The true culprit in such discussions is tribal warfare. Persuading the other side has nothing to do with logic or reasoning. Statistics and ballistics may make one feel righteous about a given position but it does nothing to persuade one's opponents. A .223 cartridge is .003 inches larger in diameter than a .22 long rifle cartridge but has a lot more gunpowder behind it and different penetrating bullet construction. Cavitation? Exit wounds? Yep, those are real ballistic events in the hunting world. A small child is about the size of some varmints. A Cape buffalo is another creature altogether. A .223 kills varmints just fine. It would just make a Cape buffalo angry. Not a good idea. Mr. Stayton is correct in his analysis that AR's are deadly because they reload so quickly. There were no mass shootings when muzzle loaders were the only option. The holes in the victims were equally large or bigger than those generated by a .223. There's nothing unique about the wounding capacity of the .223. There are much larger and more destructive rounds out there that are ignored by the gun control lobby. And then there are those in the gun non-control lobby that want access to them. Have you ever seen the effects of an A-10 Warthog's 30mm nose gun? For those who are non-metric, 30mm = 1.18 inches which is more than 5 x the diameter of an AR-15 bullet and can be fired at a rate of 4000 rounds / minute. An AR-15 is a musket compared to that. Seditionists should think again about their perspective.
I agree that legislators, of all persuasions and parties and legislative bodies, should be forced to look at the photos of weapons-grade shootings. And I (sadly) agree that it wouldn't have much effect, at least in the beginning. But I do believe that with time and multiple exposures to such photo documentation that it would. So, I'd press for it.
I had another comment on today's Morning Shot. Here is what the Second Amendment to the US Constitution says:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
First it seems to me the premise of the right to keep and bear arms is that we need a "well regulated Militia." Perhaps we should require anyone who possesses a rifle - assault weapon - to join the National Guard of the respective state. They would be required to attend once a month weekend drills where they would be organize into National Guard units. They would also be subject to periodic call out for emergencies as the National Guard is today. Failing to sign-on and attend the monthly National Guard training would result in the forfeiture of their weapon and, failing that, a potential felony conviction.
I can't agree with you more. Something has to be done about assault weapons and the mass shootings we see, on an all to regular basis. The photographs would be to horrendous, I am sure, to publish and I suspect that society may become numb to the horror as often as we would see the devastation of human beings.
I just watched Will Smith's movie, Emancipation. Very tough to watch and it is clearly for adults only as the violence is constant in the film. That said, the film is a true story about Peter who escaped from slavery. Peter became the symbol of slavery in the South from the iconic photo that was taken of his back with the scars of constant beatings.
As I read today's Morning Shots, I thought of that photo and the effect it had in the United States and around the world to condemn slavery and all its evil. Perhaps photographs of the carnage wrought by these mass shootings could finally get us to do something.
Interesting timing on the article as in today's NYT there is a great opinion piece about how the needle is being moved.
Disclosure: I am from Newtown, class of '92 out of the high school and the same gifted program the shooter came out of. Family left Newtown before the shooting. I was very involved in gun control advocacy post Sandy Hook.
I am also ex Army and a veterinarian. I design slaughterhouses for a living.
I say these things because I want you to know...I know what these rounds do. I know how they tear thru flesh.
The 2A fetishists know as well.
We live in a different world than Emmit Till. The images of massacres have been used to torment victims' families. And billion dollar lawsuits notwithstanding...zero people are held to account for that. Alex Jones walks free. His followers who harassed my hometown and people walk free.
If people are not held accountable by their communities and families...no amount of pictures will change that.
What does? Making 2A fetishism socially unacceptable. Making it a path ostricism not glory. Holding gun and ammo manufacturers to account.
Our children lay gunned down at our feet. The long game of changing that is with us still.
We get to see if assault weapons bans and gun buyback programs work when the populace already owns hundreds of thousands of them thanks to this new test case in Brazil:
Judging by the opening few paragraphs of the article, I imagine there will be lots of Brazilian Wacos and Ruby Ridges to come. But hey, if it works there, maybe it can work here?
