. Our gun laws are very strict, and while it would be stupid to pretend that nobody is ever shot here, we don’t ever have anything like Sandy Hook, Columbine or Virginia Tech.”
The population of New Zealand is 1.25% that of the USA. Since Charles Whitman got famous in the 60s roughly 200 Americans have been killed in high-profile mass shootings. For the sake of argument (and round numbers) I’ll more than double that and call it 520. That’s twenty times the number of casualities you quote for New Zealand. Which means that with 1.25% of our population you have 5% of our mass shooting deaths… which means that per capita you’ve had four times as many mass shooting casualities as we’ve had in spite of the laws you’re so impressed by.
“…don’t the victims have a God-given right to not be killed by someone who has nothing better to do that day?”
They do indeed. And as soon as you propose a law that will somehow prevent murderous lunatics from violating that right I’d be happy to consider it.
“Remind me to stay where I am…”
Consider yourself reminded. We have quite enough people here already who are statistically illiterate and governed entirely by emotion and phobias, we surely don’t need to import any more.
And Likewise annie we thank G-D you are in New Zealand
Islands full of sheep. I’m glad you are there, too.
Thank God you live in New Zealand, so why are you involved in the discussion here, it doesn’t affect you. Simply like Techno, another commie troll.
I live in Alaska, we are armed to the teeth there and don’t have any of these mass shooting either. If we did, an armed citizen would put a quick stop to it. We have constitutional carry, that is as the constitution intends citizens can carry concealed where ever they want with a few exceptions. Guns are always nearby.
It is apparent from all the mass shooting in the USA, that so called ‘gun free zones’ are the problem, not guns. The problem is the government has unconstitutionally restricted the law abiding citizens from asserting their God given right of self defense, by creating these zones, and it is even more apparent that these zones are where the citizens NEED to be able to concealed carry to defend themselves and others if needed.
It is OUR RESPONSIBILITY to protect and defend our children, and we have many teachers who want to be armed to do so. In Ohio a concealed carry instructor offered free instruction to any teacher who desired to become trained and licensed in concealed carry, he had FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY teachers who signed up!
Guns aren’t the problem, it is still criminals. Most gun violence is done by criminals, released out of prison early and still committing crimes. Most gun violence in the USA is drug criminals shooting each other. Where law abiding citizens have concealed carry, there is less crime.
Have a nice day, but keep your commie nose out of America’s debate, you have no compelling interest.
It’s the Bill of Rights, not the bill of Needs!
“I live in Alaska, we are armed to the teeth there and don’t have any of these mass shooting either”
Actually, you do. They’re just very rare. As you’d expect, with less than 1/400th of the US population. You’d expect to see a much lower overall frequency of any sort of sporadic event.
Alaska’s homicide rate, however, is only very slightly lower than the US national average (4.0 per 100,000 by 2011 figures). For a largely non-urban state, that’s not quite so good.
Feel free to go check those “commie” facts for yourself
Fortunately, Alaska doesn’t the murder problem of Manitoba (4.24/100,000 in 2011).
There is no clause in the US Constitution or Bill Of Rights which states that technological advances render guaranteed rights obsolete.
It’s a God-expected responsibility not a God-given right. The Bible knows nothing of rights (which are easily licensed and limited), only God-expected responsibility, including the responsibility to defend ourselves, our families, and our neighbors (1 Timothy 5:8, etc.)
For more regarding rights versus responsibilities, see “Rights, Rights, Everyone Wants Their Rights” at http://www.constitutionmythbusters.org/rights-rights-everyone-wants-their-rights/.
And as soon as we toss the Constitution and govern our nation according to your Bible that will have some relevance. Until then we recognize that people have rights, and those rights are recognized in the first ten amendments.
2.8 million new gun applications in DEC., 2 million in Nov. 3 1/2 years worth of ammo sold in 72 hours. Doesn’t seem to be a gun problem in America, everyone seems to want one.
Although well-meaning, folks like John here error when they start falling into the trap of picking over definitions of “assault” rifles, the relative lethality of certain ammunition and the magazine capacity sillyness in order to somehow appease the gun-grabbers. It is a red herring. Following the express intent of the 2nd Amendment, the answer should instead be that, OF COURSE these firearms have military capability! They are SUPPOSED TO, for crying out loud! The intent of the 2nd Amendment was not for hunting purposes nor even to protect one’s right to personal self-defense against home invaders, etc. Those are side issues. The REAL intent of the 2nd Amendment was to insure the citizenry coould maintain at least a measure of rough parity with the infantry of all enemies … foreign and domestic. And for that, “military-style rifles with high-capacity magazines” is precisely what is called-for! Yes Pollyanna, they ARE made to kill people! Just like the Founders intended! Why can’t we just call a spade a spade instead of getting all tied-up in trying to mollify the gun-grabbers with the “sporting purposes” and other namby-pamby arguments?
