Terrorism experts predicted it for a very long time. It happened in a nightclub in Orlando. 50 dead, more perhaps to expire. The identified killer reportedly used an AR15 type rifle on the helpless victims in this gun-free zone hunting preserve for psychopathic murderers. This one claimed he did it for ISIS, and ISIS has apparently confirmed that.
Naturally, our President and the presumptive Democrat nominee call for gun bans for law-abiding citizens and assiduously avoid mentioning radical Islamic terrorism.
There are many unanswered questions yet, and much information to come. There will be calls for universal background checks, even though the monster in this case had been a licensed armed security guard and was checked out extensively by FBI, who found no reason to detain or disarm him, so UBCs could not possibly have changed things in this tragic matter.
Our hearts go out to victims, and our condolences go out to their bereaved next of kin. We witness monumental stupidity among the talking heads. One interviewer hears the plaintive, tearful words of a man looking desperately among the dead and wounded for his missing friend, and then asks him, “Has the reality of it hit you yet?”
Good Lord.
It is said that “gun control” is a 10-80-10 issue: Ten percent hard-line anti-gunners who will never change their views, ten percent of us pro-gun owners’ rights people who are unlikely to change ours either, and 80% of the voters in the middle. Perhaps the blatant superficiality of the gun-banners who ignore the giant, evil elephant in the room will finally become apparent to the Eighty Percent who are watching the aftermath unfold now.
An entity as powerful and wealthy as ISIS could not have funneled true assault rifles to a jihadi in America who couldn’t access weapons on his own? Did the strict gun control of France and India failed to prevent the similar atrocities recently in Paris, and in Mumbai before that? Hopefully, this is a reality the Eighty Percent will no longer be able to ignore.
Let us mourn for the innocent dead, donate blood for the innocent wounded, and console their grieving loved ones, and finally awaken our nation to the realities of stopping force with force, not empty symbolism and rhetoric.
Your opinions are welcome here, where I suspect we will be discussing this more for a while as the investigation reveals more information.
I used to work on EF-4c Phantoms (See author Dan Hampton). At mid morning or later I can understand, system over load. I also understand active jamming. One of my business friends and I had an long talk, as his son was two bars down the street. What we see and more important what we do not see, in the next few weeks will tell us a lot.
@Fruitbat44:
Yes, your point is also valid. No one wants to get shot by even a .25 ACP pocket pistol or a BB Gun.
From a military perspective, a round that wounds the enemy rather than immediately killing him is useful. The enemy is forced to devote extra resources to tend to the wounded as compared to tending to the dead.
So, the fact that more victims of this shooting survived than were killed (despite reports that the terrorist murderer went around shooting people again just to “make sure”) would indicate that the 5.56 NATO (aka .223 REM) round was functioning within its design parameters.
What truly annoyed me, with this news commentator, was that he was deliberately “playing up” the power of a .223 AR-style rifle in order to underline the gun-grabber’s claim that these weapons are “especially deadly”. They are “weapons of war” that the ordinary “civilian” does not need for “sporting purposes”. Their only “purpose” is to “kill people”. Therefore, a complete and total ban on them is “common sense”. It was all part of the gun control narrative that the mass media and gun-grabbers have going-on at this point.
It is all B.S! Every bit of it. So, my comment was directed at the foundational idea that these firearms are “extraordinarily” powerful and “especially” deadly. It is just one of a whole catalog of lies that the gun-grabbers are using.
@TN_MAN: agreed weapons are often played up to ridiculous points. No doubt the full story of the actions of the murderer will (or might possibly) become clear when things are more settled.
Errr . . . designed to wound? I’ve heard this and in the past believed it. But I tend to think the whole “designed to wound” thing is a myth.
Has anyone ever seen the design specification for the 5.56mm which stated this? No. I wonder if this myth was the result of people misinterpreting polite euphemisms like “incapacitate” and “render inoperative” as meaning “designed to wound.”
@Fruitbat44:
It is true that I cannot point to a written specification that says, in clear text, that wounding was a design parameter of the .223 round. When you think about it, that is the kind of design outcome that one would hesitate to put down in clear text if one is a government official.
However, it is not disputed that the rate of twist, in the original M16 barrel, and the weight of the projectile (55 grains) was selected such that the projectile would be stable in flight but would tumble upon impact with a human target.
A tumbling projectile is unlikely to hold a straight wound channel through a body. Therefore, it may or may not hit vital material more or less “at random”.
Objectively, such a round has a greater probability to wound rather than kill. So, while I cannot point to a specific document that comes out and says it, in black and white, I feel that there is reason to suspect that increased wounding potential was, indeed, one of the design parameters of the original .223 round as used in the original M-16 rifle.
Mas,
This blog is listing 53 Responses but I can only see the last four. You might check to see if there is a technical problem that is preventing all responses from displaying.
Note that only this blog seems affected. I can see all the responses for the other blogs. Just a heads-up that there might be a problem.
(Mas, this post, “The Orlando Atrocity” says it has 53 comments. I only see 3.)
