Weve had quite set of discussions about guns and gun control.
Theres been a lot of heated and often reasonable discussion around basic questions like: Is the U.S. less safe than Europe or Canada (and Ill stipulate that in aggregate it is) because of the prevalence of guns? (I doubt that guns are the causal factor)
I actually asked two of the more frequent posters to prepare some brief arguments to bring up to the blog to try and trigger some more discussion; and then I realized:
It doesnt matter.
First, it doesnt matter if the U.S. is less safe because of the prevalence of guns. Because the cold reality is that the guns are here and they arent going away. Not even with a draconian ban, like those in the U.K. and Australia.
Second, it doesnt matter if guns are in fact the causal variable, because both sides have made up their minds, and neither will accept evidence that soesn’t support their pre-determined position.
There is a very small swing group that might care either way, but the reality is that we have two firmly entrenched interest groups here in the U.S. that have opinions that are at polar opposites.
Personally, in an environment that wasnt so polarized, Id be a moderate. If I wasnt convinced by things I had read directly from the individuals driving the gun-control movement that their ultimate goal is gun prohibition, Id probably be pretty open to reasonable governmental controls on firearms. But Im a slippery slope believer, and as a consequence often find myself on the side of people whose views are more absolutist than mine.
I could let the issue go, if it werent for the fact that we have real issues of criminal violence here in the U.S., and that peoples lives are torn apart by it every day, and that somehow controlling guns
the mechanism
has replaced looking at root causes. I attribute these to an underclass white, black, and brown that is culturally dysfunctional, and made more so by the lack of mobility, education, and effective community infrastructure; to an insane legal-correctional system; to our ineffective war on drugs; and even to elements in our national character which make backing down difficult.
So lets try a different approach. What measures, focusing for now on regulation on possession and sale of weapons and ammunition can all sides agree on?
Agreement is important. Both sides can’t agree, not only because their views of the world are radically different, but because each side is afraid of and has demonized the other. To the extent we can come up with some small steps in common, the possibility exists to build toward a more constructive discussion.
Ill open: Children and convicted felons shouldnt be able to buy guns. Children under 16 shouldnt be able to possess guns except in the company of an adult. Convicted Felons shouldnt be able to possess guns at all.
Next?
I would also put myself into the armed moderate camp, as I stated here. Other reasonable restrictions I think all could agree on are:
Calibers greater than or equal to 20 mm,
Full automatic,
Certain loads (depleted uranium, incendiary), and
Ownership by persons with a history of violence, assault, mental illnes, or diminished capacity.
No weapons whose sole pupose is to kill lots of people fast (hard to define, I know). A hunting rifle is ok, an AK is not.
Hunting and plinking is a way of life for many, those weapons are ok.
Federal licensing of weapons, including barrel tests.
Convicted felons *should* be able to buy and possess guns, unless their conviction was for a violent crime committed with a firearm.
No, I just do not agree that a conviction for, say, drug possession or sales, or for tax evasion, or any “white collar” crime should disqualify anyone. Once they have completed their debt to society, all their rights should be automatically restored including the right to vote, run for public office, serve on a jury – and own a firearm.
Some of the other categories currently on the “prohibited possesor” list in federal law, such as renouncing ones citizenship, being dishonorably discharged form the armed forces, being an undocumented worker in the U.S. illegally, or any misdemeanor conviction (including misdemeanor domestic violence, and any misdemeanor carrying a potential sentence of more than 1 year such as is the case in Pennsylvania), shouldn’t be in the law at all.
Here’s something to think about: Since sodomy is still a felony in about half of the states, and homosexuality is also grounds for being dishonorably discharged form the military, it is entirely possible that there are a number of people who are currently denied their right to own a firearm, solely because they are gay or lesbian.
There are also a number of people in Pennsylvania who went to traffic court 30 years ago, pled guilty to a minor traffic offense, and now are facing 5 years in federal prison if they so much as touch a gun. Why? Because all misdemeanors in Pennsylvania used to carry potential 3 year sentences. The federal gun laws need to be changed so that they only apply to *violent* felons. Nonviolent felonies and the other categories need to be removed from the federal laws. This should be priority #1 for the gun rights movement and for liberals alike. Until the gun laws are changed in this manner, all other debate on the gun control issue, pro or con, is moot.
In terms of the violence of American life: enormous changes in the drug laws would be a first step, in the direction of controlled legalization. Working out the details will obviously be a big fight in itself.
I’m not sure about the effects of mandatory minimums and 3-strikes legislation in the long run. They keep people of the street longer, but when mechanically applied they might take a rehabilitatable offender and make him incorrigible.
The drug laws, plus these two, have given us — rightly or wrongly — the highest proportionate prison population of any civilized nation. Prison guards have become a major interest group, and prisons a “growth industry”. The system we have is racist both in is motives and its effect. There’s got to be a better alternative.
Reducing the gap between the rich and the poor (standard liberal measure like welfare state, unions, etc.) would help in conjunction with other steps — without being a panacea.
Gun control is not high on my list. Restricting gun ownership by violent felons would be justified I think. I also think that “career-criminal” laws and some sort of graded recovery of civil rights might discourage recidivism. The present sentencing and probation policies are too easy to game.
I really have come to the conclusion that gun ownership is wired into American life, both culturally, legally, and physically with the presence of hundreds of millions of guns. Thus it is not the place to start. I occasionally jump into second amendment arguments because I find some of the things pro-gun people say extremely annoying and false. I agree with them by now that gun ownership per se is not the main problem, though in contrast to Switzerland for example, the US doesn’t seem to handle guns very well.
Well, this should be an interesting discussion.
I concur that there are far too many felonies. Crimes that used to be misdemeanors have been elevated to the felony category. I think that violent felons, regardless of whether a firearm was involved should be prohibited. The use of unlawful violence, adjudicated in a court of law, serves as a useful indicator of whether or not someone is likely to irresponsibly or criminally misuse a firearm.
The Federal law that Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. is using to disarm Maryland citizens is disgusting. If you’ve received a conviction on a crime that might have gotten you more than one year in jail (misdemeanor or not) you can have your right to arms stripped? He’s using laws with no sentencing guidlines, saying that the judge might have given a 13 month sentence.
