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.
There's really no such thing as an AR-15 bullet. There are bullets that can be fired in an AR and other rifles as well. There are AR's that fire .308, and I think 7.62 x 39 as well.
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.
Common miss application of "regulated" which meant trained, not subject to regulation. in the 18th century. Virtually all Supreme Court decisions disagree with your premise.
I have thought the same myself. Actually, until the Supreme Court was bought by the US gun industry via the Republican party, the USSC did not believe an individual's right to own firearms was guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment because of its preamble, considering that "a well-regulated militia" was fulfilled by state National Guard forces.
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.
Yes, they do tear through flesh as does every other centerfire rifle round in common use in this country. This fiction about the terrible lethality of the 5.56 rd is BS. The 5.56 is less lethal than a .308, .30.06, .270, .243 etc etc. When you make stuff up you diminish the credibility of your legitimate other arguments. Don't bring up the "tumbling" argument either. Every spitzer bullet tumbles on impact.
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.
As a mother I relate to everything you said. It makes me crazy angry that disturbed people always go after children. Are they jealous because they are no longer young enough to be cared for so they see these kids as taking mommy or daddy's love away?!?
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.
Just discovered that I could without setting up password - and was so moved by horror and anger amid all these technical comments about guns. I love the Bulwark. A great source of information and analysis! xoxo
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
I've heard this kind of argument before, and it usually goes something like: "since single suicides and homicides account for 95% of gun homicides, why should we focus on the less than 1% of gun homicides that come from mass shootings?" I usually respond with: "Since Islamic terrorism only accounts for less than 1% of American deaths each year, why should we have a department of homeland security?"
The point is about ability to prevent. We cannot prevent suicides and single homicides, but we *can* prevent mass shootings. You *cannot* do a Mandalay Bay Shooting that kills 57 and injures 500+ without a high-capacity semi-automatics rifle. You just can't. We can prevent the less than 1% of firearms deaths by banning high-capacity semiautos just like we can prevent the less than 1% of annual deaths in America by focusing on terrorism. It's the same reason we have seatbelts: you focus on the things you *can* prevent, rather than just saying "well, we won't prevent the other 95% of deaths by focusing on this so we'd better give up on prevention I guess."
And besides, the 2A community isn't asking for mental health screenings prior to gun purchases, so that shows you how little they actually give a shit about addressing the mental health aspects of the problem. They always talk about how mental health is the issue, and then refuse to incorporate mental health screenings into firearms purchases, so going the "mental health" route in an argument is a pointless exercise because the 2A community doesn't actually take mental health seriously (which is why so many of them commit suicide in the first place--high access to firearms and no concern for mental health).
Still no answer to how we deal with increases in violence and the breakdown in nuclear families, loss of moral, ethical and civil standards.
Semi automatic arms have been with us for quite awhile. Guns haven’t changed, people holding them have. Mental health screening, back ground checks prior to gun purchasing are welcome by all the responsible gun owners I know. Most are “AR” owners as well as handgun owners, Dems and GOP. None of them are crazed 2A militants. Yet we all believe in the 2A.
It’s a tired trope, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” anti-gun folks make fun of 2A folks with. But it’s simplicity belies obvious truth.
At the 1775 battle of Concord and Lexington, Colonial forces of volunteers armed with a mixture of muskets and ‘long-rifles’ fought British Regulars armed with ‘Brown Bess’ muskets - the modern standard military firearms of the time. The point? To fight oppression you need to be similarly armed to exact the same damage to them as they are doing to you. But the State is All powerful- it has heavier weapons and will crush whoever challenges it - so challenging the State is pretty serious business. It’s the US Constitution that keeps us between the white lines. But only if we want to.
Opponents to the both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, then and now, do not understand the finer meaning of self-defense as it applies to state tyranny.
How does one defeat a future Trump state regime run rampant, or a Progressive-fascist regime running against Constitutional law? What if the military backs Trump narcissist paranoia or a Leftist fascist regime seeks to limit power, liberty and freedom to an elite oligarchy? God forbid that should ever come to pass.
