Gun Rights Lesson #909 – Powerful Weapons

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of articles on gun rights. Each addresses a common anti-gun trope. This article follows up GRL #378, which discusses the musket argument.

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“No one needs such a powerful weapon!”

This anti-gun argument is typically brought forth after a high-publicity or mass-shooting incident that involves so-called “assault weapons.” As are so many anti-gun arguments, it’s rooted in emotion rather than fact, and from more than one angle. Herein, I discuss three ways that modern guns, and especially the ones dubbed “assault weapons,” are deemed “too powerful,” and why the assertion is false in each case.

First, consider the term “assault weapon.” This term, despite not having any roots in firearms “language,” has entered the common vernacular in the last couple decades. It is a bastardization of the term “assault rifle,” which does have a sufficiently formal definition in firearms language. An assault rifle is a rifle (i.e. a long gun with a rifled barrel that fires single projectiles) that is capable of “selective fire.” “Selective fire” means the firearm operator can choose between semi-automatic and burst/full-automatic fire. “Semi-automatic” means that the firearm (any firearm, by the way) fires one bullet per trigger pull, and automatically loads the next cartridge without firing it. “Burst” refers to one trigger pull firing a preset number of rounds (3 in the case of the M-16), and “full-automatic” means that pulling the trigger means that the firearm will fire continuously until the trigger is released or until ammunition is exhausted.

Got it so far? Good. Knowing this is vital to understanding both the concept of the “assault weapon” and the “too powerful” argument.

Now, know this. With very limited exception, civilians in the US cannot purchase or own assault rifles. Only the military and law enforcement can. The relevant statues are the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. I touch on those and more in GRL #551. Moreso, and despite endless depictions in the movies, fully-automatic firearms are nowhere to be found in the criminal world, and no assault rifle has ever been used in any of the mass-shooting incidents that drive gun-banners to demand that “assault weapons” be outlawed. In fact, since 1934, there have only been three incidents of homicide involving legally-owed fully-automatic guns, and two involved law enforcement. As for illegal fully-automatic firearms? Apart from the North Hollywood shootout in 1997, in which the criminals used illegally modified rifles, movie-style gunfights with automatic weapons simply do not happen in real life. Fully-automatic firearms, aka machine-guns and submachine guns, are an irrelevance in any factual discussion about gun crime.

So, what is an “assault weapon,” if not an assault rifle? Wikipedia correctly notes that “definition varies among regulating jurisdictions,” which is a polite way of saying that there’s no single, simple, hard-and-fast definition or set of characteristics. Generally, assault weapons are defined by a combination of functional and cosmetic criteria. They differ fundamentally from assault rifles in that they are strictly semi-automatic in operation i.e. you get one shot fired each time you pull the trigger. No burst or automatic fire, not even an option for it (and, no, you can’t just buy a kit and convert your AR-15 to full-automatic). They are similar in that assault weapons are styled after assault rifles. They look a lot like them and they often (but not always) fire the same ammunition. For example, an AR-15-style rifle (the most popular rifle model in America) looks a lot like an M-16. But, as they say, “if looks could kill” and all that. Functionally, the AR-15 is a much closer relative to what many people would consider “hunting rifles” (e.g. the Ruger Mini-14) than to the military assault rifles it resembles.

Still, the term “assault weapon” has become commonplace, and some states and localities have banned them. How do those bans define that which they ban?

By cosmetic features, including a pistol grip, a folding or collapsible stock, a bayonet mount (as if bayonetting is a common crime), a detachable magazine, a grenade launcher (for those situations where you want to shell your neighbors), or a flash suppressor (because we worry about enemy snipers spotting our position). And, in some cases, by specific model designations. Generally, it seems, the term “assault weapon” is rooted in “I know it when I see it” relativism (which reinforces the point that the definition is cosmetic rather than functional). The term “assault weapon,” politically charged and nebulously defined as it is, has become despised by the gun rights community. In its stead, you may hear the term “modern sporting rifle” (MSR), which refers to the class of guns typically wrapped up in assault weapon bans, and the term “black gun,” which refers to the fact that most of the guns in question are black in color.

Nomenclature and jargon debates aside, it remains that one of the “too powerful” arguments is rooted in cosmetic similarity to military arms (and if you don’t think that civilians should own weapons of war, I direct you to GRL #790). Or, more colloquially, guns that look scary. Looking scary doesn’t make something more powerful.

Second, consider the rigorous definition of power. In the case of firearms, “(killing) power” is a term that incorporates both energy and other factors. While energy is a straightforward calculation (mass of bullet * velocity squared / 2), the weight and relevance of other factors can take us into deep esoterica. So, instead of a gun-nerd’s dissertation, I’ll offer instead a general consensus on what guns/cartridges* to use in what situations, and from that you will get a general sense of “power.”

Consider this chart. If you are not familiar with firearms, first cast your eyes on the .22 LR, third from the left. That’s a little baby bullet, quite often the first that young people are introduced to when they learn to shoot, and it offers very little recoil when fired from a rifle. It can certainly be lethal, not only to “varmints” and small game as the chart shows, but to humans as well, but also certainly ranks low on the “power” scale.

Now, cast your eyes upon the .30-06 Springfield. Considered “big game” ammunition, it is one of the most popular hunting cartridges, and millions of hunters take millions of deer with them each year. This certainly qualifies as “powerful,” but there are many cartridges that are more powerful, and they’re all very common and very commonly available to your average American.

Where does the standard ammunition for the dreaded “assault weapon” fall? While you can get AR-15s in a wide range of ammunition sizes, the original, styled after the military’s M16, uses .223 Remington or equivalent. Take another look at the chart. See where .223 REM is? Doesn’t stand among the “powerful,” does it?