I just saw the title of this article and I can't even read the whole thing. Having to read about children being blown apart by human slaughter machines on a weekly basis for decades now has traumatized me as parent of small children. Sandy Hook happened 10 years ago when our oldest daughter was just 2 weeks old. I couldn't listen or read the news for months after that, I was so traumatized by the horror that happened to those kids and those families. I became a Moms Demand Action member a few years ago, and I pray everyday that we can force lawmakers to take this terrorism seriously. The proliferation of these weapons into the hands of any rando in America is a serious threat to public safety. Another reason I will likely never vote for Republicans. They have NRA blood money all over their hands. Human slaughter machine money. Democrats at least care about public safety. Isn't the most basic job of public officials public safety? I thought even libertarians held that view. If government does nothing else, it should at least have public safety as its main responsibility. Every time another school or mass shooting at a public place happens I beg my husband to work with me to move back to Australia where I lived as child. I'm a duel citizen there and we could go. I'm not sure at what point his brain and heart will be as broken as mine about this threat. This country is in a crisis situation with mass murder being a common occurrence and I have very little hope that it will ever get better. It will only get worse.
Just thinking about it makes me ill and angry. WHAT is the matter with these people in the US?
There is a mental illness raging among these gun nuts who think that their "right" to buy and use murderous weapons weighs more than the lives of children.
In the Infantry, combat veteran. I know exactly the effects and reason for the 5.56x45. All the minute details of terminal effects which all these writers discuss In agonizing detail does little to answer the real question. We are a violent bunch of people who beat people to death with bare hands and other objects more so than with long arms of any kind (FBI statistics).
Dysfunctional family dynamics, decline in mental health treatment, non-enforcement of gun laws, high recidivism of violent criminals, etc etc etc
The photos aren't influencing MTG. The hope is in replacing the MTGs of the world with someone who will care. You do that by influencing the public that elects them. And that's where the pictures come in.
It's hard to believe now, but a very short time ago, smoking was very commonplace. Same with drinking and driving. The gun control crowd could learn a lesson from MADD and the anti-smoking people. They did many things, but one of them was to make smoking gross, to make drinking and driving scary. They did this with photographs of auto wrecks, pictures of smoker's lungs. Think of the commercial of that Terri woman who was a lifelong smoker, who has a hole in her throat that she uses to speak, along with the wig she wears, and the false teeth that she had to use. Photos of people's teeth, after years of smoking, the mouths of tobacco users after they had parts of their cheeks and tongues removed. It worked!!
You didn't need laws preventing people from smoking in public (though they did ultimately get implemented). Smoking became something that people didn't want to do. With guns, a similar strategy can be employed. The upshot will be people removing guns from their day to day lives– out of sight, out of mind.
The Colt patents for the AR-15 ran out in 1975. Currently, there are well more than 200 different companies manufacturing some variant of it. The Assault Weapons ban served only to fetishize it. The AR-15 genii is well out of the bottle. All i can think is that standards for "keeping and bearing" them should be increased to be at least as strict as the US military's criteria for being issued, keeping and bearing them.
Historically, the big money in the firearms business was in government contracts. large volume sales. VERY large volume.
The advent of the all-volunteer military significantly reduced the number of weapons required, while increasing complexity (and cost) of manufacture. Throw in the fact that the US military has been using variations of the same infantry weapon since the 60s... and essentially the same weapon with few modifications for the last decade or so.
The military would throw manufacturers a bone now and then with trials for a new weapon (which, until the last cycle, never materialized). Phase in of the new weapon (civilian version is the SiG MCX IIRC) is slated to take place over a prolonged period due to cost and logistics and testing issues (it uses a different caliber of ammunition than the M4).