I can assure you, if Trump were to seize power and turn the military into his private army all those anti gun-anti 2A folks would be scrambling to find a Saturday nite special or “unregistered 30 round semi-auto.” They’d pay big bucks, too.
Will the oppressed want succession? Civil war? How does that happen?
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.
Exactly. You can move high-capacity semi-autos into the NFA category that sound suppressors and full-send weapons currently fall into that require higher levels of screening by local sheriff's departments.
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.
See that's the thing liberals never understood. The 2A militias can prep for an overthrow of the government by couching their rhetoric in some kind of concept of preparation against tyranny when really, they're just stockpiling guns for the government overthrow they want to do against a non-tyrannical government they just don't happen to like because it's too liberal. All they have to do to move from the prepping phase to the insurrection phase is to stretch the definition of "tyranny" so thin that it basically gives them justification to overthrow any government they don't like. We're actually in that moment as we speak. The giveaway was when the militias showed up to the Bundy Ranch armed in 2014, and then didn't do shit against the tyrannical Trump government at Lafayette Square and Portland where they were rounding up citizens in unmarked vehicles with unmarked uniforms. THAT shit was tyrannical, but the militias cheered them on. When supposed anti-tyranny militias are acting as enforcers for the tyrannical Trump admin, that's when you knew militia positions on armed insurrection weren't about tyrannical governments, they were about armed insurrections against liberal ones. You just have to convince people that liberalism = tyranny and bam, you've got yourself an ideologically-justified insurrection now. All it takes is convincing armed citizens that Fauci and Biden are tyrants who are trying to shut down your economy and steal elections. That's what the 2A right REALLY wants: to end liberal governance by force, up to and including killing liberals and government police or troops if they have to do it to prevent liberal governments from establishing control over their communities. THAT is the state of affairs, and there are millions of assault rifles in circulation here.
The original insurrectionists had 27 factual and mostly valid grievances, as laid out of the Declaration of Independence.. 1776 2.0 have the 2nd Amendment paranoia and Trump's narcissism.
Funny thing is that the tyrannical government they think they have is liberal enough to allow them to be armed. I could be wrong (I often am) but I don't think China allows their citizens to have guns.
Actually, most liberals of my acquaintance (moderate Democrat myself) have always understood that, especially the non-white ones. What the 2A's don't understand is that they are being played by the Republican donor class. If they ever did overthrow the US government (a very long shot), we would have a resurrection of the Confederacy. Money would rule without an effective government to protect them from the greed of billionaires who would eliminate their beloved Social Security and Medicare and always be able to recruit more guns for hire than any opposition. They simply haven't thought it through. Their Walter Mitty wet dream is that they would get to shoot those "others" without any bullets coming back at them. Most would not stand and fight in a real combat confrontation.
I have always worried more about the tyranny of the private sector and corps than I have the tyranny of the government... mostly because it seems far more likely and one of our major political parties always seems to be working to make it more possible through tax cuts, deregulation, preferential treatment, and reducing the ability of the USG to control corporations and protect workers and consumers.
Exactly! More concentrations of private wealth allows money to corrupt institutes that are supposed to be hedges against concentrations of power generally. If you have a class of citizens who are filthy rich and are always trying to get politicians to do what they want--lest they withhold campaign contributions--then your institutions are going to get corrupted and you won't have a meritocracy anymore and you won't have nonpartisan institutions anymore because money will control things, and the people with more money than others will have their desires met whether or not they are moral or in the good of the public. If you want lower taxes, you end up with larger private concentrations of wealth that are then used to corrupt institutes *against* the public interest.
That shot isn't as long as you'd think. The US military was defeated by illiterate heroin farmers in Afghanistan because we couldn't kill more of them than they were recruiting each year over a 20-year stretch. Now imagine if the same military we'd use to put down a domestic insurgency was full of MAGA sympathizers and you'll see just how easy it might be to neuter the government's armed forces. A lot of them would walk away from the uniform, and those who stayed behind would be at a loss for manpower and equipment that the MAGA loyalists walked away with and/or sabotaged on their way out. Most would not stand and fight, but most wouldn't need to because *even more* liberals wouldn't stand and fight those who did choose to insurrect, and the ones who did choose to stand and fight would be hampered by those who defected or just left their uniforms behind and disappeared into the civilian populace. Never forget that MAGA has more guns than the US government by significant ratios, and that they represent a significant share of the forces that would be mustered to put down a MAGA insurrection. Just some food for thought. I know they have their blindspots in the antigovernment militia community, but we have ours as well. Think about how quickly the government was caught off guard on January 6th and how you had some USCP officers who were negligent in their duties or even sympathetic to the insurrectionists. As the old Rage Against the Machine song goes: "some of those who work forces, are the same who burn crosses."
