2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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Here is some cold hard facts about this weapon of war killing machine Assault Rifle 15.
Let's see what the response is...
Some of the reports on Viet Cong soldiers killed with the weapon read like a matter-of-fact recounting from a horror film: “Chest wound from right to left, destroyed the thoracic cavity,” said the description of one AR-15-inflicted wound. “Stomach wound, which caused the abdominal cavity to explode,” said another.
Though it has become available domestically in the years since, the weapon was made for war — no matter what the National Rifle Association says — and was noted even at the time as being a significant escalation in the lethality of rifles.
IT IS HARD to comprehend a weapon like this being used against small children in an elementary school. The impact of the AR-15, a tool designed not just for killing but for ripping apart adult human bodies in the most extreme manner, being turned on the small, delicate limbs and organs of young children does not need to be imagined. The parents waiting outside the school in Uvalde for news of their loved ones who were asked for DNA tests were being clued into something horrifying about the types of weapons floating around American society, so easily available that even a disturbed 18-year-old could get his hands on them.
AR-15s Were Made to Explode Human Bodies. In Uvalde, the Bodies Belonged to Children.
The Uvalde massacre was carried out by a man who legally bought two AR-15 rifles ahead of the school shooting.theintercept.com
More bullshit.....
The AR-15 wan't used in Vietnam...you doofus...
You really are stupid......the 5.56 is a tiny bullet....compared to any of the others.....
II.C. "A single round is capable of severing the upper body from the lower body, or decapitation."
This is the most implausible claim in Col. Tucker's report, which is made under oath and theoretical penalty of perjury. He declares that his report "is based on my own personal knowledge and experience, and, if I am called as a witness, I could and would testify competently to the truth of the matters discussed in this Report."
No one disputes that wounds from an AR rifle, like any firearm, can be fatal. That such wounds can be "capable of severing the upper body from the lower body, or decapitation" is false.
Buford Boone is the former director of the FBI's Ballistic Research Facility for 15 years and one of the world's leading authorities on internal, external, and terminal ballistics. In his expert witness rebuttal report in Rupp v. Bonta, he describes this claim as "so ridiculous that it should, and actually does, cast doubt on [Col. Tucker's] qualifications as an expert in the field of firearms, particularly as it relates to wound ballistics."
Col. Tucker offers no examples or authority to support his claim. No doubt he will be asked at deposition or trial whether he has personally witnessed a person being decapitated or having his upper body severed from his lower body by a single .223 or 5.56 round. Mr. Boone explains in his rebuttal report why it is unlikely Colonel Tucker can answer truthfully in the affirmative:
Although perhaps never "witnessed," claims that "assault weapons" can decapitate or dismember have appeared in several media reports and at least one court opinion. They can be traced to a U.S. military report from Vietnam in 1962. Derivatively, an NPR report on the Uvalde murders in May 2022 describes the civilian AR as "designed to blow targets apart" and claims that "its bullets travel with such fierce velocity that they can decapitate a person."
The NPR article links to an article in The Intercept that cites a military report describing how "Viet Cong fighters hit with the weapon were frequently decapitated and dismembered, many looking as though they had 'exploded.'" The Intercept article links to a Gawker story that quotes extensively from the military report about "how the AR-15, chambered with the same .223 ammunition that it uses today, not only killed VC soldiers but decapitated and dismembered them." In Kolbe v. Hogan, the Fourth Circuit cited the same military report to prove the extreme lethality of the civilian AR. Military testing, the court said, found that high-velocity projectiles from the AR caused "[a]mputations of limbs, massive body wounds, and decapitations."
However, as detailed above, the US military in Vietnam never used civilian ARs or .223 ammunition; the military used M16 rifles with 5.56mm ammunition.
The testing of the M16 with 5.56mm cited by the Fourth Circuit and some credulous media was conducted as part of Project AGILE, part of a research program in Southeast Asia initiated by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA). At the time, the military was considering whether to replace the M14 (a Korean War gun) with the M16 as its primary combat rifle. Project AGILEsupplied M16 rifles to South Vietnamese combat troops for field trials to determine whether the M16 would perform satisfactorily in combat.
The subsequent reportincluded claims of massive injuries from the M16's 5.56mm round, including two amputations and a decapitation.
These claims were never confirmed. The Army's Wound Ballistic Laboratory at Edgewood Arsenal tested the lethality of the M16 in gelatin, animals, and cadavers but could not duplicate the "theatrically grotesque wounds" reported by Project AGILE. C.J. Chivers, a Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist, extensively researched the testing for his book The Gun. "No matter what they did," writes Chivers, "they were unable to reproduce the effects that the participants in Project AGILE claimed to have seen." As Chivers writes:
The Wound Ballistic Laboratory's lethality study was kept secret for more than four decades, Chivers explains, with the result that "at the most important time, during the early and mid-1960s, the Project AGILE report, with its suspicious observations and false conclusions, remained uncontested." The M16 "continued to rise, boosted by a reputation for lethality and reliability that it did not deserve."
In other words, the military wanted to switch to the M16, notwithstanding complaints from many soldiers that it is underpowered.
The military used the sensational Project Agile claims, including two purported instances of limb amputations and one of a decapitation, to counter the complaints about the M16's weak firepower. The military in fact knew that the claims from Project AGILE could not be true, because extensive testing by the Army's Wound Ballistic Laboratory had proven that the Project AGILE claims were not true. Nevertheless, the military insisted on adopting the M16 and suppressed the true facts reported by the Wound Ballistic Laboratory.
Dr. Fackler recounts that there were other claims in the 1960s and 70s that the M16's high velocity bullets caused "massive" and "devastating" injuries, but these claims were disproven or contradicted by other reports. Delegates to war surgery conferences in the early 1970s "reported no unusual problems associated with 'high-velocity' bullet wounds in Vietnam. There were no reports of rifle bullet wounds causing traumatic amputations of an extremity."
Combat veterans have rejected claims that .223 or 5.56 rounds are capable of beheading people. Delta operator Bob Keller said he has never seen anyone decapitated by an AR round and called the claim "bullshit." Rob O'Neill, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, said the claim is "100% inaccurate" and "there is no way, no way" that a .223 or 5.56 round can decapitate someone. "As a former Navy SEAL who has shot people up close with something similar to an AR-15, you don't blow their head off, it's not how it works." O'Neill added, "I shot bin Laden three times in the head up close with the same caliber and it didn't decapitate him."
In sum, Col Tucker's "expert" claim that a .223 round can cut a body in half is incorrect.
How powerful are AR rifles?
Several federal and state courts are relitigating the constitutionality of "assault weapon" bans after the Supreme Court's decision in New…
reason.com
