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Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: My Case Against Assault Weapons (cross post from the other group) [View all]benEzra
(12,148 posts)5. Is this for real, or a Poe? Here's some fact-checking...
Last edited Mon Jun 29, 2015, 12:38 AM - Edit history (2)
"The original ammunition of the AR-15 had a 5.56mm (0.223 caliber -slightly larger than a 22) bullet"
Ummm, it's the same diameter as other .22's. The diameter of a ".223 Remington" bullet is 0.224 inch, the same as a typical .22 rimfire. It's called ".223 Remington" to distinguish it from the civilian small-game-hunting cartridge it was developed from (.222 Remington), which was in turn so named to distinguish it from other .22-caliber centerfires like .22 Hornet and because ".222" sounded cool.
"propelled by a massive amount of gun powder"
If you think .223 Remington is super powerful, you have never seen a deer rifle. In terms of powder, I'm seeing about 27 grains of powder behind hot .223 loads, 58 grains of powder behind hot .30-06 loads (deer), and up to 80 grains of powder for .300 Winchester Magnum (deer at longer range, elk, moose).
.223 Remington is the *least* powerful of all common centerfire rifle cartridges. There are a few that are less powerful (e.g. .22 Hornet), but they aren't common anymore.
"the AR-15 was totally useless as a hunting rifle because it would destroy much of the meat of a targeted animal"
This is what initially made me think this was a Poe. Due to its small powder capacity and tiny bullet, .223 isn't typically considered powerful enough to humanely hunt deer. An expert hunter can hunt deer with a centerfire .22, but a humane kill will require excellent shot placement and fairly close range. It certainly won't destroy as much meat as even a low-end deer caliber like .243 Winchester, never mind something like .270 Winchester or .30-06.
Here are ballistic charts for .223 Remington, a .270 deer rifle, a .30-06 deer rifle, and a .300 Winchester Magnum elk rifle. Look at the energy table and get back to me.
http://guide.sportsmansguide.com/ballistic-chart/remington_charts/223rembal.htm
http://guide.sportsmansguide.com/ballistic-chart/remington_charts/270winbal.htm
http://guide.sportsmansguide.com/ballistic-chart/remington_charts/3006sbal.htm
http://guide.sportsmansguide.com/ballistic-chart/remington_charts/300wmbal.htm
And you were in the military, yet never saw a 7.62x51mm cartridge?
"It makes a small hole on entry, but the projectile is unstable so it tumbles when it enters flesh and is designed to make a massive exit wound."
Ummm, *all* pointed nonexpanding bullets tumble in flesh, unless they break apart first. They are spin-stabilized in air, but the spin is insufficient to stabilize them in a denser medium. And it's a .22. Do you have any idea how the exit wound produced by a .30-06 deer rifle with an expanding bullet would compare to the exit wound from a little .223?
"With magazines capable of storing 60 and even 100 rounds"
Dude, standard capacity for STANAG magazines are 20 and 30. Hand-waving about 100-round jam-o-matic boat-anchor range toy magazines when you're trying to outlaw half a billion lawfully owned 11-to-30-rounders is simply trolling.
"and making sure when a person is hit just about anywhere on his body, he will go down and he will not get back up"
Oh, for Pete's sake, it's a fricking centerfire .22. Yes, getting shot with one would be awful, but less awful than other rifle rounds. Scroll back up to the ballistics charts.
"I shudder every time I am reminded that military assault weapons such as the AR-15 can be bought by just about anyone in our country and can thus easily fall in the hands of a homicidal maniacs or home grown terrorists whose objectives are to kill the maximum number of people before they are themselves shot."
