Posted on 10/23/2002 9:56:24 AM PDT by xsysmgr
The Sniper has reinvigorated gun-prohibition groups. Gun control is the answer for them, of course, to a murder spree by someone using some kind of rifle or handgun in a caliber of approximately .223. The prohibition lobbies and their media dupes are calling the suspect .223 "high-powered," but it's really about as low powered as a centerfire rifle gets. As a hunting round, it's for varmints, not big game. While the Violence Policy Center has been making a big deal about "sniper rifles" and "sniper culture" (thereby denigrating the many decent people who serve as snipers for the police or the military), the .223 caliber — if that's what the shooter is using — is quite far from the long-range, high-power type of rifle used by police and military snipers, as well as by ordinary citizens who participate in target competitions which use long-range, precise shooting skills.
Thus, the gun-control issue du jour is so-called "ballistic fingerprinting" or "ballistic DNA." The theory is that when a bullet goes through a rifled barrel — handgun or rifle — striations are made on the bullet that are unique to that particular barrel, just as DNA and fingerprints are unique. So, once you have a crime bullet, all you need to do is compare it to all other bullets, find your match, and go from there, just as you would do with a fingerprint or DNA sample.
Note the first obvious problem: You need something to compare it to. Some law-enforcement officials would probably like it if they had computers files of everyone's fingerprints and DNA, and such a database would certainly help solve many crimes. A scheme for collecting such private information from every household in the United States would be politically impossible currently — but once the privacy of half of all American households that own firearms is breached, then breaching the privacy of the other half of households may be politically easier.
Supposedly, the government can collect a barrel print from every gun, or at least every new gun, and then a crime bullet can be compared to the sample. Obviously, that also requires knowing who owns each gun associated with a particular bullet, which is one reason why the program requires universal gun registration. If it's okay to require that all rifles and handguns be sampled and clearly associated with the owners who own the barrel that can make such markings, it hard to see why it would not be okay to require fingerprints and DNA samples from everyone. There are far more crimes that can be solved with fingerprint or DNA analysis than with bullet-striation analysis.
Indeed, the case for fingerprint/DNA collection is stronger than the case for collection of bullet markings; fingerprints and DNA are immutable, and thus very useful for criminal investigations. But barrel markings change. They change over time, microscopically with each firing of the gun; for inexpensive guns with softer metal barrels, 50 or 100 rounds can change the striations. If 1,000 rounds are fired through the gun (as would be common during a long weekend of serious target practice), the changes are all the greater. In addition, scraping the inside of the barrel physically or chemically can deliberately alter barrel markings.
Finally, for many guns, the barrel can be changed entirely. Barrels are commonly available after market components. Gun owners often buy replacement barrels to improve a gun's performance, or to replace a barrel that has been worn out by heavy practice. For guns that have integral barrels that can't be switched out, the barrel can be rebored — as is often done for a gun that has been worn out by heavy use.
Even if we somehow register and collect data from every new rifle and handgun, from the many tens of millions of rifles and handguns currently in private hands (including guns owned by criminals), and from the unknown number of spare barrels currently in private hands, and even if there were some magical way to prevent gun barrels from being altered by scratching, there's the problem of shotguns. Unlike handguns and rifles, shotguns are not rifled; that is, they do not have grooves in their barrel designed to make a bullet spin. For this reason, shotguns aren't as accurate at longer ranges, especially compared to rifles. But shotguns loaded with slug or with large pellets are accurate enough at ranges of 100 yards or less (the probable range of the Maryland/Washington/Virginia murders — and of more than 99 percent of violent-crime guns) to kill a person. So a 100 percent perfect "ballistic fingerprinting" system would likely encourage criminals to switch to shotguns (sawed-off shotguns are almost as concealable as large handguns), but criminals would still have an easy way to avoid detection.
An additional problem is the difficulty of making the comparisons. Nowadays, bullets, fingerprints, and DNA are matched by taking the sample in question and comparing it to a relatively small number of other samples — sometimes just the DNA/fingerprints/bullets of one suspect, but, at most, several possible suspects. The wider the sampling, the better the chances of finding a match, but the greater the time and expense necessary to do so. The more resources that are spent on data hunts, the fewer resources that are available for other forms of criminal investigation.
For example, Maryland has mandatory sampling of all new handguns, at a cost to handgun buyers of about $20 per gun (the cost to collect the sample). For the state of Maryland, cost of the equipment and manpower to operate the equipment amounts of $5,000 per handgun sold. The system has thus far solved no crimes. Thus, so far, every dollar spent by Maryland for the sampling scheme has been wasted money, money that could — in a state currently suffering a budget crisis — have been spent on more detectives or in other ways that really do solve crimes.
Perhaps one day, there will be a handgun owner in Maryland who will be a lawful registered owner, who will not have intentionally or unintentionally changed the barrel print, and who will commit some crime that gets solved by the Maryland database. The crime might be an attempted murder, or it might be illegally celebrating the new year by firing a gun in the air; the cost of solving this crime might be approximately $500,000. Although registered guns are used in an almost infinitesimal percentage of violent gun crimes, if spending $500,000-per crime was actually the answer to solving a quarter of the nation's annual gun crimes, the spending would consume nation's entire criminal-justice budget. Wouldn't you rather have a court and maybe a prison, too? And perhaps a few detectives and other police officers?