I didn't say it was impossible, just that I think it unlikely - but I couldn't give you odds. In fact. I was in fact surprised that Jan.6 ended as quickly as it did with as little actual loss of life. And don't forget about the significant numbers of patriotic "others" in the US military, or the fact that there were many "others" in the USCP who held the line on Jan.6. As for myself, having had some military training, my attitude toward anyone who'd want to scare me with an AR-15 could be expressed by quoting Matthew Quigley ("Quigley Down Under"): "I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use one."
Fire from individual weapons has not been the major cause of military casualties since before the first world war. There is a reason why artillery is called the King of Battle. Steel rain, baby.
if you don't have artillery, ambush bombs are your next best bet (especially against occupying forces).
These 2A people (and their industry sponsors) are buying a fantasy, not a reality. Anyone with actual military experience (and thought about it) or who has studied war knows this. It is all about the fantasy/narrative of the brave and noble militia/minuteman defending the freedumb of 'Murica (and also making sure those "Other People" don't get too uppity).
People bring up the Minutemen and the colonial militias to justify modern militias. Correct me if I'm wrong please, but I believe individual arms at that time were inaccurate, and artillery (on land and sea) was the deciding factor in the Revolutionary War. Militias were for practicing in case of Indian raids.
Artillery did not really become the King of Battle until the introduction of HE/shrapnel rounds. Used in large numbers and concentrated, it could be decisive (it is what Napoleon centered a lot of his battle tactics on--people tend to forget that he started off as an artillery officer, if they even know ITFP).
Prior to that you had a choice between ball and grape. Grape was horribly effective against troops moving in the open (basically like a large shotgun). Ball was only really good against troops in large, compact masses.
The deciding factor in the revolutionary war was logistics (and the entry of the French on our side, which greatly expanded the war and its cost).
The deciding factor in most wars is logistics. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown because the French won a naval victory that stopped the Royal Navy from evacuating his troops. He got trapped. That was basically the last straw on top of the cost and the expanded threat because of the French.
Linear tactics (standing in lines and blazing away) were usually decided by morale. It usually came down to which side broke and ran first under fire. Most casualties before the modern era (late 19th century) were actually taken after the battle was over, in the rout and pursuit. This is why a Roman army could kill a few ten thousand "barbarians." They didn't kill them in a stand up fight, they killed them while they were running away. The major advantage of a Roman army was that their morale was a LOT stronger than the enemy's morale.
Modern artillery and crew served weapon are absolutely lethal, and at ranges far beyond most individual weapons. A Civil war era or earlier army would vaporize when faced with modern weaponry.. usually before they even knew the enemy was around.
I'll defer to more informed opinions, but my take:
1. Some individual arms (rifles) were deadly accurate back then. Most hand weapons used were smooth bore, which weren't very accurate. That's why the tactics of the time involved standing 25-50 yards apart and blasting away in volley fire by ranks.
2. I don't think artillery was much more accurate at the time either. Most was smooth bore and most cannon balls didn't explode. Of course with tight formation infantry, a cannon ball could take out several people at once just from inertia.
3. Cannons were pretty important in the war, but I don't know about them being the deciding factor. I think it was more that the US needed to have at least some cannon to counteract the British advantage.
4. You bring up the Minutemen, and that is somewhat illustrative. The militiamen in question proceeded to hand the British regulars a defeat. At various places they were brought up short by British cannons, but mostly they just covered the retreating British regulars.