And yet they are consistently the least misused of all civilian weapons. Perhaps you should spend less time shuddering and more time Googling. I'll suggest the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, Table 20, Murder by State and Type of Weapon as a very enlightening place to start. Here's a summary:
Murder, by State and Type of Weapon, 2013 (FBI)
[font face="courier new"] Total murders...................... 12,253
Handguns............................ 5,782 (47.2%)
Firearms (type unknown)............. 2,079 (17.0%)
Clubs, rope, fire, etc.............. 1,622 (13.2%)
Knives and other cutting weapons.... 1,490 (12.2%)
Hands, fists, feet.................... 687 (5.6%)
Shotguns.............................. 308 (2.5%)
Rifles................................ 285 (2.3%) [/font]
The trend in rifle homicide, 2005-2013 (from FBI Uniform Crime Reports 2005-2013, Table 20, collated):
[font face="courier new"] 2005: 442
2006: 436
2007: 450
2008: 375
2009: 348
2010: 358
2011: 323
2012: 302
2013: 285 [/font]
And FWIW, military assault rifles are select-fire; it's the ability to fire in cyclic mode that distinguishes them from ordinary civilian guns. The AR-15 is an ordinary civilian rifle, and AFAIK no non-automatic AR-15 is issued by any military on this planet in the infantry role.
"Whenever there efforts to ban assault weapons, there is always talk about 2nd Amendments rights. However, there are few defenders of the 2nd Amendment who would defend the right of ordinary Americans to own fully functional M1A tanks, or bazookas, or anti-aircraft rockets. And no sane person would defend the right a civilian to possess a tactical nuclear weapon."
If you can't tell the difference between a tank cannon (or a tac-nuke!) and a non-automatic .22 caliber civilian rifle, I suggest you go study the issue a little more before pontificating about what civilians can and can't own.
"So nearly everyone concedes that even 2nd Amendments rights have their limits. The only thing that is at issue here is where do you draw the line between which weapons are allowed and which not allowed."
Exactly. That line is drawn at .51 caliber, automatic fire, and explosives. .22 caliber non-automatics, like AR-15's, are right in the middle of the civilian spectrum. I'd suggest Googling "National Firearms Act" and "Gun Control Act of 1968" to help you understand where that line is drawn.
"They are not practical for hunting and offer no more protection than a standard hand gun, rifle or shotgun."
As to hunting, they are practical for small game hunting, like groundhogs and coyotes. If you change the caliber to something bigger (like 6.8mm) or step up to an AR-10 in .243 or 7mm-08, they are great for deer.
For defense of home, long gun is better than a handgun, as long as you are talking about sheltering in place in a safe room rather than moving through the house to retrieve kids or something (long guns aren't very portable). The two dominant civilian long guns serving in that role in U.S. homes are the .729-caliber repeating shotgun and the AR-15, both in the millions.
"if someone wants a ideal defensive weapon they need to buy a shotgun. It is difficult to miss with shotgun at relatively close range."
I take it that you've never shot an IPSC/USPSA course with a shotgun then. At in-home distances, shotguns have very little spread and have to be aimed just like AR-15's and any other long gun, and you can miss just as easily. The downside of shotguns is brutal recoil (a 12-gauge is fricking .73 caliber, an AR is .22), and effective shotgun loads will penetrate more walls than a good civilian .223 hollowpoint. An AR is also more easily fitted with a light (a vital safety feature for a HD gun), and is more amenable to optics.
"Now some owners of assault weapons say they can and are used for hunting, and based on their descriptions of their activities I don't doubt that this is true. Apparently modifications to modern AR-15 do allow for this capability.
Huh? Modern-looking rifles in larger calibers are widely used for deer hunting, e.g. the Remington R-25 in .243, 7mm-08, and .308. The AR is widely used for small-game hunting, like prairie dogs and groundhogs, and to a lesser extent small hogs.
What you don't seem to understand, however (are you outside the United States?) is that most American gun owners don't hunt. The AR-15 is by far the dominant target rifle in the United States, and also has quite a following in Europe in that role; yes, AR's are popular in continental Europe. Only about 1 in 5 U.S. gun owners hunts, and most also own nonhunting guns for defensive purposes or target shooting.
The AR is the top selling sporting rifle in the United States. Your error is in conflating the broader shooting sports with hunting.
"However, what they won't mention is that there are many other rifles which are manufactured for specifically for hunting which are as good as or usually better than the assault weapons they are using. In addition, most of these rifles are equipped only with five round clips (larger clips are illegal for hunting in many states). Assault rifles which an be use with readily available magazines which hold as many as 100 rounds) could be banned without affecting the ability to hunt.)"
