Retired Gen. Stanley McCrystal has weighed in on the gun control debate, with startling ignorance of current gun law.
”I spent a career carrying typically either a M16 and later, a M4 carbine,” McChrystal said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And a M4 carbine fires a .223 caliber round, which is 5.56 millimeters, at about 3,000 feet per second. When it hits a human body, the effects are devastating. It’s designed to do that. That’s what our soldiers ought to carry.”
He added, “I personally don’t think there’s any need for that kind of weaponry on the streets and particularly around the schools in America. I believe that we’ve got to take a serious look — I understand everybody’s desire to have whatever they want — we have to protect our children and our police and we have to protect our population. And I think we have to take a very mature look at that.”
The general makes a very good argument for civilian control of the military, as the military by nature tends to be authoritarian, and he should take a mature look at what current law actually says with regard to firearms. The fully automatic M4 and M16 are already effectively illegal for civilians to own and have been since 1986. You can buy semiautomatic versions, such as the AR-15, but not fully automatic M16s without jumping through an awful lot of legal hoops that amount to making them illegal. New laws won’t change that, unless they reverse standing law, and McCrystal is definitely not arguing for that.
McCrystal probably wants to ban anything that looks like this.
It looks like a mean “assault weapon,” but the Walther G22 is just a cool looking semiautomatic .22 caliber rifle, therefore it’s perfectly legal for civilian ownership.
I had to explain to some folks a long time ago that respect for someone who served in the military does not automatically translate into blind acceptance of their viewpoint.
They are not angels with infallible judgement. After all, even Lee Harvey Oswald served in the military, and there is a long list of countries throughout history wherein the military overthrew the civilian government with catastrophic results.
That latter being the point of why our own Founding Fathers included a 2nd Amendment – and the very weapons he’s criticizing civilian ownership of are the very weapons the Founding Fathers would have had in mind when writing the Bill of Rights.
Those in the military are individuals who chose a career that places their lives in danger and were trained and equipped to deal with the hazards that are unique to that career choice. They serve a valuable role in society for which I don’t doubt they are underpaid and under-appreciated.
Having said that, they are also subservient to civilian authority.
This general should no more pontificate on this matter as if he had more authority than he should express an opinion on the national debt or tax policy. In all of those matters, his opinion is no better or worse than any civilian’s opinion.
The difference is he is using his uniform as a means of influencing the civilian population and federal public policy – and that is enough that his exercise of his 1st Amendment rights should be strictly constrained so as not to impart the perception of the US military legitimizing what only amounts to his own personal opinion.
In short, with all due respect, he should shut the hell up.
For an army officer to be unable to distinguish between an M16, an M4 and an AR15 strains credulity. He’s either jaw-droppingly stupid or deliberately lying for political purposes. Neither of those alternatives reflect very well on him.
Stanley, Stanley, Stanley. I guess you (as a lot of general officer do) have forgotten a lot over the years and achieved the “peter principal”. A basic course in ballistics would seem to be in order. Just be glad that we aren’t tossing 30-06 rounds down range. Now we’re talking “devastating” effects. Man I hate it when supposed experts talk out of their butts. Of course with his status as a career officer and a general to boot, his word is sacrosanct. NOT! Just proven to be another asshat without a clue. Sorry Stan, you ain’t the man. Plus, I’d like to have him show me where the word NEED pops up?! We don’t “need” those types of weapons just like journalists don’t “need” laptops and twitter accounts. A case of twitter for twits?
More to the point, he goes on about the ballistics of the 5.56mm cartridge that the M16/M4 fires.
Does he not know that this military chambering was actually developed from a civilian round, the .222 Remington, and that the .223 Remington – which is the civilian counterpart to the military 5.56mm – was actually introduced BEFORE the US military adopted the 5.56mm back in 1964?
If he’s so concerned about the “devastating” effect this round has when it hits something, does he feel this ammunition should not be available in civilian form to the public because it’s so dangerous – that’s after being commercially available for 48 years now?
If he’s upset about a .22 caliber slug traveling at 3,000 FPS, I guess he’d really get his panties in a twist when he realizes what velocity an actual high powered rifle slug has!