5. Naval gunfire at the time was somewhat supreme due to its ability to be concentrated and moved. Still, the Battle of Bunker hill shows that it had limits due to it not being of much effect against dug in troops (no explosions). The militia (again) stood up to the regulars and naval artillery, retreating only when they ran out of ammo.
So from the point of utility in standing up to a military, the militia examples in New England during 1775 support the case of those making it. The problem is that the weapons and tactics of the time are so wildly different from today's military situation as make comparisons somewhat beside the point.
Thank you! And thank you to Travis too. I think the militia gets a lot of their legitimacy through the heritage argument: we've always had militias, they're as American as Yankee Doodle Dandy. So I appreciate seeing how militias have changed.
Correct. Accurate muzzle fire didn't start until the invention of the "minnie ball" (pretty sure I misspelled that but whatevers). Basically, until the 2nd American Civil War (1860-1865), muskets were smooth bore and didn't have rifling inside of gun barrels. The minnie ball changed this, by pairing barrel rifling with a projectile that would spin along the rifling grooves. The spin-in-flight improved ballistics immeasurably and made flint-lock rifles much more accurate than they used to be. The invention of cased ammunition also changed things a lot, which enabled the infantryman to carry spare ammo on "clips" that held about 5-8 individual cased ammunition rounds each. Then the replacement of ammo clips with magazines. You used to reload 8 rounds with an ammo clip in WW1, then they invented magazines for rifles and you had guys in WW2 reloading their Thompson and M3 submachine guns with magazines that held 20-30 rounds in the magazine instead of the usual 8-round ammo clips. The M16 started out with a 20-round magazine in the 1960s. That only changed later on when the services adopted 30-round magazines as the standard. Nowadays you can get 100-round ammo drums for AR-15s very easily.
The unfortunate last words of Major-General John Sedgwick at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, moments before he was shot down by a Confederate sniper.
Civil War era rifle-muskets had an effective range of around 1000 yards in the hands of a skilled marksman.
Most militias seem to be full of white guys (and rural) is there any meaningful difference between these militias and a urban street gang? Sure, one group talks a lot of BS about why they exist.. but aren't they both about protecting their turf?
You're right. Never thought of it that way. The thing is, I grew up in Chicago, and it always seemed to me it was gangsters killing other gangsters, which is a completely different scenario.
One usually sells drugs and engages in on/off violence with other street gangs, whereas the other usually just talks a lot of shit about the government and then sometimes does an insurrection or a mass shooting when they buy into online conspiracy theories. I guess that's the big difference.
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.
Tell me, if a 5.56x45mm XM193 or XM855 round hits a human chest cavity while traveling at over 2700 feet per second, what does the bullet do? Does it tumble and fragment inside of the chest cavity? Do other rounds do this as well or is it just the 5.56x45mm FMJ rounds?
Point being: while ALL rifle rounds will produce a temporary stretch cavity from higher velocities, not all bullets tumble and fragment into smaller pieces inside of their targets that take doctors a lot longer to pull out of people than other rounds. For example, the USMC moved to the Mk318 Mod 0 cartridge in Afghanistan in the later years because this round had a better track record of tumbling and fragmenting inside of human chest cavities at longer ranges than the standard M855E1 ball ammunition that grunts typically carry. They moved to a better-fragmenting round because they understood the special lethality that 5.56 has when the velocities are maintained. We're only now ditching 5.56 for 6.8x51mm because of body armor proliferation and the need for grunts to be able to crack ceramic body armor plates with a heavier/fast bullet. They had to engineer steel into the brass casing just to get a heavy bullet like that to fire at high enough pressures to produce the velocity necessary to crack armor plates with a heavy enough bullet.
So, do you favor the need for photos of the victims who require DNA testing to assure identification? I thought that was the issue rather than a technical discussion of weaponry.
I have no firm opinion on that - not informed well enough. And the issue is the article is full of bogus information which completely overpowers the identification issue. Thats my point.
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.
There's really no such thing as an AR-15 bullet. There are bullets that can be fired in an AR and other rifles as well. There are AR's that fire .308, and I think 7.62 x 39 as well.
you are absolutely correct. Agreed.
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.
