If Only AR-15 Murder-Scene Photos Would Bring About an Assault Weapons Ban
Judging from Post editor Sally Buzbee’s introduction to the project, as well as from my own reporting, the paper talked to dozens of survivors and family members and weighed the enormous range of their opinions about this issue to craft the feature. It was so much better than I was expecting that it initially blinded me to the way it was bad. But bad in a kind of routine way: The media, as well as certain kinds of activists, believe we need to be presented with graphic, grisly evidence to grasp what are simply facts. This grisly evidence, they posit, will change hearts and minds.
It will not. Upwards of three-quarters of American voters support almost every commonsense gun law. And we know why political leaders haven’t heeded their call: the gun lobby, and its disgusting political servants. But the Post tried, anyway, with its multimedia “Terror on Repeat” project. I won’t impugn these journalists’ motives. I’ll assume they are good. I’ll just tell you what I saw, and why I would like to spare people seeing the same thing. Especially survivors.
Gun nuts are a scourge against the common people. Fucking losers.
Lets write up a proposal right now. Pass it around all 50 states, have everyone that agrees sign it. Then when it doesn't get ratified we can have plain evidence that lobbying is bribery and should be illegal. Fuck Citizens United. Fuck all lobbyists everywhere, I hope someone shits in your shoes.
Bullet wounds from an AR-15 (.223 or 5.56) typically look much cleaner than wounds from a larger handgun bullet, especially a hollow point.
A rifle round just goes straight through pretty cleanly. A 9mm round from a handgun is nearly twice as large as 5.56mm so the bullet hole is twice as large, and because it's a less aerodynamic shape (and designed specifically to expand and impart the most force into the target) leaves much nastier wounds.
This ER doctor who has treated many different gun wounds says you're wrong.
Someone needs to read up on hydrostatic shock.
I love guns and oppose all bans, but let’s not pretend that rifle rounds are less deadly because they’re smaller caliber. 9mm Luger wasn’t designed to drop a deer at 100 yards.
The 5.56 mm high velocity rifle round tends to fragment though, creating multiple wound channels pointing in different directions from the impact point. This makes it very dangerous despite its small size, and has high kinetic energy due to the velocity squared term.
It does need some distance after impacting flesh to fragment like this, but when it happens it can be catastrophic if it hits critical organs or arteries.
It's almost as if the army tried to make the 5.56 bullet more effective at killing enemy soldiers. But now I've learnt that they wanted to create clean, non-deadly wounds.
/s in case it's not obvious.
That's just straight up not true. 5.56, especially steel core is designed to penetrate bulletproof armor. You aren't penetrating bulletproof armor if you fragment hitting skin or bone.
You've got them switched. It's hollow point handgun ammo that isn't supposed to fragment, but can depending on the quality of the ammo and what it hits can. A defective hollow point will do exactly what you've described.
5.56 mm FMJ ammo can
, and has increasing chance of fragmentation at higher terminal velocities. This is also particularly exacerbated when striking bone. Both M855 and M193 steel core rounds exhibit this effect.
The mild steel penetrator on M855 "green tip" ammunition enhances penetration on hard targets, but is not an AP (armor piercing) ammunition. It will go through level IIIa (soft) armor, but so will pretty much any rifle bullet other than .22lr. It should not go through level III armor, and definitely not level IV.
The older M193 ammunition (pre-1980) was what really tended to tumble and fragment, and that's the most common range ammo in use today; a 55gr FMJ BT.
That's... Just not accurate.
Okay, so, to start, you have a temporary wound channel, and a permanent wound channel. The temporary wound channel is cause by the pressure from a bullet trying to displace blood and tissue at high speed. Below about 2600fps, the tissue around the path of the bullet will blow open, but then snap back into place, because muscle, fat, etc., are a little elastic. Pistol rounds will overcome that by being large to start (9mm v. 5.56mm), and by being designed to expand to up to about 2x their original size.
OTOH, above about 2600fps, blood and tissue are being displaced so fast that it overcomes the elasticity of the tissue, causing permanent tearing in a much larger channel than the path the bullet itself is creating. So a much smaller bullet moving at a higher speed will create a larger permanent wound channel than a slower--but larger bullet.
Most intermediate and larger cartridges--typically rifle cartridges (other than .22, or rifles firing pistol calibers)--will go faster than 2600fps. Very, very few handguns are able to go 2600fps.