So... you have all of this expensive tooling and R&D sitting around and not generating revenue. The solution was to create "civilianized" versions to make that profitable and develop new markets. Toss in a lot of propaganda and BS (courtesy of the re-tooled NRA) to generate demand and voila! Sure, it is a shitty hunting and general use weapon, but it is (supposedly) great for securing yourself against those "Other People."
If you want a home defense weapon, buy a shotgun. Easy to use, easy to aim, less likely to kill or wound a neighbor. If you want a personal defense weapon buy a 9 mm pistol or a 357 revolver. easier to carry and cheaper and effective.
Chances are you will never ever need to actually use any of them, so enjoy burning up a few hundred dollars (plus the cost of ammo and practice, because you need to practice otherwise why bother) for "peace of mind" from the BS threats created by the arms industry and NRA to sell weapons.
What I will never understand is why the 2A militia movement thinks they need these weapons to oppose a domestic government that has gone full tyranny:
I was part of an occupying force across three deployments during the years when we lost the most Soldiers/Marines in combat ('04-'08), and I can tell you first hand that AK-47s were *not* the thing that killed the majority of us. The things that killed the majority of us were well-placed roadside bombs that bypassed our armor. The next worst thing were snipers who could place well-aimed shots on our chest/head where the body armor didn't cover. The standard US infantryman carries four plates of ceramic armor around his torso, and these plates can stop about x3 7.62x39mm AK-47 bullets before they break and let bullets into the torso. If you go after an American infantryman (and about 24+ of his buddies) using a small group of guys using AR-15s, that small group of guys is going to get destroyed by overwhelming return fire. We ran this experiment so many times in Iraq. Every time guys came at us with AK-47s they died. It was the kind of thing we wanted them to do. Instead, they got wise and started burying bombs in the ground so that they could kill us even with all of our armor without having to expose themselves to the return fire. THAT is how they started killing us in significant numbers, not with small groups of guys running around with assault rifles. This notion that the domestic 2A group uses to justify owning an assault rifle (that they need it to oppose domestic government) is ridiculous on its face because we know after 20 years of fighting an insurgency where the bad guys were trying to kill those same US government troops with bombs and sniper rifles that those weapons are immensely more effective against US troops than an AR-15 or AK-47 were. Like, we knooowwwww this.
The only thing assault rifles do for this country is make it easier for crazy people to kill a whole lot of unarmed innocents in less than the time it takes for the police to get there. THAT is what they do on the civilian market. You can shoot competitions without needing a 30-round magazine. Just change the course of fire for the competition and your need for more bullets per magazine goes away if you're really that into firearms competitions.
This is why the gun control "side" loses credibility. The narrative is bogus, but appealing of course to those who know nothing of firearms. You'll notice the comparison of the 5.56 rifle rd v. a 9mm handgun rd. That was done purposely. Every centerfire rifle rd is more powerful that a 9mm pistol rd. Every rifle rd has a faster muzzle velocity that a pistol rd. Why not compare the 5.56 to other rifle rds? Because the 5.56 is a weak rifle rd when compared to virtually every other centerfire rifle rd (30.06, .270, .243, .308. 30-30 etc) in common use in the country. Many states outlaw the 5.56/.223 for deer hunting BECAUSE IT ISN'T POWERFUL ENOUGH to bring down a deer on initial impact. The idea that the 5.56 rd is an "exploding bullet" is a complete falsehood. I'm actually a proponent of gun laws that can actually reduce school/mass shootings, but just when the gun control side has more political capital than ever before they blow it with bogus narratives like this! The Dr quoted (Jenkins?) about the damage caused by the 5.56 rd failed to mention that ANY of the rifle rds I mentioned above (with the possible exception of the 3-30) would likely do even more catastrophic damage to a person upon impact. Turn a femur into dust he claims? That's a complete and total falsehood. What makes the AR-15 arguably more deadly? It's the high capacity magazine, not the relatively weak bullet.
Thank you, Charlie, for reposting that.
Spot on. BTW, 95% of school shootings are done by handguns.