Common miss application of "regulated" which meant trained, not subject to regulation. in the 18th century. Virtually all Supreme Court decisions disagree with your premise.
I have thought the same myself. Actually, until the Supreme Court was bought by the US gun industry via the Republican party, the USSC did not believe an individual's right to own firearms was guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment because of its preamble, considering that "a well-regulated militia" was fulfilled by state National Guard forces.
"...the right of the people..." means people, just as it does in other parts of the Bill of Rights
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.
Yes, they do tear through flesh as does every other centerfire rifle round in common use in this country. This fiction about the terrible lethality of the 5.56 rd is BS. The 5.56 is less lethal than a .308, .30.06, .270, .243 etc etc. When you make stuff up you diminish the credibility of your legitimate other arguments. Don't bring up the "tumbling" argument either. Every spitzer bullet tumbles on impact.
I can't think of any caliber or load I'd want to be used against school children.
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.
As a mother I relate to everything you said. It makes me crazy angry that disturbed people always go after children. Are they jealous because they are no longer young enough to be cared for so they see these kids as taking mommy or daddy's love away?!?
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.
Hey sister Carolyn. Nice to see you joining the Bulwark comment section
Just discovered that I could without setting up password - and was so moved by horror and anger amid all these technical comments about guns. I love the Bulwark. A great source of information and analysis! xoxo
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?
I've heard this kind of argument before, and it usually goes something like: "since single suicides and homicides account for 95% of gun homicides, why should we focus on the less than 1% of gun homicides that come from mass shootings?" I usually respond with: "Since Islamic terrorism only accounts for less than 1% of American deaths each year, why should we have a department of homeland security?"
The point is about ability to prevent. We cannot prevent suicides and single homicides, but we *can* prevent mass shootings. You *cannot* do a Mandalay Bay Shooting that kills 57 and injures 500+ without a high-capacity semi-automatics rifle. You just can't. We can prevent the less than 1% of firearms deaths by banning high-capacity semiautos just like we can prevent the less than 1% of annual deaths in America by focusing on terrorism. It's the same reason we have seatbelts: you focus on the things you *can* prevent, rather than just saying "well, we won't prevent the other 95% of deaths by focusing on this so we'd better give up on prevention I guess."
And besides, the 2A community isn't asking for mental health screenings prior to gun purchases, so that shows you how little they actually give a shit about addressing the mental health aspects of the problem. They always talk about how mental health is the issue, and then refuse to incorporate mental health screenings into firearms purchases, so going the "mental health" route in an argument is a pointless exercise because the 2A community doesn't actually take mental health seriously (which is why so many of them commit suicide in the first place--high access to firearms and no concern for mental health).
Still no answer to how we deal with increases in violence and the breakdown in nuclear families, loss of moral, ethical and civil standards.
Semi automatic arms have been with us for quite awhile. Guns haven’t changed, people holding them have. Mental health screening, back ground checks prior to gun purchasing are welcome by all the responsible gun owners I know. Most are “AR” owners as well as handgun owners, Dems and GOP. None of them are crazed 2A militants. Yet we all believe in the 2A.
It’s a tired trope, “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” anti-gun folks make fun of 2A folks with. But it’s simplicity belies obvious truth.
At the 1775 battle of Concord and Lexington, Colonial forces of volunteers armed with a mixture of muskets and ‘long-rifles’ fought British Regulars armed with ‘Brown Bess’ muskets - the modern standard military firearms of the time. The point? To fight oppression you need to be similarly armed to exact the same damage to them as they are doing to you. But the State is All powerful- it has heavier weapons and will crush whoever challenges it - so challenging the State is pretty serious business. It’s the US Constitution that keeps us between the white lines. But only if we want to.
Opponents to the both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, then and now, do not understand the finer meaning of self-defense as it applies to state tyranny.
How does one defeat a future Trump state regime run rampant, or a Progressive-fascist regime running against Constitutional law? What if the military backs Trump narcissist paranoia or a Leftist fascist regime seeks to limit power, liberty and freedom to an elite oligarchy? God forbid that should ever come to pass.
