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>From: James Rogers <jamesr@best.com>
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: Re: GUNS: Why here?
>Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 14:45:38 -0700
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.org
>
>At 02:15 PM 10/10/00 -0700, Chuck Kuecker wrote:
>>
>> When you get right down to the nitty-gritty, an "assault weapon" is
>> purpose designed to WOUND, not kill, in battle, as wounded enemy
>> take up much more of the enemy's resources than dead.
>
>
>This oft repeated myth is just that, a myth. Like many such legends,
>this one has been difficult to kill. The military shoots to kill, not
>wound. I have no idea who started this because it is contrary to any
>military doctrine I've seen, and it has since then been refuted by top
>echelon officers in the U.S. military. Maybe some country in Europe has
>this as a doctrine (some countries, such as Sweden, have "interesting"
>military doctrine histories that defy explanation).
>
>
>Joe Dees wrote:
>>Assault weapons are not just "ugly guns." Semi-automatic hunting
>>rifles are designed to be fired from the shoulder and depend on the
>>accurate shooting of one bullet at a time. Semi-automatic assault weapons
>>are designed to be spray-fired from the hip and are designed to maximize
>>death and injury from a very rapid rate of fire.
>
>
>This paragraph here marks you as grossly ignorant. You haven't the
>faintest idea of how these weapons are actually used by the
>military. Even fully automatic (selectable fire) weapons such as the
>M16 or AK47 are *virtually never* used in anything but semi-auto mode
>by the military, and *never* "spray-fired from the hip". Hell, they
>removed the "full-auto" capability from modern M16s because the
>feature has almost no practical use for the military. You've watched
>*way* too many really bad Chuck Norris movies.
>
>"Maximizing death and injury" as you put it "depend on accurate
>shooting one bullet at a time", not your idiotic Hollywood notion of
>how guns are used. If you pitted three hip-firing yahoos with
>full-auto weapons versus one marine with a semi-auto, you would have
>three dead yahoos with empty magazines every time.
>
>Despite your supposed gun owner status, you *clearly* have no
>experience with military arms nor does it seem likely that you know
>anything about shooting except perhaps punching paper at the local
>range. I've never seen so much inanity and grossly unjustified
>opinion packed in such a small number of words.
>
>
>Joe Dees also wrote:
>>Assault weapons are
>>designed with military features such as silencers, folding stocks, flash
>>suppressors, barrel shrouds and bayonets which are ludicrously unsuited
>>for civilian use.
>
>
>Function, not form is important. Cosmetics are irrelevant.
>
>It just so happens that one of the much maligned "assault weapons",
>the M16/AR15, is one of the most intrinsically accurate rifle designs
>ever produced. Go to a rifle shooting match some time, look
>around, and tell me what you see. When it was first introduced (in
>the '60s) a military rack M16 shooting standard ball was as accurate
>as most "precision" weapons of the time. To this day, it is still
>highly favored by precision and competition shooters, and has largely
>replaced everything except custom bolt actions for anything under
>600 meters. Grandpa's lever-action will never be able to do 1/2"
>groups at 200 meters, but this "assault weapon" can.
>
>People who actually know guns appreciate many of the so-called
>"assault weapons" for their own strengths, not because they look
>"evil". An SKS is a tough and reliable shooter that is popular for
>hunting because it holds up well to field use (quite popular with boar
>hunters in particular, probably for that quick follow-up). The AR15 is
>the gold-standard for ergonomic design and its extreme precision makes
>it popular for target shooters and varmint hunters. These are all
>clearly reasonable civilian uses for which the weapons are
>particularly well-suited.
>
>As for bayonet lugs, when was the last time anyone was murdered with a
>bayonet (outside government sponsored action, of course)?
>
Proof that it's purpose is not civilian hunting, unless you wanna sneak up and knife your buck.
>
> Or
>silencers (hint: none)? Barrel shrouds don't even have a function on
>anything a person can carry, other than to look cool. Flash suppressors
>don't do anything that has any applicability to criminal use (if you think
>it does, you don't know what a flash suppressor is for) and falls under the
>same category as barrel shrouds.
>
They're great for hiding the source location of snipers, especially at night. So you don't want the herd to know where you're picking them off from? It's not a (game) hunting attachment.
>
>Folding/collapsible stocks are good for
>paratroopers and small statured people that can't use a rifle that has a
>regular stock because of length-of-pull issues.
>
That's a reasonable civilian use, but a short stock will do the same.
>
>(And I was trying to ignore these gun threads...)
>
>It is well-intentioned and poorly educated people like yourself Mr.
>Dees, that pave the road to hell. It is too bad you can't see that,
>but then those people rarely do.
>
To begin with, I was cut and paste quoting an issue brief on assault weapons from HCI, a fact you obviously missed, even though I clearly stated same. Your differences are with them. The URL for the entire brief is at:
http://www.handguncontrol.org/facts/ib/assault.asp
I remember the old saying. "One shot, one deer. Two shots, maybe one deer, Three shots, no deer." I'd like to append this observation: thirty shots, either no deer or a messy pulp, and maybe a dead hunter from stray spray.
It's also well-propagandized fervent and unquestioning people who pave subterranean roads. My point was, to start, that the gun show buy without background check and mass-purchase 'private collector' loopholes should be closed. It is also true, however, that less than 1% of the weapons out there, the assault weapons, were responsible, in 1994, for 17% of the cop killings. Hunting bluebacks does little for one's freezer.
>
>-James Rogers
> jamesr@best.com
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