The true culprit in such discussions is tribal warfare. Persuading the other side has nothing to do with logic or reasoning. Statistics and ballistics may make one feel righteous about a given position but it does nothing to persuade one's opponents. A .223 cartridge is .003 inches larger in diameter than a .22 long rifle cartridge but has a lot more gunpowder behind it and different penetrating bullet construction. Cavitation? Exit wounds? Yep, those are real ballistic events in the hunting world. A small child is about the size of some varmints. A Cape buffalo is another creature altogether. A .223 kills varmints just fine. It would just make a Cape buffalo angry. Not a good idea. Mr. Stayton is correct in his analysis that AR's are deadly because they reload so quickly. There were no mass shootings when muzzle loaders were the only option. The holes in the victims were equally large or bigger than those generated by a .223. There's nothing unique about the wounding capacity of the .223. There are much larger and more destructive rounds out there that are ignored by the gun control lobby. And then there are those in the gun non-control lobby that want access to them. Have you ever seen the effects of an A-10 Warthog's 30mm nose gun? For those who are non-metric, 30mm = 1.18 inches which is more than 5 x the diameter of an AR-15 bullet and can be fired at a rate of 4000 rounds / minute. An AR-15 is a musket compared to that. Seditionists should think again about their perspective.
Dear Charlie,
I agree that legislators, of all persuasions and parties and legislative bodies, should be forced to look at the photos of weapons-grade shootings. And I (sadly) agree that it wouldn't have much effect, at least in the beginning. But I do believe that with time and multiple exposures to such photo documentation that it would. So, I'd press for it.
I had another comment on today's Morning Shot. Here is what the Second Amendment to the US Constitution says:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
First it seems to me the premise of the right to keep and bear arms is that we need a "well regulated Militia." Perhaps we should require anyone who possesses a rifle - assault weapon - to join the National Guard of the respective state. They would be required to attend once a month weekend drills where they would be organize into National Guard units. They would also be subject to periodic call out for emergencies as the National Guard is today. Failing to sign-on and attend the monthly National Guard training would result in the forfeiture of their weapon and, failing that, a potential felony conviction.
I can't agree with you more. Something has to be done about assault weapons and the mass shootings we see, on an all to regular basis. The photographs would be to horrendous, I am sure, to publish and I suspect that society may become numb to the horror as often as we would see the devastation of human beings.
I just watched Will Smith's movie, Emancipation. Very tough to watch and it is clearly for adults only as the violence is constant in the film. That said, the film is a true story about Peter who escaped from slavery. Peter became the symbol of slavery in the South from the iconic photo that was taken of his back with the scars of constant beatings.
As I read today's Morning Shots, I thought of that photo and the effect it had in the United States and around the world to condemn slavery and all its evil. Perhaps photographs of the carnage wrought by these mass shootings could finally get us to do something.
Interesting timing on the article as in today's NYT there is a great opinion piece about how the needle is being moved.
Disclosure: I am from Newtown, class of '92 out of the high school and the same gifted program the shooter came out of. Family left Newtown before the shooting. I was very involved in gun control advocacy post Sandy Hook.
I am also ex Army and a veterinarian. I design slaughterhouses for a living.
I say these things because I want you to know...I know what these rounds do. I know how they tear thru flesh.
The 2A fetishists know as well.
We live in a different world than Emmit Till. The images of massacres have been used to torment victims' families. And billion dollar lawsuits notwithstanding...zero people are held to account for that. Alex Jones walks free. His followers who harassed my hometown and people walk free.
If people are not held accountable by their communities and families...no amount of pictures will change that.
What does? Making 2A fetishism socially unacceptable. Making it a path ostricism not glory. Holding gun and ammo manufacturers to account.
Our children lay gunned down at our feet. The long game of changing that is with us still.