It sure has made Maryland a safe place to live, hasn’t it?
I’m going to have to disagree intensely with Mr. Morris, above. I still believe in the “unorganized militia,” Mr. Morris, and high-capacity semi-automatic weapons are most definitely suitable for militia use. If you want to ban those, you’d best repeal the Second Amendment first.
Finally, if you’ve been adjudicated mentally incompetent your right to arms (and other rights) will be stripped from you. You should have recourse to have your rights legally restored, but it shouldn’t be a slam-dunk. (We’re not going to let you pilot a 767 without a lot of study, either.)
I am absolutely against registration after commercial sale for two reasons. First, I haven’t seen any indication where registration has prevented crime. Second, I have seen plenty of evidence where registration has been used for confiscation, and that’s the only thing I think it’s “good” for. Not here.
What do I want? I want the Supreme Court to state that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to arms, and what kind of arms it protects; and I want the Supreme Court to overturn the myriad bad State law out there on the basis that the “priveledges and immunities” and “equal protection” clauses of the 14th Amendment prohibit the States from having stricter gun laws than the Federal government does just like they do for every other “right of the people” in the Bill of Rights.
Until that happens: “This far, no further.”
AL:
I agree about children, easily.
Felons present a somewhat more dificult position. For me it comes back to the status of gun rights. Is gun ownership a (constitutional) right? If so, it shoudn’t be denied felons any more than should voting.
Here’s a proposal that might or might not work (thoughts?): I’d prefer, in this situation, less governement, more private regulation. Make all gun sales registered. There’s no reason why anyone who legitimately wants a gun should be bothered by this. But register the seller too. And under the same logic as we went after tobacco companies, hold sellers responsible for the misuse of the firearms. If a gun I sell someone is used in a robbery, the robbed person gets to sue me. Maybe I’m also an accessory. I dunno – haven’t thought it out fully yet.
I think that policy would lead to even stricter regulation of who gets guns than would legislation, and would remove a lot of pro-gun people’s concerns about government control of the citizenry’s only means to resist the government.
I’d also agree with Gordon that it’s a reasonable middle ground to ban outright any weapon that can only possibly be used to kill – hollow-tipped bullets, high-caliber weapons, etc.
That’s my knee-jerk reply, anyways. I’m open to the possibility that I might be wrong.
My position is to investigate how firearms get into the hands of the ‘wrong’ people. I think Armed’s list of ineligibles, reflecting most of current law, is about right (I’d also retain the mental incapacity restrictions – the applicable code is 18 USC 922).
We can’t expect to be perfect. We don’t demand that in any other occupation or activity – even doctors, with the best will in the world, accidentally harm patients.
I would encourage the BATF to actually do one of its jobs better: investigate dealers who may be illegally transferring firearms. Investigate, prosecute, and if convicted punish. The current penalties are $10,000 fine and/or 5 years in federal prison per incident.
I still don’t have an answer for the ‘strawman purchase’ problem; it’s already illegal.
I would encourage owners to acquire and use secure storage for their firearms; one of the sources for illegal transfers is theft. Like getting training to properly use firearms, secure storage is a moral responsibility of gun owners (I would expect any normal person to feel pretty bad about arming a criminal). How to successfully transfer a moral responsibility to a legal one, without creating unwelcome side effects such as registration, is the puzzle here.
I oppose registration. Just for an example: I live in California. From about 1968, all firearm purchases from dealers have been recorded by the California Department of Justice; I believe from a later year, all firearm transfers must go through a licensed dealer.
Suppose you are a police officer making a traffic stop of my vehicle. You will ordinarily call in the license number to get information about the registered owner, and firearm ownership records are linked to auto registrations; suppose I never bought a firearm in California. On the basis of ‘no guns registered to owner’, can the officer assume the driver is not armed, and that he/she has a routine stop?
No. (1) the car might be stolen, and the registered owner not the driver but a thief with a gun. (2) A passenger may have a gun. (3) I may have lent the vehicle to someone who does own a gun. (4) I may have moved a gun into the state before 2000 – registration was not required before then, and is unenforcable now. (5) I may have bought a gun before 1968.
Should the officer, on receiving the information that I do have a gun, immediately do a felony stop? Cops are not always that popular already – imagine the community relations nightmare that would create unless there was probable cause.
The only clear law-enforcement value of registration is tracing a gun, found at a crime scene but without the criminal, back to the last registered owner. If the gun was stolen, the trace stops there. And, it is unusual to recover guns at crime scenes without the users.
In fact, this much tracing is already possible. The BATF has information, by serial number, of weapons manufactured or imported, and who it was who had first possession of them. Manufacturers and importers are required to keep records of guns, by serial number, sold to distributers; similarly, distributors must record the retail sales outlets which receive the guns, and retail sales outlets must retain the sales records.
I oppose the ‘bad gun’ laws – “assault weapons”, “Saturday night specials” etc. The best discussions I have seen on these come from Preston Covey (http://www.phil.cmu.edu/faculty/covey/) – http://www.saf.org/ journal/6_Covey.htm and http://www.beyond-the-illusion.com/files/Government/Legislation/firearms-policy.txt, about the recursive nature of banning particular types of weapons.
Trying to keep things relatively peaceful, I’d like to point out
(1) to Mr. Simutis that registration seems to me to help solve the strawman purchase problem;
(2) to Mr. Edwards, that when I made a similar suggestion about liability (in the context of comparing it to parking tickets) I was flamed, but in any event, the plan will not work without some quasi-registration to transfer civil liability to the next purchaser.
I would also like to ask Mr. Baker (a) would he drop his opposition to registration if it were accpompanied by a court decision acknowledging an individual Constitutional RTBA or does he still worry about confiscation under a future unconstitutional tyranny and (b) would he support registration if it resulted in more successful apprehension of gun criminals even if it didn’t appear to reduce crime?
My position is to investigate how firearms get into the hands of the ‘wrong’ people.
I should mention: I think this is absolutely the right approach.
I would prohibit ownership to violent felons and the mentally incapacitated. I would be open to recovery of civil rights for felons – most felonies are committed by people in their 20s, surely by age 40 or so we should have an idea about whether they have grown up or not.