But that cost figure is based on the hypothetical that the system would work. In fact, ballistic markings are not even remotely as reliable as fingerprints. Indeed, they are not even as reliable as tire tread analysis. If barrel markings were reliable, then an analyst ought to be able, at the least, to distinguish different types of guns. A tire-tread analyst can usually tell what kind of tire made a tire print, even if he can't be certain which individual tire made a mark.
As a bullet travels down a barrel, the rifling makes the bullet spin in a spiral motion. This is done by putting lands (lines where the barrel is narrower) and grooves (lines where the barrel is wider) in the barrel. The number of lands and grooves, and their widths, vary depending on the firearm model. The amount of spin put on the bullet also varies. For example, Colt Sporters now generally spin 360 degrees every seven inches, and Ruger Mini-14s every nine inches. The easy part of bullet analysis should be determining which barrels might have made the markings on the bullet, just as the easy part of tire-tread analysis is determining which models of tires have the same tread as those found at a crime scene.
It is thus telling that the authorities in the D.C.-area murders, the police are unwilling to exclude any of dozens of models of .223s from consideration. The police even suggested that bullets might have come from an AK-74 (an Eastern European firearm which is relatively rare in the United States), even though the AK-74 fires bullet with different dimensions from the .223.
One of the problems with any attempts at analysis is that bullets — especially higher-rifle-velocity bullets — are frequently deformed by whatever objects they strike. To use the DNA approach, imagine analyzing a DNA sample with 50-80 percent of the letters missing. Or a partial fingerprint where the majority of the print isn't there. The authorities in D.C. have announced that two of the bullets are worthless even for matching to the other bullets. The remaining ones appear not to be giving much information, even of the broadest kind.
The best that can be said about the rest of the ballistic "fingerprinting" — firing-pin and ejector marks — is that they're less unique than barrel striations. Firing-pin marks are also subject to natural and intentional alteration.
In short, so-called "ballistic fingerprinting" is vastly less useful than real fingerprinting or DNA analysis as a crime-fighting tool. It's far less useful than tire-tread analysis. By consuming immense resources from the criminal-justice system, the gun-registration system would seriously reduce criminal-justice effectiveness and cut the number of cops on the street — as Canada's simpler gun-registration scheme already has.
From the viewpoint of the prohibition lobbies, however, the misnamed "ballistic-fingerprinting" scheme does have advantages. The scheme amounts to partial gun registration today (in any form that could be politically viable in the legislature), setting the stage for more comprehensive gun registration in the future (without which the scheme would be useless). Since "gun registration" is a political loser almost everywhere, the gun-prohibition lobbies have the opportunity to push for registration under a new, high-tech name. And what is the purpose of gun registration? The former president of the group currently known as the Brady Campaign, the late Nelson Shields, explained registration's purpose in a 1976 New Yorker interview:The first problem is to slow down the number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, police, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal.
Gun registration has been a very useful tool for gun confiscation in England, Australia, New York City, California, and many other places. Criminals don't register their guns, but many law-abiding citizens do, and when the government makes ownership of the registered gun illegal, the gun-owner, knowing that his gun is already on a government list, has little choice but to surrender his gun to the government furnace. This is a pleasing result for the gun prohibition groups, but if this is the public policy direction for America, we at least ought to acknowledge what is being done, rather than pretending that gun registration — cloaked in a high-tech euphemism — is going to solve crimes.
— Dave Kopel is a columnist for NRO. Kopel and Blackman are co-authors of No More Wacos: What's Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It.
This is the caliber generally used by police snipers. Every police sniper I've known has used this caliber and at distances of less than 100 yards. I wish people who write about guns and their uses would learn about guns and their uses first. I quit reading at this point since I doubt the authors expertise on anything else gun related.
There are many battles to fight; but this one was lost when the Brady checks were instituted.
WRONG again. Low is the .22 shorts to mag.
WRONG. First, .22's are rimfire, not centerfire. Second he said "about" anyway, not that it is the lowest.
SD
Better check your facts again, or at least read what you quoted:
"...the suspect .223 "high-powered," but it's really about as low powered as a centerfire rifle gets."
.22 short, .22 LR, and .22 magnum are rimfire cartridges, not centerfire.
I have no idea what police snipers are using nowadays, although the police rifleman (they didn't call him a sniper then) that I knew back in the 70s used a .30 caliber rifle. So do all the military types I know.
.223 is at best a varmint caliber, as a military rifle it was completely a compromise for ammunition weight and lack of expertise on the part of incoming draftees. My husband seriously loathed it when he was in (preferred the M-14). I can't imagine why a sniper would be using it in preference to a solid .30 caliber like a .308 (if you think the .30'06 has too much recoil).