Fellas, I have no idea what happened there. I’ll reach out to the webmaster and see what’s what. Stay tuned.
Thanks for calling that to my attention, folks. This from our webmaster:
“The problem appears to be related to the function that breaks large numbers of comments into pages. It no longer displays a link to the next page of comments. It may be a result of a recent WordPress update. I disabled it so all comments will appear on one page.”
Mas,
I can see all the comments now.
TN_MAN,
I agree with you 100%. I remember reading Col. Cooper’s writings, saying something like, ethical hunters believe the 5.56mm (.223) round should only be used on animals (varmints) up to and including coyotes. It is unethical, or inhumane to use the .223 (5.56mm) on deer. Also, soldiers in Vietnam who turned in their M-14s for M-16s said the 7.62 NATO would reliably go through medium-sized trees. The 5.56mm NATO would not. Today we have soldiers with lots of experience in the sandbox. They can help us in this discussion.
All,
We just saw what one man with two guns can do to 300 unarmed LGBT people. I wonder what would have happened if that same evil man had confronted 30 unarmed Marines.
Yesterday I carried around two de-milled (holes were drilled in the cases, so they couldn’t hold gun powder, or propellant) cartridges. One was the 5.56mm NATO and the other was the 7.62 NATO. I told friends that the little cartridge with the little bullet was what AR-15s and M-16s fire. I told them that among rifles, this is a small cartridge. Some of them were visibly scared when they saw those empty cartridges in my hand. But as I talked, they were able to overcome their fears, and even touch those evil items I held. Such is the way with Sheeple.
@TN_MAN: Hmmm . . . isn’t a tumbling projectile likely to make more of a mess of someone than one which goes straight through?
It doesn’t really seem to fit in with the just designed wound argument (or myth.)
And while Governments do seem to a bit squeamish about the effects weapons their (or our) military use have on the human body. (At least Western democracies do. (And with all their faults they are infinitely preferable to any alternatives.)) Err . . . where was I? Oh, governments being overly euphemistic, so yes they might couch a design to wound in polite euphemisms, they might also trumpet it as a more kindler gentler weapon.
Food for thought: the M1 Carbine produces 967 foot ponds. The M1911 325 foot-pounds. The 5.56mm produces 1,303 foot pounds. (Source Wikipedia.) Okay muzzle energy is not the sole factor in how lethal a projectile is, but it is an important factor. However to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever argued that the M1 carbine, and certianly not the M1911, was “designed to wound.”
Basically there may be a lot of opinion about the 5.56mm being designed to wound, there is no hard evidence.
Though as example of ludious commentary on the 5.56mm/AR-15 just Google Gersh Kuntzman, a person whom until five minutes ago I thought was just a satyrical construct . . . -sigh-
@Fruitbat44:
Any projectile weapon can kill if it hits the right spot and damages critical tissue. Even the lowly .22 LR (which typically packs under 150 foot pounds of energy) has killed plenty of people. Frank Barnes has an account in his book “Cartridges of the World – 4th Edition” in which an 5mm air-rifle (pellet gun) accidentally caused the death of a child. The pellet penetrated the victims heart leading to death despite surgical attempts to save his life. Barnes estimated that this pellet was carrying less than 10 foot pounds of energy. It hit critical tissue anyway and, so, was fatal to the child.
It is not possible to design a firearm to only wound and that was not what I intended to imply. One can, however, take steps to make a weapon less lethal. This might be done by reducing the energy level of the projectile or by reducing its ability to penetrate in a straight line (say by tumbling).
Comparing the .223 round against the .45 ACP or .30 Carbine is not exactly apples to apples either. The 1911 pistol and the .30 Carbine were largely designed as defensive weapons. Weapons to be issued to support troops. If issued to combat troops, it was often in a secondary, defensive role. I realize that some combat troops did carry the .30 Carbine as a primary weapon but it was not really designed for that role.
However, the M-16 rifle with .223 (5.56 MM) ammo was intended as a primary combat weapon. In other words, as an offensive weapon rather than a defensive one. So, comparing an offensive weapon to defensive ones is “apples to oranges”.
If you compare the .223 round to other “offensive” rounds such as the .30-06, the 8mm Mauser or the 7.62 NATO round, then it comes off pretty weak in terms of energy and penetration. Naturally, it will be less lethal all things considered.
I was simply pointing out that being less lethal might not have been considered to be a handicap. The military thinkers might have actually seen that as a plus rather than a negative because of the extra resources the enemy must spend upon its wounded soldiers.
@TN-MAN: Or put another away the 30.06 etc are over powered?
The switch to intermediate powered rounds started during WW2 when it was found that the vast majority of firefights were taking place at under 300-400 yards.
The story of NATO standardising on the 7.62mm NATO is well documented.
I agreed that the M1 Carbine/M1911 vs 5.56mm comparison isn’t apples to apples. In one way. But in another it is, in that it is comparing reputation to reputation. Okay the M1 carbine (with more “ooomph” than a .357 magnum) is often described as underpowered, but the forty-five? Ever hear that described as a less-lethal round?