Registration – no. I’m a slippery sloper, as well, and I don’t think it would address any of our crime problems. It won’t help solve crimes, unless the criminal leaves the gun at the scene, and it won’t help with illegal acquisitions, including straw man purchases.
As for guns meant only to kill lots of people fast – I see no reason why I should be denied my right to own a full auto weapon just because someone else might misuse it. I also think that the “militia” ideology built into our Constitution, and recently vindicated on Flight 93, is fully consistent with the legal ownership of military grade small arms by citizens. I believe explosives (grenades, artillery, rockets) can be distinguished from solid-projectile weapons and there are reasons for banning them from common ownership.
>>I’d also agree with Gordon that it’s a reasonable middle ground to ban outright any weapon that can only possibly be used to kill – hollow-tipped bullets, high-caliber weapons, etc.
No go. This would outlaw most guns and ammo, and would certainly outlaw most concealed carry weapons and other handguns intended for self-defense. Further, why outlaw high-caliber weapons when they have no history of being used for criminal purposes? I should point out that our military has benefited greatly by the innovations in the private sector around .50 caliber sniper weapons. “Bad gun” laws reflect the fears of their proponents, not an attempt to address the problem of violence in our society.
(1) to Mr. Simutis that registration seems to me to help solve the strawman purchase problem;
Perhaps you might explain how this might be so.
As things are today, a strawman purchase is made by a person who has no disabling record, i.e. no felony convictions, no domestic violence convictions, not under a restraining order, no record of mental problems, and old enough. The firearm is then transferred or made available to an ineligible person.
Theoretically, an ineligible person is likely to commit a crime with a gun. Suppose this is so. Until the gun is recovered from the criminal/ineligible (simple possession is a crime if one is ineligible to buy), there is no indication that the illegal transfer has occurred. Any number of crimes might be committed, most with no shots fired, so no traceable evidence, before the illegal transfer is revealed.
How do we distinguish an illegal deliberate transfer from a real theft from the original purchaser?
We might, for instance, require police inspections of the weapons on some regular basis. This would not prevent purchasers from claiming theft, even so far as to report the theft to police and insurers. Such inspections are authorized in Canada. I would object to police visits to my home for this purpose. They would appear to violate 4th amendment protections, unless accompanied by a warrant issued on probable cause.
Without a pattern of behavior, it seems to be difficult to distinguish strawman puchasers from honest, but unlucky, careless or inept, non-criminals.
My imagination fails to see the benefit of registering guns in this case.
“I would also like to ask Mr. Baker (a) would he drop his opposition to registration if it were accpompanied by a court decision acknowledging an individual Constitutional RTBA or does he still worry about confiscation under a future unconstitutional tyranny and (b) would he support registration if it resulted in more successful apprehension of gun criminals even if it didn’t appear to reduce crime?”
Mr. Lazarus,
Re(a): I would not. Registration makes confiscation infinitely easier, and regardless of a SCOTUS decision acknowleging an individual right to arms, it does not mean that a future court (or Congress) might not reverse that decision. The problem with a lot of the gun laws currently on the books isn’t what they were intended for, it’s what they’re distorted and abused for later.
So yes, I still worry about confiscation in the future. An “unconstitutional tyranny” isn’t required for that. The “unconstitutional tyranny” would probably occur a decade or two after confiscation.
Re (b): See (a). That’s a big “if” that I don’t see as being likely, and certainly not worth the risk it entails.
Mr. Simutis, we won’t be able to tell in every case. However, let’s say you covertly sell your gun to a felon (for a high premium), and then he is caught with the gun. The police come to you. Of course, you claim the gun was lost or stolen. Well, do you have a police report for the theft? Was anything else stolen? How did you lose it? Is the apprehended felon a friend, relative, colleague, or neighbor of yours? Sure, some strawmen purchasers will get away with it. Once. If you do it more than once, everyone will be very suspicious, which pretty much ends bearding for felons at the gun store as a livelihood. And since your customer will now be facing a charge of gun theft (which might even be more serious than the original crime!), he may rat you out.
Police manage to make cases against people who claim their cars were used in crimes without their knowledge or consent. Police manage to make cases against people who file false claims that their car is stolen (insurance fraud). I’m sure they could do just as well with guns.
>> (1) to Mr. Simutis that registration seems to me to help solve the strawman purchase problem;
Then it will be easy to provide supporting empirical evidence for this proposition, as registration is not a new idea and relevant experience exists.
Note, of course, that the question is “does registration reduce crime?”
One of the important things about gun control is that many things have been tried. Surely that experience should matter….
[I posted this on another blog.]
I’ve decided that a bit of background might be helpful.
I started studying gun control because I was horrified. I was certain that there were effective measures. I had some ideas so I went looking for supporting evidence.
What I found was really depressing. Everything that I’d thought of, plus lots of better ideas, had been tried, and hadn’t worked.
What’s more, I found that these failures were very expensive. Many were counter-productive and their persistence (even of the “cheap failures”) had completely poisoned the “let’s try something new” well.
I think that someone who is legitimately interested in gun violence has an obligation to:
(1) Be informed – know what’s been tried and what effect it had.
(2) Be realistic – recognize that the existence of a problem does not imply that your favorite scheme will work.
(3) Be honest – don’t use bait and switch. (Example – don’t rant about machine guns and then backdoor restrictions on other guns.)
(4) Be trustworthy – when something fails, get rid of it.
People who fail to do these things are an enormous part of the problem.
Police manage to make cases against people who claim their cars were used in crimes without their knowledge or consent. Police manage to make cases against people who file false claims that their car is stolen (insurance fraud). I’m sure they could do just as well with guns.
I am certain they do, yet the data collected by the US DOJ seems to indicate the occurence is rare. The text at
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/ffo98.txt
notes
“During 1998, 341 defendants were convicted of a firearm receipt or transfer offense. Detailed information was collected on 85% (288) of those convicted. (See Methodology.) Of these 288 defendants, 47% were not permitted to lawfully possess or receive a firearm because of their status as a prohibited person; 19% were identified as straw purchasers [55/288 – JS]; 28% involved other individuals unlawfully receiving or transferring firearms; and 6% involved retail dealers unlawfully transferring firearms.”