I can assure you, if Trump were to seize power and turn the military into his private army all those anti gun-anti 2A folks would be scrambling to find a Saturday nite special or “unregistered 30 round semi-auto.” They’d pay big bucks, too.
Will the oppressed want succession? Civil war? How does that happen?
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.
Exactly. You can move high-capacity semi-autos into the NFA category that sound suppressors and full-send weapons currently fall into that require higher levels of screening by local sheriff's departments.
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.
The "2A militia" types think the 2nd Amendment reads "An UNregulated militia, being necessary for the OVERTHROW of the State...".
See that's the thing liberals never understood. The 2A militias can prep for an overthrow of the government by couching their rhetoric in some kind of concept of preparation against tyranny when really, they're just stockpiling guns for the government overthrow they want to do against a non-tyrannical government they just don't happen to like because it's too liberal. All they have to do to move from the prepping phase to the insurrection phase is to stretch the definition of "tyranny" so thin that it basically gives them justification to overthrow any government they don't like. We're actually in that moment as we speak. The giveaway was when the militias showed up to the Bundy Ranch armed in 2014, and then didn't do shit against the tyrannical Trump government at Lafayette Square and Portland where they were rounding up citizens in unmarked vehicles with unmarked uniforms. THAT shit was tyrannical, but the militias cheered them on. When supposed anti-tyranny militias are acting as enforcers for the tyrannical Trump admin, that's when you knew militia positions on armed insurrection weren't about tyrannical governments, they were about armed insurrections against liberal ones. You just have to convince people that liberalism = tyranny and bam, you've got yourself an ideologically-justified insurrection now. All it takes is convincing armed citizens that Fauci and Biden are tyrants who are trying to shut down your economy and steal elections. That's what the 2A right REALLY wants: to end liberal governance by force, up to and including killing liberals and government police or troops if they have to do it to prevent liberal governments from establishing control over their communities. THAT is the state of affairs, and there are millions of assault rifles in circulation here.
The original insurrectionists had 27 factual and mostly valid grievances, as laid out of the Declaration of Independence.. 1776 2.0 have the 2nd Amendment paranoia and Trump's narcissism.
Funny thing is that the tyrannical government they think they have is liberal enough to allow them to be armed. I could be wrong (I often am) but I don't think China allows their citizens to have guns.
Well, we're just one Kenyan President away from taking all the guns so that we'd be just like China. Obviously.
Actually, most liberals of my acquaintance (moderate Democrat myself) have always understood that, especially the non-white ones. What the 2A's don't understand is that they are being played by the Republican donor class. If they ever did overthrow the US government (a very long shot), we would have a resurrection of the Confederacy. Money would rule without an effective government to protect them from the greed of billionaires who would eliminate their beloved Social Security and Medicare and always be able to recruit more guns for hire than any opposition. They simply haven't thought it through. Their Walter Mitty wet dream is that they would get to shoot those "others" without any bullets coming back at them. Most would not stand and fight in a real combat confrontation.
I have always worried more about the tyranny of the private sector and corps than I have the tyranny of the government... mostly because it seems far more likely and one of our major political parties always seems to be working to make it more possible through tax cuts, deregulation, preferential treatment, and reducing the ability of the USG to control corporations and protect workers and consumers.
Exactly! More concentrations of private wealth allows money to corrupt institutes that are supposed to be hedges against concentrations of power generally. If you have a class of citizens who are filthy rich and are always trying to get politicians to do what they want--lest they withhold campaign contributions--then your institutions are going to get corrupted and you won't have a meritocracy anymore and you won't have nonpartisan institutions anymore because money will control things, and the people with more money than others will have their desires met whether or not they are moral or in the good of the public. If you want lower taxes, you end up with larger private concentrations of wealth that are then used to corrupt institutes *against* the public interest.
