A semiautomatic rifle is NOT an assault weapon.
you want to hold everyone who happens to own a semiautomatic rifle responsible for crimes committed by other people.
Do you recognize any danger posed by assault weapons? And let's not get bogged down in semantics.
A semi-automatic firing system fitted with a magazine containing more than ten rounds is, for the purpose of our discussion, an assault weapon.
Only if you are an idiot! I suppose using that logic, a rock sitting in the road is a ballistic missile.
Using your incorrect definition, that would make my .40 caliber handgun an assault weapon. Now can you see the idiocy in your statement?
You would be content to argue semantics rather than responsibly address the problem.
Here's the accepted tactic: first argue that no law can totally prevent gun violence and, therefore, no laws need be written. Next, argue that gun legislation is prima facea unconstitutional and therefore should not be tried. Then argue that guns are benign, inanimate objects as safe as a ball of yarn and anyone who is not immersed deeply in the gun culture are poseurs with no valid argument to offer.
This attitude by default makes you complicit in mass shootings. Lacking the imagination to craft a compromise, you are forcing society to factor in the blood of innocent victims as the cost of doing business in a gun loving society.
Call me an idiot all damn day long. It won't make your argument any more legitimate.
There are several problems, problems that people are trying to tell you about, and you refuse to listen. It is said that the Devil is in the Details. In this case, the Devil is against you, because the details you are choosing to ignore, are vitally important.
First, the weapon you all are talking about is the AR platform chambered for the 5.56 MM NATO round. It is not the most leathal choice. It’s not in the top ten. It might make the list of the top 100 most lethal rounds, but only if you exclude exotic rounds that are not in widespread use.
Let’s start with Las Vegas. There were more than 500 injured, and 58 dead not counting the shooter who offed himself. That is a lethal rating of one in ten. You may want to argue that is not Germaine, but it is. Because the 5.56 round is not designed to kill. This is one of those details that you are ignoring. The 5.56 round was chosen for a number of reasons for the military. Lethality was not one of those criteria.
First, the truth is that a vast majority of rounds are fired in suppressive efforts. In other words, the soldier is shooting in the general direction of the enemy in an effort to pin them down, to keep them from shooting the soldier. The human instinct to duck is very strong when you hear the zipping of bullets flying by. The 5.56 round was lighter, and allowed the soldier to carry more ammunition to fire even more rounds at the enemy in an effort to keep their heads down. Instead of eighty, or one hundred rounds of .308, the soldiers could carry three hundred rounds of 5.56.
Second. The 5.56 round created what is called “Military significant wounds”. This is preferred on a battlefield. If I kill an enemy, then his mates want revenge, but also don’t have to worry about him anymore. If I wound that enemy, his mates hear him screaming in pain, they see him bleeding, and possibly dying. It takes two of those enemy soldiers to carry the wounded man away. It takes a third soldier to carry the litter bearers weapons and equipment. One wound can remove three or four soldiers from the battle.
If the enemy ignores the wounded guy, then the screams work on their minds. They become afraid of being that guy, of screaming in agony as they lay dying. They are more reluctant to stick their heads up, more reluctant to do something courageous, and that results in fewer casualties on our side because of weakened morale on the enemy side.
Third. Ease of use. The 5.56 round does not have much power, so it does not have much kick. It makes it easier for smaller people to shoot the rifle. The rifle can be lighter, and easier for the soldier to carry. Now, one of the problems we had when the standard round was .30 Caliber, was that our allies who were smaller in stature couldn’t handle the rifles as easily. That was one of the reasons they developed the great grandfather of your “Assault Weapons” definition. The .30 Cal Carbine. This fired a hot pistol cartridge, so it could be smaller, lighter, and more easily used by the indigenous peoples. Early Pictures from Vietnam show the Vietnamese troops carrying this carbine. We gave it to the allies from nations where their physical stature was not as large as our own. Our own troops carried it during World War II as well as Korea and Vietnam.
The M-1 Garand was heavy, and had a powerful kick. The M-14 chamberd for the almost identical cartridge .308 was just as heavy, and had just as powerful a recoil.
By the way, both of those rifles, are far more lethal than the AR that is scaring you.
The devil is in the details. I told you that to begin with. Roughly speaking, one in ten of those shot in Vegas was killed. Again, that’s about average. It is hard to kill someone with that particular rifle cartridge. You have to hit them in a vital organ, head or heart, or clip an artery to get them to bleed out fast enough to kill them. Generally speaking of those wounded people get to a hospital alive, they have a 95% chance of survival. Not very lethal.
Let’s say you ban these semi-automatic rifles and pistols with these scary high capacity magazines. Do you think that people will not move to the larger calibers, the ones we have already explained are in fact far more lethal? Companies that are now making the popular AR platform will shift to the larger weapons. It might take them as much as two weeks to retool and start production. We’ll have a flurry of M-14 type rifles with the Ten Round magazine. But where perhaps three would die from the AR 30 round magazine, now five will die statistically speaking from the M-14 type weapon. That rifle has a 50% kill rate if you are shot by it.
So instead of saving lives, you’ll actually be killing more people.
I know, this is all just nonsense to you. But it is true. The Special Forces, the guys who have to have one shot one kill if at all possible have walked away from the 5.56 for the most part. They now use this.
.458 SOCOM - Wikipedia
Much bigger bullet, much bigger hole in the baddie, and much more likely for the one shot one kill.
The FBI is switching pistols again. This time they’re abandoning the .40 for the less powerful 9MM. The reason? The cops miss their targets about 70% of the time in a shooting situation. Yes, you read that right. Three rounds out of ten will hit the baddie on average. The larger capacity allows for the cops to fire more rounds, and increase the chances that one of those hits will stop the baddie, or perhaps kill them.
Look at the reports of the Cops shooting anyone, Mike Brown. The bullets were all over his body. That was at practically point blank range. The cop was literally right on top of him and still had to empty the magazine because he couldn’t hit a vital organ reliably.
Get rid of those high capacity magazines, and the people will switch to more powerful rounds. Instead of a 9MM which you have an 80% chance of surviving, they’ll switch to a .357 Magnum, a round that is literally twice as powerful as the 9MM. It is far more powerful than the .45 ACP of the famed 1911 pistols. Those cartridges tend to stop in the human body, but the .357 plows right through and keeps on going.
If you want more lethal rounds on the street, focus on capacity. I’d prefer more wounded, than dead. But it’s the details that you need to learn to speak logically about these issues. Because I’d rather get shot with a 5.56 round any day than a .338 Lapua. I won’t survive the Lapua round if I am hit anywhere in the torso. I’ve got about one chance in five of surviving the AR round. With the Lapua, even if the round does not hit a vital organ, I’m liable to bleed out in less than two minutes.
The AR is not a magic wand of death. It is not even a very effective rifle. It is popular for the same reasons the military choose it. Not much kick, easy to shoot, ammunition is cheap, and plentiful, very accurate for it’s weight and design. Reasonably reliable all things considered.
For the record. Another of those devilish details. The 5.56 round, is a really fast .22 caliber. The original cartridge was the .223 Remington. Intended to be used to hunt very small deer. I use the classic 30.06 round for that task. That round is twice as powerful, literally again, as the .223 or 5.56. That’s the cartridge where you have one chance in two of surviving if you get shot in the torso with it.
It will make a big comeback as someone starts making the old M-1 Garands again if you ban those scary “Assault” weapons. The .308 will tear through two people with leathal injuries to both with ease. Why do you want those to become the weapon of choice? Let the people keep shooting our citizens with the least effective cartridge. It’s better for all of us if they stick with the more useless choice. We then have a much better chance of survival.