States generally have similar state-level crimes to those defined in federal law, so states may prosecute. California actually has registration. It seems to be not especially helpful:
http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/166818.txt
“OPD’s [Oakland Police Department, Oakland, CA] licensee compliance program has achieved
success in several areas. The unit has reduced the
number of firearms licensees from 57 to 7 in the
past 2 years [1995, 1996]. In addition, the unit completed morethan 3,000 firearms traces and developed informants and leads that have resulted in the investigation of more than 28 straw purchasers and the arrest and prosecution of 5 straw sales and purchasers.
In 1998, the Uniform Crime Reports show that Oakland had 376,000 people – and 72 murders, 2,651 robberies, 3,945 aggravated assaults. (The 1995 UCR appears to exclude Oakland without explanation.) Typically guns are used to commit about 70% of murders, 38% of robberies, and 20% of aggravated assaults. Presuming the 95 and 96 data are similar to the 98 values, there would have been about 3400 gun crimes in the two years to investigate – and they were able to identify 28 straw purchases, prosecuting 5.
Results such as these tend to arouse scepticism about the efficacy of registration to reduce the problem of straw purchases.
Mr. Edwards, Mr. Morris, Mr. Lazarus, and and all the other “ban the bad guns” folks:
I cannot support your call to eliminate guns “whose sole purpose is to kill people.”
To begin with, self-defense, including lethal force, is a basic and fundamental human right. I keep hollow points in my Glock precisely because they are likely to be both more effective in stopping an attack, and less dangerous to innocent bystanders (because they are less likely to pass completely through my attacker and hit people behind).
Second, there is no proper way to tell “good guns” from “bad guns.” An AK-47 has ballistics which closely resemble the 30-30, which is the most popular deer rifle of all time. An AK makes a good choice for deer or smaller game at close range–lightweight, reliable, quick with a follow-up shot. It is substantially less powerful than ordinary hunting cartridges like the .308 or 30-06, both of which can be used in “assault weapons” like the Garand and M1A. An AK ALSO makes a good choice as a “riot gun,” because its frighting and distictive appearence can cow a mutninous crowd and prevent looting without shots being fired. Frankly, it is the appearence rather than the ballistics and mechanics which makes most people want to ban the AK.
Furthermore, if you ban the AK-47, will you also ban Ruger’s mini-30? It fires the same cartridge and is also semi-auto, but is available in a much less “scary” appearence.
There is essentially no such thing as a “bad” gun. Even if there were, it would be foolish to deny law-abiding citizens the right to effective self-defense when criminals are unlikely to obey the law.
Mr Lyman–I myself didn’t suggest a particular type of weapon or ammo that I wanted to outlaw. I’d have to think about that a little more, and also familarize myself with the possibilities. If I were to give a preliminary philosophy, I’d say that the weapon had to be suitable for some lawful use (so, say, Stinger missiles are out). Can you really get usable venison from a deer shot with an AK-47?
Mr Simutis–I don’t think we can conclude from the data that registration was a failure (or, for that matter, a success). First, the data don’t indicate how many of the presumed 3000+ gun crimes (fine, the exact number doesn’t matter) were committed as a consequence of the acts of the 28 people investigated. In fact, as I read your post, we don’t even know how many disqualified persons received guns via these strawman purchases, because the purchasers are counted without multiplicity. Moreover, I don’t see how many of the gun crimes were solved at all, or by what methods, which makes it impossible to tell how useful registration has been. Do you have further numbers on the subject?
>> Can you really get usable venison from a deer shot with an AK-47?
Is that question some sort of joke?
The effect of a bullet is basically independent of the gun that it was fired from. Guns are designed so that they perform well with their ammo, which means that all guns that shoot a given caliber have basically the same performance.
As another poster wrote, 7.62×39 is a near ballistic twin of 30-30 Winchester, which was one of the most popular “deer rifle” calibers. (30-30 has lost market share over the years, starting long before 7.62×39 was known in the US, and may not even have the top spot any longer.)
That means that typical ammo in the two calibers performs basically the same; the bullets diameters are almost exactly the same, typical bullets are aree about the same weight, and muzzle velocity is very similar. For loadings where there is a difference, 30-30 has the edge.
The most significant difference is that 30-30 is usually loaded with round-nose bullets while 7.62×39 is usually loaded with pointed bullets, like most other hunting ammo. (30-30 tends to have round-nose bullets because most guns that shoot it have tubular magazines, with the base of one cartridge is against the tip of the next cartridge’s bullet. Almost all guns that shoot 7.62×39 have box magazines, with cartridges side by side.) As a result, typical 7.62×39 has a slight range advantage over round-nose 30-30, but 30-30 lost out to cartridges with even more range.
I realize that it would be convenient if certain “distinctions” actually had a basis in reality, but that’s not how things work.
For example, when someone says that an AK-47 is “special”, one of two things is true.
(1) They don’t know what they’re talking about
or
(2) They think that their audience doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
That’s why all of the assault weapons laws ended up being based on appearance….
A few questions for Andy Freeman- 1) I thought assault rifles like the AK-47 were banned because they were easily converted from semiautomatic to automatic rifles (which is what they were in the first place). BTW, aren’t SKS’s Chinese copies of AK-47’s? 2) I’m not sure all guns shoot ammunition the same way, at least with small caliber ammo. I would assume .223 rifle ammo, shot out of a hunting rifle, would be very accurate. Yet, a similiar round, a 5.67 (?) mm NATO round out of an M-16, is less accurate, but does more damage. A long time ago, I read that the AR-15 had relatively little rifling in the barrel. Thus, when fired, the round’s path was somewhat unstable. When it entered a substance of different density, such as a watermelon, the round began to “tumble,” greatly increasing the its damage. When the army adapted the AR-15 into the M-16, it increased the amount of rifling, thus increasing its accuracy, but decreasing the damage done by the round (this is from Janes Fallos’s National Defense).
Also, what’s the difference between a 30-30 and a 30-06? Thanks
>> 1) I thought assault rifles like the AK-47 were banned because they were easily converted from semiautomatic to automatic rifles (which is what they were in the first place).
No, and no.
Or rather, those were the arguments/claims, but they lack a connection to reality.