That shot isn't as long as you'd think. The US military was defeated by illiterate heroin farmers in Afghanistan because we couldn't kill more of them than they were recruiting each year over a 20-year stretch. Now imagine if the same military we'd use to put down a domestic insurgency was full of MAGA sympathizers and you'll see just how easy it might be to neuter the government's armed forces. A lot of them would walk away from the uniform, and those who stayed behind would be at a loss for manpower and equipment that the MAGA loyalists walked away with and/or sabotaged on their way out. Most would not stand and fight, but most wouldn't need to because *even more* liberals wouldn't stand and fight those who did choose to insurrect, and the ones who did choose to stand and fight would be hampered by those who defected or just left their uniforms behind and disappeared into the civilian populace. Never forget that MAGA has more guns than the US government by significant ratios, and that they represent a significant share of the forces that would be mustered to put down a MAGA insurrection. Just some food for thought. I know they have their blindspots in the antigovernment militia community, but we have ours as well. Think about how quickly the government was caught off guard on January 6th and how you had some USCP officers who were negligent in their duties or even sympathetic to the insurrectionists. As the old Rage Against the Machine song goes: "some of those who work forces, are the same who burn crosses."
I didn't say it was impossible, just that I think it unlikely - but I couldn't give you odds. In fact. I was in fact surprised that Jan.6 ended as quickly as it did with as little actual loss of life. And don't forget about the significant numbers of patriotic "others" in the US military, or the fact that there were many "others" in the USCP who held the line on Jan.6. As for myself, having had some military training, my attitude toward anyone who'd want to scare me with an AR-15 could be expressed by quoting Matthew Quigley ("Quigley Down Under"): "I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use one."
Fire from individual weapons has not been the major cause of military casualties since before the first world war. There is a reason why artillery is called the King of Battle. Steel rain, baby.
if you don't have artillery, ambush bombs are your next best bet (especially against occupying forces).
These 2A people (and their industry sponsors) are buying a fantasy, not a reality. Anyone with actual military experience (and thought about it) or who has studied war knows this. It is all about the fantasy/narrative of the brave and noble militia/minuteman defending the freedumb of 'Murica (and also making sure those "Other People" don't get too uppity).
People bring up the Minutemen and the colonial militias to justify modern militias. Correct me if I'm wrong please, but I believe individual arms at that time were inaccurate, and artillery (on land and sea) was the deciding factor in the Revolutionary War. Militias were for practicing in case of Indian raids.
Artillery did not really become the King of Battle until the introduction of HE/shrapnel rounds. Used in large numbers and concentrated, it could be decisive (it is what Napoleon centered a lot of his battle tactics on--people tend to forget that he started off as an artillery officer, if they even know ITFP).
Shrapnel showed up during the Napoleonic wars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Shrapnel
Prior to that you had a choice between ball and grape. Grape was horribly effective against troops moving in the open (basically like a large shotgun). Ball was only really good against troops in large, compact masses.
The deciding factor in the revolutionary war was logistics (and the entry of the French on our side, which greatly expanded the war and its cost).
The deciding factor in most wars is logistics. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown because the French won a naval victory that stopped the Royal Navy from evacuating his troops. He got trapped. That was basically the last straw on top of the cost and the expanded threat because of the French.
Linear tactics (standing in lines and blazing away) were usually decided by morale. It usually came down to which side broke and ran first under fire. Most casualties before the modern era (late 19th century) were actually taken after the battle was over, in the rout and pursuit. This is why a Roman army could kill a few ten thousand "barbarians." They didn't kill them in a stand up fight, they killed them while they were running away. The major advantage of a Roman army was that their morale was a LOT stronger than the enemy's morale.
Modern artillery and crew served weapon are absolutely lethal, and at ranges far beyond most individual weapons. A Civil war era or earlier army would vaporize when faced with modern weaponry.. usually before they even knew the enemy was around.
I'll defer to more informed opinions, but my take:
1. Some individual arms (rifles) were deadly accurate back then. Most hand weapons used were smooth bore, which weren't very accurate. That's why the tactics of the time involved standing 25-50 yards apart and blasting away in volley fire by ranks.
2. I don't think artillery was much more accurate at the time either. Most was smooth bore and most cannon balls didn't explode. Of course with tight formation infantry, a cannon ball could take out several people at once just from inertia.
3. Cannons were pretty important in the war, but I don't know about them being the deciding factor. I think it was more that the US needed to have at least some cannon to counteract the British advantage.
