Posted on 06/28/2019 7:42:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
On the subject of gun control, television news shows these days spout nothing more than propaganda. This past Sunday, seven million Americans watched CBS’s "60 Minutes" explain why “AR-15s are the choice of our worst mass murderers.” It was the most-watched television program that day.
In the worst mass public shooting, a killer in Las Vegas used AR-15s, a type of semi-automatic rifle, to murder 58 people. The second worst attack occurred at an Orlando nightclub in 2016, and the killer used both an AR-15 style rifle as well as a very commonly-owned handgun. In the third worst attack, at Virginia Tech, the killer only used to handguns to claim 32 lives.
From 1998 to today, all mass public shootings where shots were fired, handguns averaged 8.3 murders. Rifle shootings averaged 13.3. All attacks where both handguns and rifles were fired resulted in more deaths – 21.4, on average.
"60 Minutes" tried to argue that the AR-15 is the weapon of choice for mass public shooters because its “ammunition travels three times the speed of sound” and does more damage to the human body. “So, you can see why the AR-15’s high velocity ammo is the fear of every American emergency,” claimed CBS’s Scott Pelley.
To show this, "60 Minutes" filmed the impact that AR-15 bullets have on gelatin, comparing it to the impact from a 9mm handgun. But CBS was incredibly misleading in implying that AR-15’s are somehow uniquely designed for warfare. In fact, bullets from rifles always travel faster than those from handguns. The AR-15 is no different than any rifle.
“A bomb went off on the inside because of the velocity of these [AR-15] high velocity rounds,” Pelley noted. The shock wave that a bullet produces when it hits a body does real damage, but again, there is nothing special about the AR-15. A bullet’s caliber tells you its diameter (i.e. a .30 caliber is 0.3 inches wide), and larger bullets create larger shock waves. The shock wave can damage internal organs well beyond the point of impact, meaning instant death.
An AR-15’s .223-caliber bullets are so small that many states prohibit use of them for deer hunting. The fear is that these relatively small bullets will not kill the animals, but merely wound them, causing them to suffer. These .223-caliber bullets are best for hunting small-game animals.
But the military may stand to benefit from using .223-caliber bullets, because wounding rather than killing enemy troops is likely to slow down their comrades and greatly limit maneuverability. Indeed, each soldier that is wounded slows down the movement of about seven other soldiers.
Smaller-caliber bullets are also lighter, allowing soldiers to carry many more of them. The smaller bullets produce less recoil in a gun, making it easier to shoot accurately.
“It is not just the speed of the bullet, but how quickly hundreds of bullets can be fired,” said Pelley. But the AR-15 fires bullets at the same rapidity as any other semi-automatic gun (one bullet per pull of the trigger). The vast majority of guns in the US are semi-automatic guns.
What CBS would never mention is that semiautomatic weapons are also used to protect people and save lives. Single-shot rifles that require physically reloading may not do people a lot of good when they are facing multiple criminals. Or, for that matter, if the first shot misses or fails to stop an attacker. People wanting to protect themselves and their families might not have the luxury of time to reload their guns.
CBS gives wall-to-wall coverage to mass public shootings, whether they be the attacks at the Pittsburgh synagogue, Sutherland Springs church, New Zealand mosque, or Stoneman Douglas High School. But nowhere in their coverage to do they mention that all of these places were gun-free zones where people couldn’t defend themselves.
The ultimate irony is that if CBS and other gun control advocates succeeded in banning .223-caliber rifles, larger-caliber hunting rifles would become more popular. A shot from such a gun would be more likely to kill someone. Whether this misinformation is a result of ignorance or political bias, the end result is to make Americans less safe.
Yeah, I watched it.
Scott P was careful to define semi = one pull of the trigger. OH, now we have an expert gun reporter /ssssss
Then launched into bump stocks.
More /s (s is not sarcasm this time)
The FBI’s own statistics show that more people are murdered every year by fists than by semi-automatic rifles.
More people are murdered by killers using their feet than by semi-automatic rifles.
More people are murdered by hammers than by semi-automatic rifles, etc.
Point taken, but we don't use .223 in the military. We use 5.56mm
So are they blaming the rifle or the caliber? Do they know that many firearms shoot the .223 round? They’re okay with the AR-10?
Agenda driven deceivers/propagandists.
News casters have been anti-gun since June 5, 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was murdered. Newspapers went anti-gun when John Kennedy was murdered back in 1963.
First it was handguns that were considered “evil”, and the promise was..”Rifles will not be affected!” by their bans.
Then around 1986 began the push to ban semi-auto rifles and shotguns.
In 1988, Josh Sugarmann wrote his diatribe against semi-auto rifles and the news media jumped on the band wagon.
Remington had three great varmint cartridges. .222 Remington, .222 Remington Special, .222 Remington Magnum.
The military found the .222 Remington Special to be almost perfect for their use.
Meanwhile, if velocity frightens the news media, they should look at the 22-250. Velocity is 4000 fps, compared to the 5.56 MM which is 3000 fps.
I guess the 20-06 is “safer” as it is only 2,700 fps.