Next, consider these “powerful” assault weapons vs the guns used when the Second Amendment was written. Specifically, lets ponder the Brown Bess and the Kentucky Rifle. Before we do, lets define a couple numbers. The “caliber” of a bullet is its diameter in hundredths of an inch. So, when you see .17, .22, .30, etc, that’s seventeen, twenty-two, and thirty hundredths of an inch in diameter. Oftentimes, there is a third digit that’s used to avoid confusion but that doesn’t apply to the diameter measurement (e.g. a .223 is .22 inches in diameter) and oftentimes, the designation isn’t exact (a .38 is .357 inches in diameter), but that’s an aside. The weight of a bullet is measured in grains.

Lets look again at our chart. Each cartridge can be acquired in a range of bullet weights, but our standard “assault weapon” ammunition, the .223 REM, typically uses a 55 grain bullet. For comparison, the .22 LR, the baby cartridge, uses 40 grain bullets, and the .30-06 big game cartridge is often found at 150-180 grains. For further comparison, the 9mm pistols used by the military typically use 115 grain bullets, and the classic Colt .45 ACP pistol that both the military and civilians have used for a century fire 230 grain bullets. So, our “too powerful” assault weapons use itty bitty little bullets compared to what’s commonly found in Americans’ hands and homes.

But, you might say – what of the other component of energy, speed? Yes indeedy, that’s where the difference lies, and that’s what makes the M16 and AR-15 more powerful than a kid’s .22 rifle. The .223 REM typically fires at 3300 feet per second (FPS), while the .22LR fires at 1400-1800 FPS. The 30-06, by the way, fires at 2700 FPS. I’ll save you the math: this chart shows energy for various cartridges. As you can see, the .223 REM is far more powerful than the .22LR. BUT, it has only half the energy of the hunting rifle. And, notably, it has less than half the energy of the common 12 gauge shotgun.

Now, lets look back at those old guns, the Brown Bess and the Kentucky Rifle. The Brown Bess, a smoothbore muzzle loader, generated about the same energy as our “too powerful” assault weapon (the Kentucky Rifle came in somewhat lower, but still about 60-70%), despite having a muzzle velocity of only about 1000 FPS. How is this possible? Because it fired a gigantic bullet by comparison, a 545 grain, .75 caliber ball.

So, in terms of actual power, the AR-15 with its .223 REM ammunition is the equivalent to the musket most commonly used during the American Revolution. And, as I noted earlier, the AR-15 is the most popular style of rifle in America (note, by the way, that “AR” stands for “Armalite,” the original manufacturer of the design, not “Assault Rifle,” as some incorrectly and tendentiously assert).

Another aspect of “too powerful” down the drain.

Finally, lets consider the other big “too powerful” assertion about assault weapons: rate of fire. Yes, indeed, this is the big differentiator between muskets and other arms at the time of the Revolution and today’s “assault weapons.” Whereas a skilled militiaman could get 3 shots off per minute with a Brown Bess, a well-trained and well-practiced shooter of an AR-15 can fire 100-200 rounds in a minute. Note that even “high capacity” magazines for the AR-15 only hold 30 rounds, so the shooter will have to reload along the way. So, yes, in terms of rate of fire, assault weapons are far more powerful than muskets.

But, so are hand guns. A well-trained and well-practiced shooter with a semi-automatic pistol can shoot just as fast or perhaps even faster (magazine swaps are a bit easier with a handgun) than an AR-15 shooter can. So, do we blame semi-automatic action? Do we blame high capacity magazines?

As to the former, it’s worth contemplating that there are over 300 million guns in America, split roughly evenly between rifles, shotguns and hand guns. All three categories have semiautomatic subsets, and imagining a ban on semi-automatic actions is tantamount to imagining a ban on guns. First, it’s not going to happen. Second, if it did, noncompliance would make tens of millions of Americans instant felons, so guess what? It’s not going to happen. I address this a bit more in the forthcoming GRL #766, “Enough Is Enough Just Ban Them All.” Third, if the intent of banning “too powerful” assault weapons is to stave off mass shootings, it remains that such atrocities are as or more effectively carried out with handguns as with those hated assault weapons, and thus any notion that a madman would be deterred by the lack of availability of an AR-15 is laughable.

As to the latter, the high-capacity magazines that are another favorite target of supposedly outraged anti-gun politicians, I refer you to GRL #419.

As to the overall idea that the guns of today could not have been imagined by the drafters of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I offer you GRL #132. As to the notion that the Second Amendment only protects arms of that era, I again point you to GRL #378.

And, for those who insist on considering assault weapons “weapons of war” that have no place in civilian hands, let me remind you of the critical distinction between assault rifles and assault weapons: automatic fire. Remember, the guns that are deemed “too powerful” are still semi-automatic, meaning that they are not machine guns, do not “spray” bullets as some hysterics would have you believe, and are not used by our armed forces. I discuss this further in GRL #790.

So,

Gun rights lesson #909: The people who decry so-called “assault weapons” as too powerful for civilians to own don’t, as usual, know what they’re talking about. The muskets of yore were just as powerful, common hunting rifles are FAR more powerful, and common handguns are as or more effective in the situations that have spurred the demands for banning “too-powerful” assault weapons.

 

 

• The layman may confuse or conflate “bullet” and “cartridge,” and in a casual conversation it’s generally perfectly fine to use the terms interchangeably, but to avoid the wrath of purists, I’m being more formal. For those who don’t know, a “bullet” is the hunk of lead/brass/etc that shoots out of the gun. A “cartridge” consists of the bullet, plus a casing, plus gunpowder, plus a primer (the thing that, when struck, releases a spark that ignites the gunpowder). That should keep everyone calm, I hope.