We get to see if assault weapons bans and gun buyback programs work when the populace already owns hundreds of thousands of them thanks to this new test case in Brazil:
https://www.reuters.com/article/brazil-guns-idAFKBN2SX0ZL
Judging by the opening few paragraphs of the article, I imagine there will be lots of Brazilian Wacos and Ruby Ridges to come. But hey, if it works there, maybe it can work here?
I just saw the title of this article and I can't even read the whole thing. Having to read about children being blown apart by human slaughter machines on a weekly basis for decades now has traumatized me as parent of small children. Sandy Hook happened 10 years ago when our oldest daughter was just 2 weeks old. I couldn't listen or read the news for months after that, I was so traumatized by the horror that happened to those kids and those families. I became a Moms Demand Action member a few years ago, and I pray everyday that we can force lawmakers to take this terrorism seriously. The proliferation of these weapons into the hands of any rando in America is a serious threat to public safety. Another reason I will likely never vote for Republicans. They have NRA blood money all over their hands. Human slaughter machine money. Democrats at least care about public safety. Isn't the most basic job of public officials public safety? I thought even libertarians held that view. If government does nothing else, it should at least have public safety as its main responsibility. Every time another school or mass shooting at a public place happens I beg my husband to work with me to move back to Australia where I lived as child. I'm a duel citizen there and we could go. I'm not sure at what point his brain and heart will be as broken as mine about this threat. This country is in a crisis situation with mass murder being a common occurrence and I have very little hope that it will ever get better. It will only get worse.
Just thinking about it makes me ill and angry. WHAT is the matter with these people in the US?
There is a mental illness raging among these gun nuts who think that their "right" to buy and use murderous weapons weighs more than the lives of children.
In the Infantry, combat veteran. I know exactly the effects and reason for the 5.56x45. All the minute details of terminal effects which all these writers discuss In agonizing detail does little to answer the real question. We are a violent bunch of people who beat people to death with bare hands and other objects more so than with long arms of any kind (FBI statistics).
Dysfunctional family dynamics, decline in mental health treatment, non-enforcement of gun laws, high recidivism of violent criminals, etc etc etc
How about figuring that out?
The photos aren't influencing MTG. The hope is in replacing the MTGs of the world with someone who will care. You do that by influencing the public that elects them. And that's where the pictures come in.
It's hard to believe now, but a very short time ago, smoking was very commonplace. Same with drinking and driving. The gun control crowd could learn a lesson from MADD and the anti-smoking people. They did many things, but one of them was to make smoking gross, to make drinking and driving scary. They did this with photographs of auto wrecks, pictures of smoker's lungs. Think of the commercial of that Terri woman who was a lifelong smoker, who has a hole in her throat that she uses to speak, along with the wig she wears, and the false teeth that she had to use. Photos of people's teeth, after years of smoking, the mouths of tobacco users after they had parts of their cheeks and tongues removed. It worked!!
You didn't need laws preventing people from smoking in public (though they did ultimately get implemented). Smoking became something that people didn't want to do. With guns, a similar strategy can be employed. The upshot will be people removing guns from their day to day lives– out of sight, out of mind.
The Colt patents for the AR-15 ran out in 1975. Currently, there are well more than 200 different companies manufacturing some variant of it. The Assault Weapons ban served only to fetishize it. The AR-15 genii is well out of the bottle. All i can think is that standards for "keeping and bearing" them should be increased to be at least as strict as the US military's criteria for being issued, keeping and bearing them.
Historically, the big money in the firearms business was in government contracts. large volume sales. VERY large volume.
The advent of the all-volunteer military significantly reduced the number of weapons required, while increasing complexity (and cost) of manufacture. Throw in the fact that the US military has been using variations of the same infantry weapon since the 60s... and essentially the same weapon with few modifications for the last decade or so.
The military would throw manufacturers a bone now and then with trials for a new weapon (which, until the last cycle, never materialized). Phase in of the new weapon (civilian version is the SiG MCX IIRC) is slated to take place over a prolonged period due to cost and logistics and testing issues (it uses a different caliber of ammunition than the M4).