Does he then, to be consistent, want to do away with anything as powerful as, or more powerful than, the 5.56mm ammunition since he considers it to be, again, “devastating”?
That eliminates practically all calibers suitable for deer hunting as the .223 is generally considered the minimum power level for hunting deer.
If the General wishes to enter the lists on this issue and use his moral authority, I kindly ask him to discuss whether or not–yes or no–that what was argued, and was accepted by all concerned as a non-controversial point during the Ratification debates–that the people are a final source for securing their own liberty–was a valid or invalid viewpoint, in general. This is not black-helicopter militia yahoo speak. The point was repeatedly brought up by those both for and against ratification. Were they incorrect in their views? Yes or no?
In other words, were the Fouding generation faulty in logic for ratifying the Second Amendment? Yes or no? For if the general is going to think the big thoughts, then let us think the big thoughts. I argue that the Second Amendment was not to secure the rights to hunting arms. Am I right or wrong?
And if the Founding generation were wrong on this, what else are they just flat out wrong on, and Mr. McChrystal right (and remember, Ben Franklin was anti-slavery)?
Just a minor historical accuracy quibble….
Ben Franklin actually was a slave owner at one point, though he did have a change of heart and later became an abolitionist. Still, there were plenty of other Founding Fathers who were against the “peculiar institution”, so your point stands.
In my opinion, one of the reasons this country has had domestic peace for so long is precisely because the military kept a check on it’s views regarding civilian society and larger policy (both domestic and foreign) matters.
This subservience to civilian authority being the reason that even a general of MacArthur’s stature was summarily dismissed even in the middle of a shooting war for daring to speak out publicly on a foreign policy and militarily strategic matter – a topic which at that time he was actually far more qualified to discuss than the current domestic policy matter that McCrystal has seen fit to interject himself into.
His military career at this point should likewise be terminated.
Any rank over O-3 is political. Gen McCrystal proves this (again).
It has been my growing gut instinct that, in general, the three and four star levels have a bureaucratic political mindset that is in the main destructive to democracy and to the creation of a lean war-fighting- and duty-focused military ethos.
As one author put it, every general officer has over the course of his career been evaluated by upwards of 30 people, all of whom have differing viewpoints and experience, and none of whom can have seriously objected to him.
As anyone with a strong character will have pissed *someone* off, this arguably lowers the quality of the general officer pool.
Of course the Generals wouldn’t want civilian competition. Didn’t the German General Staff make a similar institutional agreement with Hitler over the fate of the Brown Shirts? The State must have the monopoly on the means of violence don’t you know.
Retired Gen. Stanley McCrystal is not to be trusted. He certainly understands the state of the citizen’s armory and wishes to play the role of General Thomas Gage this time around.
223/NATO 5.56 is varmint round. It is one step up from the 22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire. It was developed for ranchers to eliminate pests like coyotes and groundhogs. The Army turned it into a military round when they decided to adopt “spray and pray” tactics in Vietnam. The M-14 was not particularly well suited for that function. I consider it a junk round. I used the much more powerful 243 Winchester for varmint hunting.
Here is a ballistics reference table:
http://www.chuckhawks.com/rifle_ballistics_table.htm
A car door will protect you from a 223 round. A 308 or 30-06 fmj round will go though both car doors at 250 yards and kill you on the other side.
It seems to me that here what the general is basically saying is that he thinks civilians have no legitimate purpose in home defense for an semi-automatic version of the M-4, yet I will note the military moved to the M-4 vice the M-16, and strangely enough, for house-to-house fighting in built-up areas, because it decided the carbine was better than the M-16, or, say, a .38 revolver. Because it issues one as standard, and not the other two.
Thus, the general has argued that the personal arm that the military has moved to for operations in houses has no conceivable utility for home defense…
I saw McCrystal on tv, I think it was with Cavuto. I have never seen such a self-serving, non-committal line from anyone. gen Mac is trying to re-establish a career, and not on the right. As much as I hate to say it, it seems to me our current line of flag officers is far too political. We need Schwartzkopf’s, not McCrystal’s. The long term consequences of our senior military officers being more political than military is too frightening to contemplate.