Sep 15 2008
A Quick Primer For Gun-Fearing Wussies
Automatic v. semi-automatic weapons
A machine gun is an automatic weapon. As long as you pull the trigger, the gun fires repeatedly.
The only thing automatic about a semi-automatic weapon is that a cartridge is loaded into the chamber. When you pull the trigger, only one shot is fired. One pull, one shot.
Access to automatic weapons have been severely restricted since the National Firearms Act of 1934. The “assault weapons ban” did not ban automatic weapons, did not refer to automatic weapons, and had nothing to do with automatic weapons.
Appearance v. power
Military-appearance rifles are not necessarily more powerful than wood stock rifles. They may look more scary, but that means little. A Remington 700 .30-06 is more powerful than an AK-47 (which, by the way, is a semit-automatic rifle).
The distinction between “military” and “civilian” (or “hunting”) rifles is an artificial, meaningless one. The aforementioned Remington 700 (I own two) is one of the most popular hunting rifles. It is also one of the most used sniper rifles in the military.
Power: Ballistics 101
Guns fire bullets, but are loaded with cartridges, also called rounds. A cartridge consists of three parts: a primer, or a very small explosive charge; a case, a hollow metal tube which holds gunpowder and the bullet, and the bullet.
When you pull the trigger, the firing pin strikes the primer. The primer ignites the gunpowder, and the contained explosion propels the bullet out of the case and through the barrel. Handguns and rifles have spiral grooves inside the barrel (rifling) to put spin on the bullet. The more spin, the more accurate the flight of the bullet. Hence, rifles, which have longer barrels and put more spin on the bullet, are far more accurate than handguns.
Shotguns do not fire cartridges, but pellets or slugs, and have no rifling.
American or British caliber is the diameter of the bullet in inches. So a .270 bullet is 0.27 inches in diameter. The European system measures the diameter in millimeters (7.62mm).
Ballistics actually is quite complex, but let’s keep this simple, and recall Newton. Momentum = velocity times mass. How much damage the bullet does depends on its momentum. The larger the bullet, the greater the mass, of course, and the more gunpowder, the more velocity, but here is the paradox. A bullet of greater mass requires more gunpowder to propel it at the same velocity as a bullet of less mass. So caliber alone is not an accurate measure of knock down power.
This is particularly true when not differentiating handgun cartridges from rifle cartridges. Handgun cartridges are shorter and contain less gunpowder (and therefore, ultimately less knock down power) than rifle cartridges, even handgun cartridges of much larger caliber. With very few exceptions, a rifle is far more deadly than a handgun. And many walnut stock “hunting” rifles are more deadly than many “military” rifles.
For more information, see widipedia. As for gun control, see here.
Now, I am going to ask a question. I hear “I don’t believe in guns.” Excuse me, but that’s an idiotic thing to say. So if some mugger — who couldn’t care less what gun control measures you pass — is holding a gun to your head, you think it’s not really there and can’t hurt you? Is that what that statement is supposed to mean? Or did you mean to say, “I don’t believe in owning guns?” If so, first, it’s none of your damned business how many guns I do or do not own, so you know what you can do with your “belief.” And second, if some scumbag is on top of you getting ready to rape you, what would you rather have, a gun, or the latest compilation of poetry doggerel by Maya Angelou?
Find somebody you know and ask him or her to take you ro the range. You might like it, you know, especially if you’ve felt like a victim all your life. Shooting is fun.
