Discussion on current firearms' firepower  (and other related on proposed laws) copied from Richard Day's thread:

Here is a video demonstrating the power of the guns we want to ban versus those we are okay with leaving available, at least for those of us who are honest in their support of leaving some kinds of firearms available for sport and home defense. I wanted to put it somewhere so this seems a good a place as any.
 The video is not above critique. The speaker makes note that different rounds are used in the standard weapons but does not explain that a round of the same type in an assault weapon would show very much the same result to the watermelon. The video does though show that banning "assault weapons" alone would accomplish something between zero and very, very little. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgr3kTU68uw

by A Guy Called LULU 1/17/2013 - 3:03 pm (re: artappraiser)

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Thanks Lulu, I did watch it and it does indeed make some of the currently proposed regulations look quite silly. (Deadman's post weeks ago tried to do similar but this does a much better job.)

by artappraiser 1/17/2013 - 4:56 pm (re: A Guy Called LULU)

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Glad you watched it and I hope others did too even if they keep their conclusions to themselves. That said, since we seem to be largely in agreement I think I will watch it again and double check.

by A Guy Called LULU 1/18/2013 - 1:06 pm (re: artappraiser)

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I would like to add that we need other kinds of facts, too; John Cassidy basically asks a good question here:  can we thwart the NRA in preventing Congress authorizing gathering these facts, as they are wont to do?  Not to mention it would be sooo easy to thwart while budget cutting is the topic du jour....and states are already claiming they're going to ignore anything he has signed on the matter.

by artappraiser 1/18/2013 - 2:03 pm (re: A Guy Called LULU)

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I agree that we need other kinds of facts too, also that John Cassidy asks a good question. But, it’s a slow day so I will bicker a bit with part of his essay.

 By collecting detailed information on every road death—such as the make, model, and year of the car; the speed at which it was travelling; and which seats the passengers were sitting in—the N.H.T.S.A. transformed policy making. “We know what works,” Hemenway explained in a 2004 interview. “We know that speed kills, so if you raise speed limits, expect to see more highway deaths. Motorcycle helmets work; seat belts work. Car inspections and driver education have no effect. Right-on-red laws mean more pedestrians hit by cars.”

Since the late nineteen-sixties, when policy makers started getting serious about preventing road deaths, the annual number of motor-vehicle fatalities relative to the total population has been cut in half. With better data and better policy, there is no reason why we shouldn’t see a similar reduction in gun fatalities, which are currently running at about thirty thousand a year. (About a third are homicides; most of the rest are suicides.)

Automobile fatalities and their reduction just does not hold up as an analogy of how to reduce gun fatalities.  My arguments assume that firearms will not be banned for the general population and that they will therefore also be available to the criminal population.
 How will “better data” affect better gun policy thereby reducing deaths in the way it has affected auto design and auto safety features. Motor vehicles have been made much safer for the occupants. There is no modification to guns that is equivalent to seat belts and airbags that save so many lives in car accidents. Cars are virtually never used to commit murder. Nobody uses a car to threaten a robbery victim and then run over that victim if the crime goes bad.  I see no equivalent for gun safety to better roads which often have barrier divided opposing lanes.

Motor vehicles are almost certainly used sometimes to commit suicide but it appears to be an insignificantly rare method, although accurate figures will probably never be available. I don’t see regulations ever reducing the high number of gun suicides.


During the eighties and early nineties, numerous studies of this nature were carried out under the auspices of the Centers for Disease Control—and they generated some fascinating facts, such as the finding that households with guns were three times more likely to have homicides and five times more likely to have suicides than homes without guns.

How could this data be used to reduce those numbers short of removing the guns from all households?

 
 

by A Guy Called LULU 1/18/2013 - 3:06 pm (re: artappraiser)

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I have to disagree. The video was silly and DF's post was much better. One can simplify the discussion and leave our relevant information to "prove" any point, both to ban a weapon or to fight against that ban.

I'm not a gun expert. I own a 12 gauge shotgun and a 22. In army basic training I shot an M-16 quite often which is the military equivalent of the AR-15 used in many of these mass shootings. I have some general knowledge about other weapons. Not nearly the amount that DF has, but even with my limited knowledge I could see how this video leaves out relevant information to create a false impression. One can lie very effectively by telling half the truth.

