Posted on 06/08/2013 8:48:34 AM PDT by Innovative
A semi-automatic assault rifle is again being tied to a US mass shooting, this one a chaotic series of events led by a body-armor-clad man who killed four and wounded five people before being shot and killed by police in a college library in the iconic beachside city of Santa Monica, Calif.
The attack marked the first major mass shooting since a bipartisan gun control bill failed in the US Senate in April. The shooting may help efforts to revive the debate about gun control, as well as put focus on ongoing legislative action in some states around allowing students and faculty to carry weapons on campuses to help thwart active shooters who target what are usually so-called "gun free" zones.
AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles are used in far fewer homicides than hand guns, but have become symbolic of America’s struggle to contain violent and public mass shootings. They’re immensely popular because of their ease-of-use, accuracy and customizability. Critics argue that the rifles are designed to be militaristic and offensive. Fans of the guns say they have no more lethality than a standard hunting rifle.
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
In regards the “North Hollywood shootout”, if I recall correctly, the police were using low-pressure .38s – a firearm/round that has all of the low velocity issues of a .45 without the benefits of a large bullet...an earlier version’s general insufficiency for unarmored targets a part of why .45s came to be.
The bank robbers were body builders too....so lots of natural padding, and pain toleration. Not your normal wimp coward facing the unarmed.
There were a lot of things going wrong for the police in that firefight.
Trouble is... You’re both right about different parts.
One part is this: a 30-06 bullet from a rifle hits a deer and goes all the way through. The damage is almost all from the temporary cavity tissue damage and the resulting organ failure of the (hopefully) heart/lungs or at least quick hemorrhaging. The bullet barely slows down in the deer, so it leaves the deer without imparting as much energy into the deer.
A .45 is a fat slow bullet that tends to stop in the first big thing it hits. Not always... But often. All of the energy from a .45 that stops is more than the energy of a rifle bullet that doesn’t. No, it won’t throw somebody back. Neither will. People that get shot tend to just fall down.
But a “feature” of bullet-resistant vests is that the wearer trades penetration for energy transfer. A bullet stops faster and in a shorter distance on the vest than even if it hit flesh. Energy is transferred fully and over a very short time. It actually hits the wearer harder, but that is exchanged for penetration. Usually... That’s a good trade.
For the record, I honestly didn't know if a gun would have done any good in the circumstances. They all pointed out that if one or two guys in that theater had been carrying .45s (instead of .38s), and it is understood that responsible CCers carry at least one extra clip, the impact of hits would certainly put the wacko at an extreme disadvantage, staggering him and probably knocking him down. The smaller the wacko, the likelier the dive.
They also said that .38s probably couldn't do that, and a lot of these guys carry .38s.
But yes, I did understand that the vest you posted was not the "bullet proof vest" that TV land (ha ha!!) has it cracked up to be. :^)
See my post 120. Thanks. :^)
Sorry, Mr. Finny, but the bullet does NOT have more energy at the point of impact than it did at the muzzle. The energy delivered to the target is necessarily less than at the muzzle, as the bullet has slowed.
You make it sound as if he had real armor. Was that ever established? I don’t recall that. All I remember was that he purchased the vest shown in my earlier picture. They showed a copy of the receipt. He also bought a knife and some other harmless stuff.
Any weapon fired at this guy in the theater might have totally changed his behavior, even if he wasn’t hit. He would have at least been confused and maybe dropped down.
A lot of the time, when confronted with a weapon early on in the attack, self preservation takes effect. Even some suicidal suddenly become infused with self-preservation when a weapon is pointed at them, or rounds fired in their direction.
The Oregan mall episode ended when the shooter saw a CCer with his weapon out, and stopped shooting entirely and fled past people, now leaving them unharmed, as he went to hide and off himself.
A retired LAPD friend who worked the nastiest parts of LA, said that in his experience, such a perp who wore a vest (if he'd worn a decent vest) did it because he was inviting confrontation with law enforcement and wanted to survive, and that these types who shoot because they're crazy NEVER expect citizens to defend themselves, so any CC response probably would have flustered the guy to the point that citizens could disable him and stop him.
Mr Rogers, the thing about shooting steel targets is that unlike paper targets or soft tissue targets, you can really get a very good idea of the difference in loads and impact, as in that video you posted, because the impact is dispersed on the steel. I've shot them at various strength loads with .45 smokeless, .45 black powder, .38, and ladies' popgun .32s, and even the dif between black powder and smokeless is pretty noticeable (black powder gives a real whack .. it's a blast, no pun intended!!). I think the guy in your video is a bit off the mark in trying to prove how small the dif was -- it looked pretty big to me, and would feel pretty big to a guy wearing a BP vest certainly, or even body armor.
Have done some more research and see how off Mr. Rogers REALLY is in claiming a couple of hits from a .45 wouldn't certainly stagger or knock down a guy in a BP vest -- bullet proof vests, should some wacko ever actually get one instead of fake ones as seems to be what actually happens, are not made so the wearer can be impervious to gunfire like IronMan, they're made so that if he gets hit, at least the bullet won't penetrate and kill him. Body armor, which like vests apparently comes in a wide variety of classes and qualities, is a little more likely to make him impervious, but again, the impact of higher velocity hits is severe and is spread out over a large area.
ALL I'M SAYING is that when "experts" come on here lamenting that if the wacko is wearing a real bullet proof vest or body armor that CC defense is useless, are either deliberately lying or idiots. :^)
The bullet does NOT hit the target with the same impact that the gun recoils on the shooter.
I understand what you’re saying, but I’m sorry, I’m just not convinced that a 45 ACP round will knock a man flat. I don’t buy it. I think even a cast bullet, fully mushroomed, wouldn’t be able to reliably do that.
Nobody said a single round would knock a man flat. They said it would wallop him and likely make him stagger and lose his balance, and enough in succession would land him on his ass. :^)
Wow. Will share that. Thanks.
I’ve never seen a person shot but I have seen deer. If something stopped the bullet it would still be quit effective at slowing someone down. I would hate to be on the receiving end.
Christian Science Monitor is still owned by the church but it has been left-leaning for years and years and functionally left-wing at least since Clinton.
Nobody is a reporter there anymore. They are all “journalists” which is but a euphemism for news media lefties.
Interesting ironies at work. Purporting to dispel "what you see in TV land" myths by way of ... TV! {^) And me, who hasn't had TV since it left analog and went digital, and hasn't had cable for 30 years.
Lurkina, I've never shot a critter nor been around hunting, but have seen the plain mass and physics of lead hitting plate steel from handguns. The same plate hit by one guy (say, a .32 or a .38) goes "pang," and hit by another guy with a .45, goes tumbling over with the stand wrestling the dust. Not all .45s or any ol' .45 load (mine won't), but some. No TV, just dust, sun, and physics. Just sayin'.
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