5.56 specifically does some weird things ballistically when it hits at ranges under about 200y; the bullets tend to fragment and yaw. Past about 400y, once they've dropped some speed, they'll 'ice-pick', where it's just a clean hole going straight through.
Full size cartridges will usually have some pretty gnarly exit wounds. It's not 'blow your lungs out'--which is the second dumbest thing Biden has said about guns--but it's definitely far, far worse to get hit by a .308 Win than a 9mm. All other things being equal, you're much more likely to die if you're shot by a rifle than a handgun.
FBI studies show that only only .22s have significantly lower mortality rate. Mortality rates are more or less the same for other rounds when I read the study.
So I guess that makes the trauma all right, then?
If I could snap my fingers and suddenly get rid of all semi automatic firearms in the US I would. Sadly, that's not the case and there's no way politically or logistically it's going to happen.
Are there steps we can take to make things safer? Yes, and we should take them. Red flag laws, more in depth background checks, etc are all good steps that responsible gun owners like myself support.
At the same time, we need to address the systemic issues that are driving people to suicide or mass violence. People with adequate mental health support and a future that doesn't get bleaker by the day are much less likely to commit violence of any kind.
I know that "just ban them" seems like a good option from the outside, but this is not an issue we can address via legislation alone.
Well, "all" explicitly has to include "those owned by the police and other military/government forces" as well.
I would absolutely love to limit the police to no SBR's, no machine guns, no high capacity magazines, etc., etc. just like they want to apply to us. I assure you; I am absolutely not being sarcastic. They don't need that shit. Our cops are way too fucking trigger happy and we enable them by giving them all the toys they want.
Eh, sbrs and sbs' are only a thing because the original MFA was going to ban pistols too and wanted to close a loophole. They're not any more or less dangerous than any other firearm.
That said, I'd be down for disarming cops in this fantasy scenario. We've militarized our police force to an absurd degree.
Right? I mean, it's not like anyone else has tried banning guns through legislation and succeeded.
Pretending that the sheer number of "assault weapons" (which is a painfully imprecise word as it is) in the US to any other country is either disingenuous or just foolish. From a cursory search there are about 20 million AR pattern rifles in the US. Let's say we banned the sale and did a stupendously effective buyback that got say 65 percent of them. I don't think it would be that high, but it is what it is. Let's say we give people 500 each for them (no way I'd sell mine for that, but anyway). We've just spent 6.5 billion just on one style or semi automatic rifle and there are still 7 million of the goddam things. Compare that to Australia, which confiscated about 650,000 guns total.
So what you're saying is that we can't simply ban a single weapon type, we need to ban them all in order to effectively end mass shootings in the US.
Okay! I'm on board with that, if that's what it takes.
I'm saying that it's logistically impossible to solve via legislation (on guns) alone. We need to address the systemic problems that we face as a country, and until we do that the violence will continue. I'm all for gun control measures that will make that violence less destructive, but a flat ban will not fix it.
Which then brings us back to how every other country that has tried it has obviously failed. Because obviously, numbers don't scale.
But please, continue to blow more smoke over the issue. Tell us again how we've done nothing, and we're all out of ideas.
You're right, I've not presented any potential solutions. All I've said is fund public health initiatives, address the systemic issues that are leading to violence, and enact sane limits on firearms sales.
But please, go ahead and continue misrepresenting my argument if it makes you feel better.
Except the party that wants to get rid of guns wants to do those things, and the one that doesn't want to get rid of guns doesn't want any of those things, and people still vote for the latter because they want guns.
I vote Democrat because there's nobody viable who's farther left. I'll admit it's frustrating as a gun owner because so many Democrats are tremendously ignorant on the issue, but I agree with them a hell of a lot more than Republicans.
I just want non insane or just plain ignorant gun laws and a decent social safety net, is that too much to ask?
Considering a decent social safety net will "hurt the economy" and "prevent job growth" it is in fact too much to ask
Won't someone think of the poor multinational corporations that might lose half of a percent of their annual earnings. Hell, they might not make their yearly 5 percent growth targets!