So... you have all of this expensive tooling and R&D sitting around and not generating revenue. The solution was to create "civilianized" versions to make that profitable and develop new markets. Toss in a lot of propaganda and BS (courtesy of the re-tooled NRA) to generate demand and voila! Sure, it is a shitty hunting and general use weapon, but it is (supposedly) great for securing yourself against those "Other People."
If you want a home defense weapon, buy a shotgun. Easy to use, easy to aim, less likely to kill or wound a neighbor. If you want a personal defense weapon buy a 9 mm pistol or a 357 revolver. easier to carry and cheaper and effective.
Chances are you will never ever need to actually use any of them, so enjoy burning up a few hundred dollars (plus the cost of ammo and practice, because you need to practice otherwise why bother) for "peace of mind" from the BS threats created by the arms industry and NRA to sell weapons.
What I will never understand is why the 2A militia movement thinks they need these weapons to oppose a domestic government that has gone full tyranny:
I was part of an occupying force across three deployments during the years when we lost the most Soldiers/Marines in combat ('04-'08), and I can tell you first hand that AK-47s were *not* the thing that killed the majority of us. The things that killed the majority of us were well-placed roadside bombs that bypassed our armor. The next worst thing were snipers who could place well-aimed shots on our chest/head where the body armor didn't cover. The standard US infantryman carries four plates of ceramic armor around his torso, and these plates can stop about x3 7.62x39mm AK-47 bullets before they break and let bullets into the torso. If you go after an American infantryman (and about 24+ of his buddies) using a small group of guys using AR-15s, that small group of guys is going to get destroyed by overwhelming return fire. We ran this experiment so many times in Iraq. Every time guys came at us with AK-47s they died. It was the kind of thing we wanted them to do. Instead, they got wise and started burying bombs in the ground so that they could kill us even with all of our armor without having to expose themselves to the return fire. THAT is how they started killing us in significant numbers, not with small groups of guys running around with assault rifles. This notion that the domestic 2A group uses to justify owning an assault rifle (that they need it to oppose domestic government) is ridiculous on its face because we know after 20 years of fighting an insurgency where the bad guys were trying to kill those same US government troops with bombs and sniper rifles that those weapons are immensely more effective against US troops than an AR-15 or AK-47 were. Like, we knooowwwww this.
The only thing assault rifles do for this country is make it easier for crazy people to kill a whole lot of unarmed innocents in less than the time it takes for the police to get there. THAT is what they do on the civilian market. You can shoot competitions without needing a 30-round magazine. Just change the course of fire for the competition and your need for more bullets per magazine goes away if you're really that into firearms competitions.
This is why the gun control "side" loses credibility. The narrative is bogus, but appealing of course to those who know nothing of firearms. You'll notice the comparison of the 5.56 rifle rd v. a 9mm handgun rd. That was done purposely. Every centerfire rifle rd is more powerful that a 9mm pistol rd. Every rifle rd has a faster muzzle velocity that a pistol rd. Why not compare the 5.56 to other rifle rds? Because the 5.56 is a weak rifle rd when compared to virtually every other centerfire rifle rd (30.06, .270, .243, .308. 30-30 etc) in common use in the country. Many states outlaw the 5.56/.223 for deer hunting BECAUSE IT ISN'T POWERFUL ENOUGH to bring down a deer on initial impact. The idea that the 5.56 rd is an "exploding bullet" is a complete falsehood. I'm actually a proponent of gun laws that can actually reduce school/mass shootings, but just when the gun control side has more political capital than ever before they blow it with bogus narratives like this! The Dr quoted (Jenkins?) about the damage caused by the 5.56 rd failed to mention that ANY of the rifle rds I mentioned above (with the possible exception of the 3-30) would likely do even more catastrophic damage to a person upon impact. Turn a femur into dust he claims? That's a complete and total falsehood. What makes the AR-15 arguably more deadly? It's the high capacity magazine, not the relatively weak bullet.