The long-standing US law definition of “machine gun” includes anything that can be readily converted to automatic fire. This has been interpreted as “if it’s not significantly harder to convert than to make a machine gun from scratch, it’s a machine gun”. Making a machine gun isn’t all that hard, but there’s no evidence that ugly guns are easier to convert.[1]
No, the semi-auto AKs weren’t ever full-auto guns. It’s basically impossible to get ATF to say that such a conversion is a semi-auto and there’s no reason to do so. The semi-auto AKs were designed and built as semi-autos.[2]
I’ve said that the CA and federal laws were based on appearance.[3] However, one can also argue that domestic gun manufacturers used the opportunity to reduce foreign competition. (There’s a lot of that in GCA 64 and 68 as well.)
>> BTW, aren’t SKS’s Chinese copies of AK-47’s?
No. They both may be gas-operated (the SKS is, I’m not positive that the AK is), but so are most semi-auto center-fire rifles.[4]
However, a huge fraction, if not a majority, of the semi-auto AKs were made in China. (Some were made in Finland, and I remember hearing that some were made in Eastern block countries.)
I’m unaware of any non-Chinese SKS production but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some. (“Country of manufacture” is not something that I’m interested in.)
[1] Yes, I know about “conversion kits” and “full auto parts kits”. Think of them as consumer fraud. Note that there was one that worked for a specific make/model (not one of the imports) – that part is legally defined as a machine gun even though it isn’t even a gun.
[2] Yes, they’re designed to look like their full-auto “cousins”. That’s not exactly unknown – NASCAR cars look like cars that one can find at every Chevrolet or Ford dealer.
[3] I’ve previously mentioned that CA’s assault weapon list includes a single-shot manually cocked shotgun. I didn’t mention that said gun isn’t cocked by pulling back the hammer with a thumb. It’s cocked by pulling a handle on the side of the gun. As a result, it may be the slowest “shot to shot” cartridge firing gun made. However, it is all black and looks mean.
[4] On the other hand, almost all semi-auto center-fire handguns are recoil-operated, not gas. I’m unaware of a gas-operated .22 rimfire semi-auto rifle or handgun, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one existed.
>> 2) I’m not sure all guns shoot ammunition the same way, at least with small caliber ammo. I would assume .223 rifle ammo, shot out of a hunting rifle, would be very accurate.
The “venison” question assumes that the deer was hit so accuracy isn’t an issue.
Yes, some guns are more accurate than others, but that doesn’t imply that any of the so called assault rifles are somehow inadequate for hunting. (Many lever-action models aren’t all that accurate. For some models, variation between different instances can be signficant.)
Accuracy is a function of the shooter, the gun, and the ammo. Even with the most incompatible choice of the last two, the shooter is usually the biggest source of error. Few people can outshoot even the crappiest of modern guns with reasonable ammo. (Most people who claim to be able to do so are either wrong or lying.)
Besides, we’ve been told that guns that are too accurate are evil sniper guns. (See http://www.vpc.org/press/0210snip2.htm and the associated report.)
>> Yet, a similiar round, a 5.67 (?) mm NATO round out of an M-16, is less accurate, but does more damage. A long time ago, I read that the AR-15 had relatively little rifling in the barrel.
Something must have been lost in the translation.
>>Thus, when fired, the round’s path was somewhat unstable.
Unstable is tumbling, which is like putting on a parachute AND uselessly inaccurate.
For most/all bullet diameter and twist rate combinations, there are one or more bullet weight/designs which are unstable. However, every bullet is stable with at least one twist rate.
The military doesn’t buy ammo that is unstable in its guns.
We’re being a bit sloppy in this discussion. While the US military tends/tries to standardize, the civilian market is more diverse. Thus, saying “.223 ammo does” is inadequate.
There’s a huge variety in .223 ammo. Much of it shoots well in “military standard” guns, but some of it doesn’t. The latter is effective with barrels with a different twist rate. Note that one can put such barrels on AR-15s.(http://coyoteatthedogshow.blogspot.com had an interesting discussion of this stuff several months ago.)
>> When it entered a substance of different density, such as a watermelon, the round began to “tumble,” greatly increasing the its damage.
That effect is independent of the gun that the bullet is shot from. (BTW – Why is watermelon damage interesting? No, it isn’t a good predictor of flesh. Watermelons are disintegrated by fat slow bullets and relatively immune to thin fast ones.)
Lots of bullets “tumble” in flesh. (Bullet stability is affected by what it is going through.) That’s a good thing for hunting ammo.
Note that for almost all military purposes, they’d rather wound with small arms than kill. Hunting is the exact opposite. Self-defense is different than both; its goal is immediate incapacitation.
>> When the army adapted the AR-15 into the M-16, it increased the amount of rifling, thus increasing its accuracy, but decreasing the damage done by the round (this is from Janes Fallos’s National Defense).
The US military has gone through at least two “standard” twist rates, in large part because some of the bullets that it wanted to use weren’t a good match for the previous twist.
However, the “old” twist rates are perfectly good for other .223 bullets.
FWIW, my memory of the relationship between the civilian AR-15s and the military guns is that the latter came first. I also “remember” that the initial name for the latter was “AR-15” and that the name got changed during the adoption process. However, I don’t think that it’s particularly relevant/interesting so I don’t care enough to know it.
Moreover, I don’t see how many of the gun crimes were solved at all, or by what methods, which makes it impossible to tell how useful registration has been.
In this discusion, I was referring only to registration as it influences the detection of straw purchases. Since all new firearms purchases in California are registered through the DOJ, and only 5/3000+ gun crimes in Oakland those two years could be indictably associated with a straw purchase, one of these seems probable: (1) Oakland has a very large number of crimes committed with un-registered guns; (2) the registration had no significant beneficial impact on detecting straw purchases; (3) Oakland has an extremely small number of straw purchases.
>> Also, what’s the difference between a 30-30 and a 30-06?
The bullet diameters are the same but the cases, the part where the powder goes, are very different. 30-06 has a much bigger case.
Bullets used in factory 30-30 cartridges are usually round-nosed while bullets in factory 30-06 cartridges are almost always pointed. (That difference is due to the typical magazine configuration in 30-30 vs 30-06 guns.)