No, the party that wants to get rid of guns says it wants to do those things, but doesn't actually follow through. In states and cities with Democratic veto-proof super-majorities, most of the things that Dems say they want still doesn't happen. Take, for instance, affordable housing. We can all agree that good housing that was cheap enough to afford for anyone working full-time--including at minimum wage--is a good thing, right? So we shouldn't have any problem changing the zoning in an already residential area to allow high-density affordable housing, right? And yet, as soon as the cards are down, Dems turn into NIMBY. Sure, we want to house homeless people, but not near me. Reform criminal justice, but also arrest these black people trying to have a barbecue in a public park. Decriminalize drugs, but arrest the homeless junkies near my Whole Foods.
And I will point out that the states that have Deocratic super-majorities--California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, etc.--still don't adequately fund all the shit that would actually solve the underlying problems that lead to violence. (I know for a fact that Illinois has moved money away from public schools to charter and magnet schools, while the public schools in Chicago are literally falling apart.)
An 'assault weapons ban' isn't the answer. Does anyone really think that a crazed gunman using an AR-15 is going to have a significantly higher body count than a crazed gunman with a pistol? The answer (in terms of gun control) is stricter background checks, closing of purchasing loopholes, mandatory safe storage practices, etc, not 'Making sure the gun doesn't look scary and doesn't have a bayonet lug'.
Interesting how the facts disagree with you.
So let's stop pretending that the guns themselves aren't part of the problem. Sure, more background checks, closing loopholes, better access to mental health services, and other things can and should be part of the solution. But the simple fact is that you can't shoot someone with a gun you can't get. That's why gun bans have worked so well all around the world.
If your answer is "Does anyone really think that a crazed gunman using an AR-15 is going to have a significantly higher body count than a crazed gunman with a pistol?" is "mass shooting deaths fell slightly in the decade of the federal assault weapon ban", you can just answer "No" and save everyone the time.
If you're advocating for a total gun ban, go ahead. I won't argue that reduced supply reduces opportunity to obtain such weapons. My argument only regards the notion that 'assault weapon bans' solve anything. An 'assault weapon' is just 'a weapon that look scawwy' writ in legislative terms. If you want to argue for banning all semiautomatic weapons, go ahead. If executed, that likely would make a difference. But be clear about what you're advocating.
Yeah, that I agree with, large-capacity magazines should definitely be restricted again on a national level.
Except the answer is not "no," there are a number of factors that suggest assault rifles -- even ones marked for civilian use -- are inflating those numbers. It could be psychological, it could be practical, it could be a number of things, but the points of correlation are too frequent and too strong to be ignored. Saying otherwise is to make yourself a liar.
Okay, so, next time, maybe post a source that says that when claiming "the facts disagree with you", instead of one that directly contradicts your point?
Those bayonet lugs though...
As someone from a country that doesn't have guns I always find these conversations so fascinating, so much to learn. If I'm reading the gunnuts in this thread right there's no need for anyone to have a big gun because the little ones are exactly as deadly.
Why do the nuts all obses about having the silly over sized guns then? Surely it doesn't make any difference if they ban the ones that are oversized for show?
Well, what's usually being banned isn't size so much as features. You can have a hunting rifle and an 'AR-15 style rifle' side-by-side, and the actual difference ends up minimal. Some ergonomic and ease of use features. But the AR-15 looks more 'military' and thus 'scary' and dangerous.
The gun-nuts generally want the scary-looking gun because it makes them feel more manly. A sizable minority of gun owners, a few of whom have chimed in here, want the scary-looking gun because they have features that marginally improve comfort and shooting. But in a mass shooting situation, where your targets are all likely within 20 yards? It means nothing. May as well just use a pistol - the only reason shooters now don't is because of the attention given to 'assault weapons'.
So it seems like the question here was, did the family of the deceased have a choice whether their photos were included in the project. If not, then the Washington Post's article is unethical. If they did, then it's fine.
This feels like someone saying “now is not the time to discuss gun control”.
Like you don’t actually believe what you’re saying, you’re making an appeal to propriety in order to silence debate.
Close, but not quite.
This is basically the part that I focused on
Admittedly, my summarization of Nelba's argument here is abstracted and removes the affront of weaponization. That might be why it sounds like I don't really believe what I'm saying. But I do insofar as I'm examining a portion of Nelba's argument.
The real thesis of the article, though, was that the project was basically weaponizing gory photos of children to absolutely no avail; it woiuld be all suffering, no relief. I don't think the author isn't saying not to discuss gun control...just that this particular avenue was never going to be effective.
I suppose we'll see...
I agree, that's my takeaway from the article as well.