I recall the Texas tower and Nov 22 in Dallas, both bolt action rifles. They cried about them also.(Bolt action). The controlled media’s war against having the public armed continues. A controlled public is a subservient public.
Rifles (of any kind) are used in 403 homicides in 2018 , though I have to ask myself why over 3,000 don’t have the weapon used documented. Handguns were used in 7,032. Knives 1,591. Blunt objects 467. And yes, hands and feet, 696, easily beating ARs.
You have to wonder why they focus on the AR (some portion of the 403). Well, not really. They just play well in the media. Once they won that, there would be the next inanimate, yet evil device for them to eliminate (except for the government).
The number of gun murders though has started climbing again though. I enjoyed being able to state it had dropped for decades in spite of an explosion in gun ownership. Can’t state that as starkly.
sorry, data is from last year available. 2017.
“You have to wonder why they focus on the AR . . . ?”
I have long maintained that it is because it is an ugly, black gun that can be easily “promoted” as a deadly “Assault Rifle?”
After all, doesn’t AR stand for “Assault Rifle?” (sarcasm off)
AR-15s are too easy for anti-gunners to stigmatize as “Evil Assault Rifles!”
Yet they themselves are protected by good guys with guns even as they pontificate and LIE about those of us who believe in the Second Amendment!
I believe they are overplaying their hand, and that We the People and the US Constitution will prevail!
Common sense may be in the offing!
Tim Gordon Answered Oct 3, 2016 · Author has 2.5k answers and 3.6m answer views
Roughly 144,000 is the number that’s floated around the most as far as ‘real full auto weapons’ goes. In other words, real live machine guns in the hands of the public. To the best of my knowledge, this number does not count the quantity of mere receivers that are registered so they can be built into working machine guns at a later date (about 32,000 - so in effect 176,000 transferable machine guns both assembled and not). It also does not count any ‘machine guns’ owned by civilian government agencies (just shy of 300,000) or what are known as ‘dealer samples’ (about 17,000), but actual, functioning, transferable select fire or fully automatic firearms that can be bought or sold.
Bruce Haskin Sr, BS Political Science & Philosophy, Canisius College (1962) Answered Apr 6, 2018 · Author has 102 answers and 28k answer views
The NFA Act 1934 regulated and taxed, among other things, automatic weapons (machine guns, sub-machine guns, automatic rifles, etc.). I am unaware of any practical way to determine just how many machine guns (crew-served weapons) versus sub-machine guns or automatic rifles that are licensed Class III firearms.
But, one thing is certain … the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 has pretty much assured that the number of Title III firearms will decrease and will continue to decrease since there is no way to replenish these with a source of auto-firearms manufactured before 1989. This was a sly way of eliminating any civilian ownership of auto-firearms.
Washington Post: There Are Now More Guns Than People in the U.S.
A 2012 Congressional Research Service report published exactly 1 month before the Sandy Hook school shooting put the number of civilian firearms at 242M I 1996, 259M in 2000, and 350M as of 2009.
So, 176K/310M = 0.06% are machine guns.
Obviously the total number of firearms is larger after 8 years of the Obama gun boom.
“You have to wonder why they focus on the AR . . . ?”
I believe most of us here understand why...The endgame of all their anti-2nd Amendment agitprop and dezinformatzia is a disarmed populace unable to resist the tyranny The Globalist Left has planned for us...For our own good, of course!
And the AR is just the most common example in use today of exactly the type of arms the 2nd Amendment mentions, and the possession thereof protects...And so, it’s the anti-gun bugaboo du jour...
The semi-automatic, magazine fed center fire rifle, and sufficient stores of ammunition and all its furnishings in the hands of a well regulated civilian resistance is precisely the weapon most feared by would-be tyrants...
Simply put, the AR and the others in its class are our militia weapons...The Left can’t effectively advance their agenda if we possess the means to resist in large numbers...They understand this, and thus the full court press to demonize the rifle and all who possess it; especially those of us who also harbor un-PC thoughts and (gasp!) actually think for ourselves...
Never, ever, ever give up your guns!
This only works against adversaries who care about their wounded more than about winning. This is a Western concept.
The defining characteristic of jihadis is that they don't care.
This is why the US military needs to go with a rifle caliber which will actually STOP the enemy, rather than just pissing them off. Perhaps the 6.5mm Creedmoor or 6.8mm Remington SPC round.
And that ARs are capable of caliber changes, without benefit of government approval. I’m waiting for someone to make this an issue.
Well played!
And armed society is a polite society!
Ah! A Heinlein fan, perhaps?
So true, so true...
Why, yes, I am!
Discovered Heinlein well past his “read by” date (early 2000s, IIRC) but I enjoyed all of his books, except the later ones - he kind of went round the bend.
“Starship Troopers” was notable! As were his tales about Lazarus Long!
And his notion that full citizenship/voting rights should be conferred AFTER HONORABLE military service strikes me as a sensible one!
“Never try to teach a pig to sing!
It wastes your time and annoys the pig!”
In addition, the AR is the least powerful of the usual weapons targeted in bans. If they get the AR, it’s just “common sense gun control” to ban the more powerful guns.
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