30-06 is usable and typically loaded with much heavier bullets than 30-30. (There seems to be a wider variety of pointed bullets than round-nose bullets. There’s nothing stopping handloaders from putting round-nose bullets in 30-06 cases, but, apart from very light practice loads, I doubt that many do. If someone was to single-load, or had a 30-30 with a box magazine, they could use pointed bullets.)
From the same barrel length with typical powder charges (ie 30-06 has more), typical 30-06 is much faster than typical 30-30 and typical bullet shape handicaps 30-30 range even more.
30-06 has a slightly longer case than 7.62×51, aka .308 winchester. Some heavy bullets are unsuitable for .308 yet okay with 30-06.
As I stated earlier, the cartridge does not determine the barrel twist rate. I wouldn’t be surprised if the popular twist rates for 30-30 and 30-06 guns were different. (I’d guess that there is more variation in 30-06 as well.)
BTW – I mis-stated one of the differences between 30-30 and 7.62×39. The former’s bullets are .308″ diameter while the latter’s are .310″. 7.62×51 and 30-06 use .308 diameter bullets. (I didn’t lookup any of the other .30 calibers.)
BTW – The case for 7.62×39 has a different shape than the case for 30-30.
Re “Is the US less safe than Europe or Canada”:
It’s the wrong question.
I believe it’s a mistake to make safety the primary concern. Liberty should be. (See Jeffrey Snyder’s book and paper, “A Nation of Cowards”) And, if we want to compare ourselves to another country, it’s on that score that we ought to do it.
If you imagine the extreme points of view re gun rights as lying on a line, nearly all “agreement” between those views in the last half-century has resulted in motion away from liberty.
The gun grabbers always make a proposal, and then we are expected move in their direction to compromise.
If agreement is so important, it’s high time they made a move in our direction, or agreement be damned, and long live gridlock!
Mr. Lazarus: There is no question that one can get useable venison from a deer shot with an AK-47. Bullet selection is a little iffy, but reloaders can get good soft points that will equal the 30-30 at short ranges and outperform it at long ranges (due to the pointy design, which means more energy downrange).
Furthmore as I’ve pointed out, self-defense IS A LAWFUL USE. So long as you take that into account in making up your list of weapons to be banned, I will most likely agree with you.
Mr. Freeman: the AK and the SKS are both gas-operated, as you surmise. A recoil-operated centerfire rifle is essentially impossilbe to construct, as it calls for absurdly heavy bolts and carriers.
GP–the 30-30 is a pretty old design–I don’t know when it was introduced, but it is pretty low-power by today’s standards (and thus calling the AK-47 a “high powered assault rifle,” as is common in the media, is simply foolish). The 30-06 is a much larger, much more powerful design, suitable for elk or moose a long ranges. Caliber designations are pretty confusing. Also, the AR-15 and its variants are extremely popular target rifles, so any broad claim of poor accuracy is false. However, the AR-15 is more of a big class of guns rather than any one gun, so accuracy varies from model to model.
A comment on “.223 ammunition.” There are, I believe, at least 6 calibers which all fire the exact same bullet. The sniper in DC might be using any of them; there’s no way to tell.
Anyone wanting more info on calibers, velocities, and pressures should consult a reloading manual; Hodgdon has on one online.
For those of you interested in following Randy’s suggestion and reading “A Nation of Cowards” by Jeff Snyder, I highly, highly recommend it, especially if you are ambivalent about self-defense.
Here is your link.
From http://www.law.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/View&c=LawArticle&cid=1032128795063&t=LawArticle
>> “It became a defensive battle,” Sugarmann says. “The gun control movement in the 1980s moved from gun control to stopping gun violence.”
Sugarmann invented the assault weapon issue. He noted that most folks think that if it looks like a machine gun, it is one, so ….
>> A recoil-operated centerfire rifle is essentially impossible to construct, as it calls for absurdly heavy bolts and carriers.
Not to get gun-geekish, but it should be possible for some of the minor calibers.
Yes, I know that even something as wimpy as .44 remington mag is almost too much for recoil-operation, but ….
(.44 mag, while a hefty cartridge in a handgun, is relatively wimpy in a rifle.)
>> (and thus calling the AK-47 a “high powered assault rifle,” as is common in the media, is simply foolish).
If I’ve got my history right, it’s almost technically accurate, albeit in a sense that they don’t know.
I’m fairly sure that the center-fire priming scheme (or the combination with smokeless powder) was called “high-power”. (Lots of technical names are chosen for the suggestive value.) If so, the dominance of center-fire (and smokeless powder) means that almost everything except for .22 rimfire is “high power”.
Gun controllers are always glomming onto names. One of the early 1900s proposals was to ban “magnums”.
>> If I were to give a preliminary philosophy, I’d say that the weapon had to be suitable for some lawful use
Is defending myself from a mob a “lawful use”? How about defending one’s self and family?
I personally think that “lawful” is the wrong standard because law is too malleable. I personally prefer “good”.
Mr Simutis: “only 5/3000+ gun crimes in Oakland those two years could be indictably associated with a straw purchase”
No, as I read your numbers five straw purchases resulted in indictments but it’s possible that the weapons involved were responsible for dozens of the 3000+ gun crimes. Have I misread this?
Well, I did a little web searching and came across a history of the SKS (which preceded the AK47- my bad)on this web site: http://www.simonov.net. I also came across this book for sale on Amazon.com “Full-Auto Conversion of the SKS Rifle” (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0873647858/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/102-9529999-1178523) From what you wrote, Mr. Freeman, I take it this book is a scam and I shouldn’t waste my money on it (this is a real question and not intended to be snarky)?
For anyone interested in the history of the AR-15/M16, including its jamming problems in Vietnam, here is a link: old.ar15.com/history/birth.asp
Finally, here is a link to a discussion of “wound ballistics” of different rounds (with some creepy music thrown in): http://www.fen-net.de/norbert.arnoldi/army/wound.html . Oddly enough, from its conclusion, a deer shot with an AK-47 would leave plenty of venison steaks, while a M-16 might in venison pate.
it’s possible that the weapons involved were responsible for dozens of the 3000+ gun crimes.
Oops. Yes, it is possible. No breakdown was in the data.