Much of the confusion here about "high power" comes from failing to distinguish velocity and bullet weight. .223 is not "high power" by any stretch of the imagination - too light a bullet. It IS "high velocity", no question about that, but it's pushing a 40-65 grain bullet, which is basically just a chip. .22-250 and the other .22 caliber center fire wildcats are in the same boat - tiny bullet, lots of velocity. For comparison, I handload my .308 with 165 gr boat tail competition bullets, and that's what I'd consider a moderate or average bullet weight for a .308. And the .308 is itself a compromise downsize from the true high-power .30'06, if you consider full size military calibers as "high power". I would say that .30'06 is the bottom end of high power, and the real high power stuff goes from there up.
Over the years, six or eight. Only a couple well enough to go beyond shooting and gun talk. Several local police department swat teams practice at the private range I use. Call your local PD and ask what rifles the snipers there use. It will probably be a Remington 700 in .223. .308 is usually shunned by PDs due to too much power. Most PD sniper shots are at the closest possible range to avoid misses or accidental hostage hits. Over penetration of the .308 at close range is a major concern, since there is a high probability that there will be hostages or other civilians in close proximity the the perp.
I wonder if overpenetration couldn't be solved by bullet weight/type or load. I sure don't get overpenetration on whitetail with a 165 at just over 2000 fps. I have NEVER had a bullet go through, even on a neck shot, and these are south Georgia whitetail - 85-90 pounds would be a BIG one - anywhere from 75 out to about 150 yards.
I also would be more concerned about deflection than overpenetration with something as light as .223.
Consider a police situation, and you're in charge of the sniper.
A perp has a hysterical woman as a shield with a knife to her throat and only about 6 or 8 inches of his head showing from behind her. there are other hostages behind him being held at gunpoint by an accomplice, problem is there is a wall between you and the hostages and you don't know exactly where they are.
So give the orders. Have your sniper take a .308 (or why not 300 mag?) and fire from, say, 200 yards. A slight gust of wind and you kill the woman, the perp, maybe one or two or even three hostages behing the wall.
Or, you could get your sniper within 30 or 40 yards, maybe less, use a Rem 700 in .223 with a scope and only take out the perp, with the .223 expending itself in the perps head. Your choice.
Call your local PD and ask what they use. I'm only speaking from the experience of police dept swat teams I'm familiar with, but they all use 700's in .223 for the sniper. AR's are usually kept in check for an all out shoot out situation, not sniping. I've never seen any of them practicing with .308 and don't now if they even own any.
BTW, High Power is a relative term. I consider anything with normal chamber pressures in the 40000+ range to be high powered. .223 is in that range and I consider it high powered. There are other ways of determining this, and I don't think anyone has a standard definition of High Power.
Of course it could. But the training resources , gunsmithing, rifle types available, etc. would make the .223 more desirable to a Department (not mentioning the instant kill power of shock at close range from a .223). Same reason military usually goes .308 (or 300 mag) instead of 7mm mag, 338, or other comparable calibers. Standardized training and standardized skills that are readily transferable to different depts and situations.
Of course, I think we all trust the caliber we train with, and if I were used to the .223 that's what I would use, because accuracy is primary before you even consider the issues of deflection or overpenetration. But I would happily warrant a minute of angle hit at 100 yards with my Ruger M-77 in .308, so long as I could shoot prone or sitting with a sling. . . .
of course heaven knows a perp with a hostage is a little different from a paper target or a strolling whitetail . . . I remember having "buck fever" when I first started hunting, and I imagine there would be some of that in such a situation. But I still took my first buck (not what I would consider a clean hit, though - he was quartering towards me and the bullet ranged back through the chest cavity after penetrating the heart and one lung. He ran about 50 yards after being hit, recovered the bullet up against the spine about 1/3 of the way back. And yes, I had to dress him out all by myself. You never saw a deer camp clear out so fast when I hauled him in, "you kill it, you clean it," was the order of the day. :-D )
You're right that there's no standard definition of "high power", although I think mine's pretty accurate. Pressure, BTW, is no guide to "high-power". Wrong powder, wrong charge, you can get hideous overpressure situations without corresponding increases in velocity or muzzle energy. (When my primers start flowing out, I back off. Haven't had that trouble with the .308, but the .303 British is notorious for headspace and pressure problems, and I load (carefully) for that caliber also.)
The weapon(s) of choice for modern marksmen are the .223, or 5.56 NATO, service rifle (Colt M16 and its variants), .308, or 7.62 NATO, usually an M14 Garand or one of its variants or the .300 Win mag. The later is available from a number of manufacturers in a bolt action rifle and is favored by long range shooters due to its flat trajectory. The serious scope makers (read Leopold) offer their military scopes with range compensators for those three rounds. The .300 Win mag has a great accuracy record out at the 800 to 1000 meter range (the range which separates the real marksmen and markswomen from the wannabes).
Just for the record, I make no representations as to being a "real marksman" with a high-power rifle. I am a master with a pistol, but the long ranges (500 meters plus) elude me with a rifle.
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