Navy Yard shooting: AR-15, the weapon of choice -- again (CNN headline)

[jpak]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/17/us/ar-15-gun-debate/?hpt=hp_t1

CNN) -- It has been called the most popular rifle in America, and it's back in the spotlight after Monday's shooting at the Navy Yard: The AR-15.

Authorities said when Aaron Alexis unleashed a barrage of bullets Monday, he was carrying a rifle and a handgun. But he did most of the shooting with the weapon used in so many other rampages that shocked the nation:

-- Sandy Hook: Adam Lanza killed 26 people at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, with the AR-15 in December 2012.

-- Aurora: James Holmes opened fire with an AR-15 in July 2012 in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, killing 12 people, authorities said.

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grab 'em

yup

[gejohnston]

1. he legally purchased his at the Navy Yard

I frankly find that hard to believe. He wouldn't legally be able to take the gun out of the gate. Of course, CNN isn't that different than Fox when it comes to being full of shit.

[jpak]

3. No he did not

try again

yup

[Anymouse]

2. I'm getting tired.

I am on my village board, the lone Progressive in a town full of conservatives. (I still do not understand how I got elected - unanimously.)

I live across the street from the village park, and am the only board member who lives in the centre of town. As such, the board, after I was sworn in, put me in charge of the flag committee. (That committee ensures the two village flagpoles are serviceable, and that the flags are properly displayed. As the disabled vet and closest board member, I got the job.)

I am getting awfully tired of walking across the park from my house to lower the flag to half-mast.

I truly do not know the solution to this. If I did I would be firing letters to my Congressman and Senators.

Even our gun shop owner here in town is appalled by the carnage lately. (He is a Federal firearms dealer, but not a member of the NRA - he thinks they got too political twenty or more years ago and left the organisation.) He sells the sort of weapons used for hunting (rifles, shotguns, his own hand-forged rifles, not such things as AR-15s.

It seems no solution offered to end the carnage is good enough for most. Try to regulate sales? Get recalled (right over the line in Colorado). Registration is somehow "fascist" (though no one calls voter registrations or land deeds fascist). I don't get it. It as if there is almost wilful ignorance of the problem.

There is still a town ordinance that says when an out-of-towner comes into town he has to check his weapon in with the town marshal. (We haven't had a marshal in some years though.) It seems that in days past there was a lot less objection to a lot more regulation - registering a weapon is far less onerous than surrendering it.

[gejohnston]

7. a number of things

I'm guessing you were elected because you are a vet.
The dealer has to have a FFL to sell. I'm guessing he also has a manufactures license to sell what he makes.

Registration is not in itself "fascist", but it is theater. It never has performed advertised. Using history as guide, once that failure is recognized, there will be calls for more regulation, which will fail to curb violence. That is a consistent pattern. Basing policy on black swan events are guaranteed to fail.

Sales are regulated on the federal level. Just not to the level some people like.
The recalls were not about guns per se. Morse told Rachel Maddow that he was ignoring his constituents and encouraged his colleagues to do the same. Giron had one town meeting and was condescending and rude to those who disagreed with her. She also said a few things that made Michelle Bachmann look like a MENSA member. Besides, the bills were written by MAIG lobbyists (who are NYC employees).

[krispos42]

5. And it's one of the smaller, least-powerful rifle cartridges for sale

[gejohnston]

17. put that round next to the .308 round used

in the M-14, or the .30-06 used WWI-Korea and get back to us.

[krispos42]

19. My point is that...

...you're talking about the cartridge as if it's normally only used by naval artillery.

The AR platform has been adapted to a wide variety of cartridges, many of which are significantly more powerful than the .223.


Like pretty much all cartridges, it was created to be used to kill something.

People that use .223s for hunting purposes (whether for varmints or, where legal, deer) use expanding bullets, which also create fragmentation, a rapid transfer of energy, and increased wounding effects.



It's a bullet. It's made exactly like other, non-military bullets: a copper jacket wrapped around a lead core. The .22 Hornet and .22-250 use the exact same bullets as the .223 Remington does.

Military bullets are not allowed to be expanding, as a matter of fact.


It's a bullet shot from a rifle. What did you expect it to do?

What do you think the people that make bullets do in their spare time? They're constantly adjusting their hunting and self-defense bullets for best performance under one circumstance or another, or for one cartridge or another.