Some years ago, San Francisco PD was reported as saying crimes in some parts of the city were actually perpetrated by a small number of individuals; should some similar behavior in occur in Oakland, one instance of a straw purchase easily could be associated with many crimes.
On the other hand, it seems to me that if straw purchases were involved in a large portion of the gun crimes, there would be more of them discovered. Politically, the OPD is highly motivated to solve gun crimes, and they have not been shy about reporting successes and requesting resources. I picked on Oakland because I live 20 miles east of there, and their crime stories appear in my local papers.
GP wrote: “I also came across this book for sale on Amazon.com “Full-Auto Conversion of the SKS Rifle” (From what you wrote, Mr. Freeman, I take it this book is a scam and I shouldn’t waste my money on it (this is a real question and not intended to be snarky)?”
In a word, no, you shouldn’t waste your money on it. Is it possible to convert an SKS? Yes, if you have access to a machine shop and the skills to use the equipment. BUT – if you get it wrong, you risk an “out-of-battery” failure of your rifle. An out-of-battery failure occurs when a cartridge is fired before the breech mechanism of the weapon is properly locked. If this happens, the only thing there to contain the incredible heat and pressure of the propellant gasses is the brass of the cartridge case, rather than the chamber and breechface of the weapon. Brass isn’t up to the job. It will fail, and high-velocity, high-pressure, high-temperature gasses will seek the easiest way out of the weapon. The improperly or unlocked breech may cause catastrophic mechanical failure of the receiver, resulting in chunks of metal flying in various directions. Your tender flesh might be in the path of either the gasses or the metal or both.
Converting a semi-automatic rifle to full-automatic is not for the unskilled or the weak of heart, though it can be done. That’s why the BATF rules say it must be difficult, or the weapon cannot be sold in the US.
You also wrote: “Oddly enough, from its conclusion, a deer shot with an AK-47 would leave plenty of venison steaks, while a M-16 might in venison pate.”
I didn’t read the link, though there is an excellent ammunition study available on the AR15.com website in their ammunition forum. I hope your “pate” comment was hyperbole. The 55 grain full metal jacket military projectile is designed to break up on impact in order to be AS effective as the .30-06 (WWI, WWII) or the 7.62NATO (Korea, Vietnam) military ammo. When they went from a high-velocity 150 grain .30 caliber round to a 55 grain .224 caliber high-velocity round, they had to do something to make the projectile more effective. Now the military has switched to a 62 grain steel-cored projectile that does not fragment well. It was used most recently in Afghanistan, and there have been complaints about its effectiveness, particularly out of the short-barrelled M4 carbine.
The most effective bullet for deer hunting use in the .223 Remington (and some states do allow this caliber for deer hunting) is a soft-pointed bullet manufactured by Winchester. It is not designed to fragment, it’s designed to expand until the projectile looks like a mushroom.
>> Oddly enough, from its conclusion, a deer shot with an AK-47 would leave plenty of venison steaks, while a M-16 might in venison pate.
It’s hard to see how one can find support for that conclusion in Fackler’s article.
(1) The article is about how certain bullets behave when they hit tissue. That’s independent of the gun they’re shot from; Fackler makes this point by showing how different bullets shot from the same gun behave differently. The wounding by the .223 bullets discussed would be the same if they were shot from a Ruger bolt action rifle. Heck – the effects be the same if said Ruger was chambered for .22-250. (That’s another cartridge that uses bullets with the same diameter as those in .223 remington.) Fackler doesn’t explicitly discuss these sorts of issues in an article about military rifle bullets because each military tends/tries to standardize on one cartridge for a given bullet diameter.
(2) The article doesn’t discuss hunting bullets at all. In fact, the bullets that Fackler discusses aren’t legal for deer hunting in much of the US. (I understand that .223 is illegal for deer hunting in some states because it is not powerful enough. Some states apparently disallow deer hunting with all .22 diameter bullets.) Hunting bullets are far more destructive (in tissue).
(3) Fackler does discuss how “pate” might result, but he shows that the effect is produced by all spin-stabilized bullets with a heavy base. It’s unclear why Lazarus thinks that .223 is more likely to hit a deer’s liver than 7.62×39.
Given that both .223 and 7.62×39 are relatively wimpy compared to other common hunting cartridges, let alone 12 gauge, I’m not sure why Lazarus is so fixated on them.
>> From what you wrote, Mr. Freeman, I take it this book is a scam and I shouldn’t waste my money on it (this is a real question and not intended to be snarky)?
There are four possibilities:
(1) It’s a scam.
(2) It depends on using some components that are themselves regulated as machine guns.[1]
(3) It documents a procedure that would basically work with any gun. (“Step 1, acquire a barrel.”)
(4) It actually works.
Given that (4) means that the SKS can be legally regulated as a machine gun and ATF is very aggressive in this area….
[1] Late in WWI, the US Army developed a device that converted a bolt-action rifle to a semi-automatic rifle (shooting a fairly wimpy cartridge that is basically a stretched version of a cartridge that is typically used only in handguns). One can imagine a similar device that would allow full auto fire. Such a device would legally be a machine gun and be regulated as such. http://www.odcmp.com/Services/Rifles/pipsqueak_pistol.htm
AF and KB, thanks for the clarifications. What I meant by the pate comment was that an AK-47, a Russian 7.62mm round would produce a relatively “clean” wound, while a M-16 would produce alot of tissue damage. I don’t hunt; which scenario is more desirable for hunting purposes? Or is it better to use a 30-06 or a larger caliber round?
BTW, Fackler made reference to the accusation that the M-16 was/is an inhumane weapon. KB, your anecdote regarding lack of effective of the M-4 with the new cartridge is very interesting. Personally, if some is shooting at my fat ass, I would like to have a weapon that made “pate” out of my adversary’s thigh, abdomen, chest, skull etc.
>> What I meant by the pate comment was that an AK-47, a Russian 7.62mm round would produce a relatively “clean” wound, while a M-16 would produce alot of tissue damage.
Why is it so hard to distinguish between the gun and the ammo? Especially since not doing so is inaccurate.
I’ve previously pointed out that the effect of bullet is independent of the gun that it is shot from. (Yes, the barrel’s twist rate matters, but the gun’s action or appearance does not determine that and different guns may well have the same twist rate so that they can effectively use the same ammo.)