4. You bring up the Minutemen, and that is somewhat illustrative. The militiamen in question proceeded to hand the British regulars a defeat. At various places they were brought up short by British cannons, but mostly they just covered the retreating British regulars.
5. Naval gunfire at the time was somewhat supreme due to its ability to be concentrated and moved. Still, the Battle of Bunker hill shows that it had limits due to it not being of much effect against dug in troops (no explosions). The militia (again) stood up to the regulars and naval artillery, retreating only when they ran out of ammo.
So from the point of utility in standing up to a military, the militia examples in New England during 1775 support the case of those making it. The problem is that the weapons and tactics of the time are so wildly different from today's military situation as make comparisons somewhat beside the point.
Thank you! And thank you to Travis too. I think the militia gets a lot of their legitimacy through the heritage argument: we've always had militias, they're as American as Yankee Doodle Dandy. So I appreciate seeing how militias have changed.
Correct. Accurate muzzle fire didn't start until the invention of the "minnie ball" (pretty sure I misspelled that but whatevers). Basically, until the 2nd American Civil War (1860-1865), muskets were smooth bore and didn't have rifling inside of gun barrels. The minnie ball changed this, by pairing barrel rifling with a projectile that would spin along the rifling grooves. The spin-in-flight improved ballistics immeasurably and made flint-lock rifles much more accurate than they used to be. The invention of cased ammunition also changed things a lot, which enabled the infantryman to carry spare ammo on "clips" that held about 5-8 individual cased ammunition rounds each. Then the replacement of ammo clips with magazines. You used to reload 8 rounds with an ammo clip in WW1, then they invented magazines for rifles and you had guys in WW2 reloading their Thompson and M3 submachine guns with magazines that held 20-30 rounds in the magazine instead of the usual 8-round ammo clips. The M16 started out with a 20-round magazine in the 1960s. That only changed later on when the services adopted 30-round magazines as the standard. Nowadays you can get 100-round ammo drums for AR-15s very easily.
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
The unfortunate last words of Major-General John Sedgwick at the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, moments before he was shot down by a Confederate sniper.
Civil War era rifle-muskets had an effective range of around 1000 yards in the hands of a skilled marksman.
An interesting question....
Most militias seem to be full of white guys (and rural) is there any meaningful difference between these militias and a urban street gang? Sure, one group talks a lot of BS about why they exist.. but aren't they both about protecting their turf?
You're right. Never thought of it that way. The thing is, I grew up in Chicago, and it always seemed to me it was gangsters killing other gangsters, which is a completely different scenario.
One usually sells drugs and engages in on/off violence with other street gangs, whereas the other usually just talks a lot of shit about the government and then sometimes does an insurrection or a mass shooting when they buy into online conspiracy theories. I guess that's the big difference.
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.
Tell me, if a 5.56x45mm XM193 or XM855 round hits a human chest cavity while traveling at over 2700 feet per second, what does the bullet do? Does it tumble and fragment inside of the chest cavity? Do other rounds do this as well or is it just the 5.56x45mm FMJ rounds?
Point being: while ALL rifle rounds will produce a temporary stretch cavity from higher velocities, not all bullets tumble and fragment into smaller pieces inside of their targets that take doctors a lot longer to pull out of people than other rounds. For example, the USMC moved to the Mk318 Mod 0 cartridge in Afghanistan in the later years because this round had a better track record of tumbling and fragmenting inside of human chest cavities at longer ranges than the standard M855E1 ball ammunition that grunts typically carry. They moved to a better-fragmenting round because they understood the special lethality that 5.56 has when the velocities are maintained. We're only now ditching 5.56 for 6.8x51mm because of body armor proliferation and the need for grunts to be able to crack ceramic body armor plates with a heavier/fast bullet. They had to engineer steel into the brass casing just to get a heavy bullet like that to fire at high enough pressures to produce the velocity necessary to crack armor plates with a heavy enough bullet.
So, do you favor the need for photos of the victims who require DNA testing to assure identification? I thought that was the issue rather than a technical discussion of weaponry.
I have no firm opinion on that - not informed well enough. And the issue is the article is full of bogus information which completely overpowers the identification issue. Thats my point.