See above; the AR-15 is primarily a target rifle and all-around carbine, suitable for hunting but not powerful enough for deer, and most of us don't hunt anyway.
" In addition, if it proves politically impossible to band assault weapons, we should at least ban high capacity magazine with magazines and clips limited to only 10 or 11 rounds - the number of rounds carried by many handguns. Proposed laws call for a period or maybe 6 months where the government would buy back all high capacity magazines from gun owners. After that period of time it would be a crime punishable by several years in jail to possess such magazines.)"
Typical full-sized handguns have "clips" (sic) that hold 13 to 18 rounds, and you want to outlaw those too.
BTW, you're talking about telling 50+ million citizens of voting age that they need to hand over half a billion magazines or you're going to throw them in prison with murderers and rapists. Given that merely raising prices on pistol magazines in 1994 cost the House and Senate and unseated the sitting Speaker of the House for the first time since the Civil War, how do you think threatening 40 or 50 million households with imprisonment is going to fly? Even if you successfully trolled Congress into passing such a law, law enforcement would not implement it (see Colorado, Connecticut, New York).
Your proposal is absolutely disconnected from reality.
"So assault weapons with high capacity magazines have only one practical purpose, killing multiple people in a very short period of time."
That statement can only be made out of either ignorance, mendacity, or sheer cognitive dissonance. You're talking about the most popular civilian rifles in the United States, yet rifles as a class are the least misused of all weapons.
I own an AR-15 myself, and it serves as a small-caliber target rifle (both for USPSA style competition and recreational shooting) and in the defensive standby role; I own no shotguns and have no interest in them. It is very, very well suited for both purposes, due to the small caliber, light recoil, and (in the HD role) good reserve capacity.
"Why in the world would we want just about anyone in the general public to have access to such powerful weapons."
"Such powerful weapons"? Quick, name five popular centerfire rifle calibers less powerful than a .223 Remington AR-15. I'll bet you can't. I can only think of one, 5.45x39mm. All others I can think of are either rare and obsolete (.218 Bee, .22 Hornet, .17 Remington, .222 Remington) or more powerful than an AR-15.
"If you want to discuss your 2nd Amendment rights, we can also make that discussion about your right own an 68 ton M1A tank equipped a 120mm tank gun, a 50 caliber machine gun and two and second 7.62 mm machine guns. You see the 2nd Amendment isn't about providing access to any and all weapons, it's about where we draw the line."
The line is drawn at .51 caliber (with exceptions for over-.50 shotguns and some sporting rifles), not .22 caliber. The AR-15 is a non-automatic civilian .22, not a fricking M1 tank.
And BTW, the "M1A" isn't a tank; it's a .308/7.62x51mm caliber civilian rifle. You're thinking of the M1, M1A1, or M1A2. You said you were in the military? What nation, and if the USA, what was your MOS and station?
"If you find the time, please check out my blog."
Sure, just as soon as you correct the factual errors in this piece. I can cite sources for every single point above, and will be glad to provide them.
And BTW, I'll keep my AR and magazines, thanks.
(I'm very interested to see whether the thread in the other group corrects any of these bloopers, since making a laughingstock of the gun control lobby doesn't exactly further their cause.)
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My Case Against Assault Weapons (cross post from the other group) [View all]
Duckhunter935
Jun 2015
OP
If the poster truly believed what he wrote he'd be working to disarm the police, not the populace.
Nuclear Unicorn
Jun 2015
#2
That has to be one of best fiskings I have ever seen. All I can say is:
friendly_iconoclast
Jun 2015
#7
Gee, I guess all of those 35ton tracked vehicles with turrets that I work on.
oneshooter
Jun 2015
#8
Interesting that they not only have to be protected from seeing a dissenting position...
benEzra
Jun 2015
#15
There's an M.C. Escher lithograph that I think illustrates the mindset:
friendly_iconoclast
Jun 2015
#23