There’s another error. Not all AK-47 look-alikes shoot 7.62×39. Not all M-16 look-alikes shoot .223 Remington. (There are AKs in .308 and probably .223 and I’ve heard of an AR-15 in 7.62×39.)
>> I don’t hunt; which scenario is more desirable for hunting purposes? Or is it better to use a 30-06 or a larger caliber round?
Quick death is the goal in hunting. However, no ammo can make up for bad placement. (I don’t see the point in overkill.) Tissue damage doesn’t necessarily help with the “quick” part.
“best hunting ammo” is a religious issue. Some folks like fast bullets so much that they’re willing to go thin. Others like fat ones so much that they’re willing to accept less velocity.[1] Both camps point to situations where the other’s choice can be portrayed as less than appropriate. (Fans of momentum argue for bullet mass while those who like kinetic energy like bullet velocity.) They also exchange various indirect measurements; the second paragraph in Fackler’s article is a reference to this practice.
Some use watermelons to make their case while others use wet newspapers. I don’t understand this because as no one hunts anything like either one.
There’s some agreement that big and fat AFTER adequate penetration is good, hence the use of soft points and other expansion/tumble mechanisms. (Fragmentation is rarely seen as a benefit for reasons that I don’t understand.) But, that doesn’t produce a unique solution, especially since there are also wound channel width vs length arguments.
However, it’s important to remember that hunted game is quite diverse. Some hunted game is “not soft” (pig and bears are good examples), so it requires very different ammo than, say, bunnies. And, there’s a huge variation in size.(Even in the “deer” family, there are huge differences between moose/elk and antelope.) And, some folks hunt in places where most of the shots are short range while others hunt where everything is long range.
FWIW, some of the most successful poachers use .22lr, not because it’s more effective, but because it’s less obvious.
FWIW – I’ve always found the “larger caliber” usage confusing. Caliber means diameter, and 30-06, .308 win (aka 7.62×51), .300 win mag, 7.62×39, and dozens of others are nominally the same diameter. (They’re not really, but x39’s extra .002″ is small enough to ignore.)
[1] Folks who hunt with handguns generally can’t get lots of velocity so they go as fat/heavy as they can.
>> Personally, if some is shooting at my fat ass, I would like to have a weapon that made “pate” out of my adversary’s thigh, abdomen, chest, skull etc.
Note that the folks who choose military small arms aren’t the ones being shot at and the two groups’ priorities are not always the same. Both like light, easy to carry & shoot, but the latter wants “dead fast always” while the latter has more strategic goals and isn’t as keen on dead fast except in limited situations.
However, one reason for the trend towards smaller bullets is that modern ammo is more precise and we know more about bullets and wounding. We don’t have to have as much overkill to get good odds of the desired result, whatever it may be.
GB wrote: “What I meant by the pate comment was that an AK-47, a Russian 7.62mm round would produce a relatively “clean” wound, while a M-16 would produce alot of tissue damage. I don’t hunt; which scenario is more desirable for hunting purposes? Or is it better to use a 30-06 or a larger caliber round?”
There’s a significant difference between hunting and warfare. In hunting, the purpose is to bag the quarry. Ideally, you have the time to place a single, accurate shot that will drop the animal in its tracks. Shot placement is critical in this, and bullet performance is a close second. A properly placed .22 rimfire bullet can work, but a .458 Magnum isn’t enough if it only nicks an ear. In big-game hunting, fragmentation is not desireable because it damages too much meat (the idea is to harvest the meat.)
In military use, two things are of primary importance – how much ammo can an individual soldier carry, and will a wound disable an enemy. The Hague Conventions on ammunition for war adopted in 1899 state: “The Contracting Parties agree to abstain from the use of bullets which expand or flatten easily in the human body, such as bullets with a hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core, or is pierced with incisions.” The US is not a signatory of the Conventions, but has complied with them. Thus, we haven’t used soft-point expanding projectiles since we switched from the .45-70 to the first .30 caliber military rifles. We switched from .30 caliber to .22 caliber when the military analysed battle records and discovered that volume of fire was more important than aimed fire. A soldier can carry much more 5.56NATO ammunition than 7.62NATO ammo, and can control a full-auto 5.56 weapon far better. However, because a non-fragmenting .22 caliber bullet has been found to be significantly less effective than a non-fragmenting .30 caliber round, designers skirted the Hague Convention restrictions by making a fragmenting projectile, rather than an expanding projectile. The current projectile, known as the SS109 in NATO countries is, as I said, a 62 grain steel-cored unit designed for better penetration against lightly armored targets, and for better long-range (over 300 yards) ballistics. But it doesn’t fragment.
“BTW, Fackler made reference to the accusation that the M-16 was/is an inhumane weapon. KB, your anecdote regarding lack of effective of the M-4 with the new cartridge is very interesting. Personally, if some is shooting at my fat ass, I would like to have a weapon that made “pate” out of my adversary’s thigh, abdomen, chest, skull etc.
Soldiers weren’t happy with the switch from .30 caliber to .22 caliber rifles either. People shot with a M14 (7.62NATO) rifle fall down. People shot with an M4 (5.56NATO) rifle may not.
Hunters, especially dangerous game hunters, like a gun sufficient for the job. The .30-06 and .308 Winchester are, with good soft-point bullets, adequate for most North American game up to elk. For elk and bear, a higher power level is desireable, such as a .300 Winchester Magnum (same diameter bullets, but generally heavier than those fired in .30-06/.308).
One very popular multi-purpose caliber is the 7mm Magnum. It fires a .284″ diameter bullet at very high velocity, and is suitable for elk and bear with the right projectiles, or antelope at very long range. If the sniper were using a 7mm Magnum with light-weight frangible bullets…
Well, let’s say it would meet your criteria for a suitable defensive weapon.
Mr. Freeman,
The “upper” of an AR-15 is replaceable. You can get uppers in 9mm, .40 S&W, .308, 7.62X39, etc. Someone even makes an upper designed for .50 BMG–a cartridge about the size of a Magic Marker. You can use all of these on the same “lower.” It’s a pretty variable gun.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to be behind an AR firing .50 BMG rounds, but hey if someone else wants to bet their face on it, good luck.