They design a 6mm bullet with a thin jacket for use on gophers and coyotes, another 6mm bullet with a medium jacket for deer, and a third with a thicker jacket for elk.

They design a .45 bullet with a thinner jacket to be used from short-barred handguns, and another with a thicker jacket for longer-barreled guns.

They design a 9mm bullet to pass the FBI's bullet-penetration tests for cops, and another intended to be used by the average homeowner for self-defense.

And all of them are designed to expand to varying degrees to increase energy transfer and increase wound size.

[gejohnston]

6. actually,

the tumbling was a flaw in older M-16s. The flaw was rifling twist did not stabalize the bullet on the way out. Colt changed the rifling and cured the problem. It was the barrel, not the round.

[DonP]

9. Yeah, but it makes a much better urban myth the other way.

The objective for many folks is not to inject fact, but to make anything that shoots the .223/5.56 seem to be a horrific weapon that must be banned or tightly controlled immediately.

IIRC, I think they went from the 1:12 to a 1-9 twist rate? The 1:12 was too fast for the 55 and 62 grain rounds.

IMHO, this falls under the same category as the "experts" we get now and then, that tell us all about the horrid gun shows, with neo-nazis everywhere, machine gun kits under the table and no questions asked. Of course none of them have ever actually been to a gun show, in a gun store or at a range, but they know all about them from reading Brady and MAIG press releases.

My favorite is still; "I don't know what the hell a 4473 form is and don't give a damn, but I want background checks done at every gun store and gun show." - Safe Haven Host.

[clffrdjk]

8. Can we get something for scale in that photo?

Even on my phone they show up 2-3x's larger than actual size.

Wait a tick just heard it was a shotgun and two pistols and not the most popular rifle in the US.

[rl6214]

10. Sssshhhhh, you can't let reality get in the way of 6paks agenda

If CNN said it, it's gotta be true.

[clffrdjk]

16. And now we are up to 4-5x's larger than life

Why don't you take a picture with one sitting next to a dime, pen, pencil, stamp?
Rather than blowing them up so much they look like artillery. Oh your just going for the largest emotional splash and really don't care that it is one of the smallest and weakest rifle rounds ever created.

[clffrdjk]

20. Yes thank you

I am just sick of hearing it called a high powered round that nobody has any business using. Especially when grand daddy's dear rifle has about ten times the energy.

[AtheistCrusader]

24. The army is STILL clamoring for something more powerful, so you bet.

Otherwise, the Grendel 6.5 wouldn't exist at all.

That .223 is illegal for hunting deer in most states, because it's too light and small, to humanely kill a deer. .240 or larger only in my state.

[ManiacJoe]

29. The army would have less "power" problems

if it gave up the 14-inch M4 and went back to the 20-inch M16. If the desire is for a compromised weapon, they should not complain about the compromise.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Still a sketchy round for going up against ~200lb deer that shoot back and might wear armor.

[ManiacJoe]

34. Yup.

[AtheistCrusader]

33. Way to make that squirrel-gun round look like a 10-inch naval gun round.

[Straw Man]

22. Anybody who thinks ...

... that a .223 has "the kick of a .22" has probably never fired either one. Certainly not both of them.

Ignorance is bliss, right?

[hack89]

11. CNN: Washington FBI confirms no AR-15 used in Navy Yard attack

https://twitter.com/PamelaBrownCNN/status/379960354841047040

[rl6214]

13. Awe come on...you're raining on his parade!

[kudzu22]

21. Misinformation: The weapon of choice of propagandists n/t

[Eleanors38]

28. Was it Mark Twain?...

A lie travels 'round the world before the truth can pull its boots on.

I wonder if Campbell imagined the Power of Myth would be so convincing so fast and so impervious to contrary evidence.

[PuffedMica]

23. An AR15 may have been Aaron Alexis gun of choice at the Navy Yard

except he did not have one.

[AtheistCrusader]

26. You go to war with the shitty shotgun you have, not the rifle you wish you had

or some such similar gallows humor.

[Duckhunter935]

27. I wonder

If Pierce Morgan will retract and apologize now or will there be crickets?

[AtheistCrusader]

25. Well, this thread was a giant waste of time, wasn't it?

[Eleanors38]

30. Not if it promotes the usual call for bans, and stigmatization of pro-DU members.

[Niceguy1]

31. it probably

Made the op feel good.