For example the 12 gauge shotgun that totally decimated the watermelon. Its likely that if it had been a human that same shot wouldn't have killed him. Shotguns are designed to shoot birds and small game. A 12 gauge shotgun shell is filled with small BB pellets which create a spread so that if only a few pellets hit the bird it will kill it. Each BB has low  power. Even if all the pellets strike a human in the chest its likely that most will hit a bone in the rib cage and stop there.

Many shotguns can't take a clip. If the shotgun does take a clip a 10 round clip is as large as a 30 round clip on an AR-15. I doubt you could get a 30 round 12 gauge clip but it its available it would be so unwieldy that it would make the gun nearly impossible to use.

In the video its pointed out that one of the high powered rifles doesn't take a clip, but the bullets can be stored in a cylinder running along the barrel of the gun. What they don't say is less than 10 bullets could be stored there.

A lot of the gun control groups don't know what they're talking about when they discuss guns but just as often those who oppose gun control take advantage of that lack of knowledge to post distorted videos like this one. The destructive power of a gun is not simply the size of the bullet. Even the same size bullet can have different destructive power, bullets that fragment in the body or can pierce armor easily, or bullets with explosive charges. A larger bore rifle can be less destructive than a smaller bore if it fires faster and carries more bullets. The amount of kickback can make it hard to aim and fire rapidly. Destructive power is a complex relationship between bullet size, type of bullet, amount of bullets before reloading, trigger speed, kickback, etc.

Most often posts on this subject start with an agenda and choose the information to share to prove that point. I don't have enough knowledge to write a post about the different types of guns and relative destructive power but I do know enough to often spot weaknesses and distortions. DF's post was one of the best I've seen on the technical aspects of guns yet even there I think he left out some relevant information.

 

 

by ocean-kat 1/18/2013 - 3:03 pm (re: artappraiser)

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Our weapon experience and where we got it is very similar. I trained initially with the M-14 but carried a 16 for a year. I own three 22‘s and a Remington Wingmaster 12 gauge shotgun. In the last 35 years  have fired one of the 22‘s a couple times. I don’t currently own any ammunition. Some folks would call that nutty but when I lived in a different sort of place I did have my shotgun loaded.  

I think you are completely wrong about the killing capacity of the 12 gauge at the range demonstrated in the video. Hit at that range with any standard load you would die. Also, shotgun shells are available over the counter in quite a range of types and power. Years ago one of my sisters wanted to try out my shotgun. I loaded it with two field load bird-shot shells [light] and then a magnum load shell with double aught buckshot. That shot is heavy enough that there are only five or six in the shell and this load is sometimes used by deer hunters. I warned her that the third shot would kick much harder than the first two. She fired two shots and I warned her again before the third. The kick knocked her down and satisfied her curiosity about shooting that gun.
 Hunting laws restrict a shotgun to three rounds of ammunition so the magazine which could hold four has a removable plug which limits it to three. By removing that plug and putting in four rounds plus one in the chamber the gun can carry five rounds. I believe this is almost a universal configuration for anything but single shot shotguns.

'In the video its pointed out that one of the high powered rifles doesn't take a clip, but the bullets can be stored in a cylinder running along the barrel of the gun. What they don't say is less than 10 bullets could be stored there.'

The shooter demonstrated how many rounds his rifle would hold by firing it until empty. I didn’t count the number. My pump action 22 hold a various number depending on whether they are short, long, or long-rifle shells. This type rifle is much slower to reload that one fed by a removable clip.

I pointed out that while the video did identify that different type rounds were used it did not explain how this affected their performance. It did not demonstrate any round which would not kill. I also pointed out, about the time Deadman was contributing, that in most cases you would rather be hit by a jacketed bullet or better yet an armor piercing bullet. The reason being that they would not mushroom on impact and rip a progressively bigger hole in your body as they traveled through it.

 "Destructive power is a complex relationship between bullet size, type of bullet, amount of bullets before reloading, trigger speed, kickback, etc."

I agree that that is a perfectly accurate statement but vital organs are quite easily destroyed by objects passing through them, even small ones.
 

by A Guy Called LULU 1/18/2013 - 4:11 pm (re: ocean-kat)

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I did not copy Resistance's embedding of the same video there only because it would not paste easily.