While we all agree that .223 is not a very powerful round. It is approved by the NRA for high-power rifle competition.
“Fully automatic weapons have been illegal since 1934 and there are virtually none on the streets today.”
This is wildly inaccurate. The GCA of 1934 REGULATED private machinegun ownership, did not bar it.
There are nearly 488,000+ machineguns in the NFA registry. They are present in every state. ~40 States provide for private machiengun ownership, via NFA Registry / tax stamp.
ATF report ‘Firearms Commerce in the United States 2011′, page 14
http://www.atf.gov/publications/firearms/121611-firearms-commerce-2011.pdf
Yes, and if you have ten thousand dollars or more, can pass a background check by your local sheriff, pay a $200 tax to the ATF, you too can own one of these automatic firearms. The history of gun control is ensuring that only designated elites can own firearms. The median American income is about $50,000.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/p60-243.pdf (page 5)
So tell me, how many Americans can afford these ‘legal’ firearms? Or will they just let their children starve so they can own a piece of history? Remember, your citation also notes that private citizens cannot buy any NFA firearm newer than 1986.
That’s less than the price of a car. By your reckoning, if you can afford a second car, then you can afford a machine gun. So what’s your beef?
And if you want a piece of history, just buy one that’s been disabled.
We haven’t had a mass killing for almost 20 years. The last one was 6 people. There was a gap of 50 years between the one in 1941 and the next one. 26 people were killed in this way in the 20th century and nobody so far in the 21st. If your total per capita was lower than ours, you’d have less than none. We had the same number in 100 years as you had in one day. That works out at about one person every four years in the 20th century being shot by a stranger in a mass shooting.In fact, as some of the victims were known to or related to the killer in the last one, it’s less than that, even. How can that be statistically less than yours on a per capita basis ?
Of course we have murders, but they’re one at a time and one’s chance of being murdered by a stranger here is very low indeed. I can’t say that it never happens, but it’s very rare. We don’t have people walking into schools and cinemas and opening fire. Our schools are not like fortresses with metal detectors. We don’t have snipers like the one you had a few years ago. We don’t have armed guards in banks or other places.
I find it sad that you seem unable to bear any suggestion that the country you think is the greatest in the world may not be considered so by the rest of us without reacting so defensively and abusively.An Australian was dismissed as knowing nothing about America because he wasn’t American-what arrant nonsense. This discussion is descending into school bullies shouting everyone else down with threats and insults.
Annie, take into account that the US has 77 times the population of New Zealand and your figures look a lot less impressive. Let’s mulitply all New Zealand’s figures by 77 and see what we get.
I’m sad too. What makes me sad is that some of my fellow Americans want to take my and their natural right of self-defense away from us and that they think it is just great that foreigners are helping in that effort. Sad indeed.
You Know You’re a GUN CONTROL HYPOCRITE IF….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6-FtsnIFsc&feature=player_embedded
Stand back and look: The ultimate, unvoiced motivation for gun confiscation (“Registration” is only a first, necessary step) is pretty much the same as in Boston during our War for Independence. The British didn’t want to face armed protesters, if and when they saw fit to impose excessive or extreme controls on the population there. The state doesn’t want any vigorous opposition to whatever laws and regulations they may choose to impose.
A major obstacle to British attempts to put down the “rebellion” was the firearms, especially the highly accurate rifles, of the farmers and other Colonists. Take away the armed citizens, then criminals have fewer obstacles to robberies, including home invasion. And rabid police and military forces would face no resistance (e.g. the Randy Weaver and Waco abominations).
To those who said (and abused me for being statistically illiterate)that New Zealand’s murder rate was higher than America’s; we have 12 murders for every million people, or 1.2 per 100,000. I believe that yours is 5.5 per 100,000. We have roughly 1/2 the population of New York which had, I read, 414 last year. We would have had about 50 at 12 per million. Half of New York’s would be 207. I rest my case.
Thanks, Annie, because you have helped us make ours. The Mayor of New York is the most anti-gun, infriger of gun rights, political figure in the U.S., and the laws of New York have repeatedly infringed illegally on gun owner rights. So how come New York has such a high murder rate? According to you, New York should have a low murder rate.
New York City or New York State?
Most forms of violent crime in New York city are relatively low these days, by urban standards. Rape, larceny, assault are all way down the list for large US cities. The overall homicide rate is above the whole national average, but by urban standards it’s pretty good.
Yes, this is a wiki link and therefore the spawn of satan, but it does have a nice sortable table that will save you having to wade through the UCR data (which doesn’t really organise the data this way – it looks at metropolitan areas, for which the new york area’s homicide rate is actually LOWER than the national average)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_cities_by_crime_rate
Sorry for the repetitions, mate. I have no idea at all how that happened.