Actually the wounded being more awkward than the dead is an argument I am not convinced by. (I have never been in a firefight. btw.) But in war who’s going to win? Well we are of course! So it falls to us, the winners, to take care of the wounded. Not the bad guys who are now either running away or have surrendered. Okay, this is a somewhat simplistic argument, but that’s why I’m not sure that “wounded is better actually better than dead” is an advantage.
Anyway thank you for clarifying the point you were making. So is it fair to state that by various calculations 5.56mm is deemed less lethal than some rounds? But still lethal?
@Fruitbat44;
As I noted, just about any round can be lethal. To establish how lethal a round is, on average, requires shooting a large number of people with it and then keeping a tally of how many died.
This can be done sometimes. For example, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has kept excellent records on police shootings, in its firearm discharge reports, since the early 1970’s. Over this period, the NYPD has shot hundreds of people in the line of duty. Therefore, we have pretty good statistics on how lethal the NYPD’s handgun rounds have been.
In the 1970-80’s period, the NYPD used .38 Special revolvers with non-expanding lead bullets. By looking at the NYPD data from this time period, we know that this round proves lethal for about 29% of the people shot with it.
The NYPD, in recent years, switched to 9mm pistols loaded with 124 grain +P golddot hollowpoints. This route proves lethal in about 36% of police shootings.
The Orlando shooting was a single event but it included a fairly large sample of 102 people shot with .223 ammo. We know that 49 of them died. Therefore, in this case, the .223 ammo was lethal about 48% of the time. Note, however, that there are reports that the terrorist murderer went back and shot some of his victims again to “make sure” that they were dead. If this is true, he may have skewed the .223 round’s lethal percentage upward over what it would otherwise be.
In any event, the .223 clearly tends to be more lethal than handgun rounds like the .38 special or 9mm Luger. I suspect that a yet more powerful round, like the 7.62 Nato cartridge, would prove lethal much more than 50% of the time. However, even it would not likely be 100% lethal except (perhaps) in the hands of a marksman who was careful to always place the bullet into a critical part of the anatomy.
TN_MAN: What calibre did the SWAT team use to terminate this murderers spree? Doesn’t really matter I suppose, the important thing is that his spree was ended.
I am of the opinion that the rifle firing 5.56mm is not the “Super-evil-death-star-killer-bazooka” that the Gersh Kuntzman’s of this world say it is, but neither is it a “poodle-shooter.”
Beyond that I do not feel I have else to add to this debate.
Anyway, you take care. 🙂
TN_MAN & Fruitbat44 Says, thank you both for the civilized discourse. Excellent points were made by both.
Some random thoughts:
If the Liberals have their way, a few years from now no one will be discussing ballistics. Liberal news accounts will then turn to the types of rag, and octane ratings of fuel used by terrorists as our ever more vigilant lawmakers seek to ban glass bottles.
The approximately 200 million car owners will need a permit to buy gasoline, and giving a pint to your neighbor for his lawn mower will be considered a straw-man purchase and a felony.
I submit that the only thing that will stop a bad buy with a Molotov cocktail is a good guy with a … gun!
I think many terrorists are oblivious to the specifics of death and injury. They want carnage. They want to instill terror — and both death and injury instill terror in the survivors. It’s also far easier to terrorize unarmed and untrained people. Of course when a piece of garbage like Mateen goes back for the kill shot, it says something specific about him personally.
A terrified public will clamor for the imagined safety of gun control, and gun control advocates are benefited by terrorism. In fact, I believe the Barrack Obamas, Mike Bloombergs, Dianne Feinsteins, and Hillary Clintons of the world are nothing but rich terrorists in liberal clothing.
We have much to fear.
I understand the worries about the no fly-no gun law. If the government ever wanted to stop people from owning a gun, they could just put them on the no-fly list. What I don’t understand is how background checks at gun shows and for internet purchases would hurt our rights?
@Chris M:
Don’t buy into the gun grabbers propaganda.
Almost all gun sales at gun shows and from internet purchases already involve a FFL dealer and a background check. The story from the gun grabbers that there are vast numbers of purchases being done this way without any check whatsoever is a LIE and a FALSEHOOD. It is pure ol’ bovine waste product.
Anytime you purchase a firearm from an out-of-state internet dealer, the firearm must first be shipped to an in-state FFL dealer who will conduct the background check before you take possession of the firearm.
The only time sales can occur without a background check is when it is a private sale or transfer between two individuals who are residents of the same state.
So, when the gun grabbers talk about “closing the gun show loophole” what they really mean is to stop all private transfers and force all transfers to go through a FFL dealer.
So, what is really accomplished? A black-market seller does not give a flip anyway about background checks or the law. Most black-market sales are already illegal. So, this proposed legislation does NOTHING to stop crime. Do not believe the anti-gun B.S. that it will!
Instead, what it truly means is that Grandpa has to now go to a FFL dealer and pay for a background check and pay a transfer fee before he can give his grandson the .22 rifle he had as a boy.
All (and I do mean ALL!) this legislation is designed to do is burden and annoy the honest gun owner. It does nothing for crime.
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