American-Manifesto.com In Defense of American Exceptionalism

Sebastian recently pointed us to a new document from the Brady Campaign (formerly Handgun Control, Inc.) about Assault Weapons.  I decided to take a look at it and quickly realized just how full of holes it was.  In just the first few pages, I documented the following.

Page 1

These guns unleash extraordinary firepower. When San Jose, California, police test-fired an UZI, a 30-round magazine was emptied in slightly less than two seconds on full automatic, while the same magazine was emptied in just five seconds on semiautomatic.

Extraordinary firepower?  Not really.  The standard Uzi round is the 9mm, which is very often criticized for being insufficiently powerful despite its adoption as the standard for NATO pistols.

Note the irrelevant but ominous sounding reference to fully automatic weapons.  Remember civilian rifles are only semi-automatic.  As for emptying a 30 round magazine in 5 seconds while it might be possible, unless you were very well trained you probably couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn firing like that.

Assault weapons were designed for rapid fire, close quarter shooting at human beings. That is why they were put together the way they were.  You will not find these guns in a duck blind or at the Olympics.

Designed for close quarter shooting?  Well, no, not really.  In fact, the longer stock interferes with close quarters shooting.  The Army teaches a technique called short stocking for close quarters combat specifically to deal with this limitation.  Also, specifically designed for shooting at human beings?  Hmmm…is there a special people shooting design out there that’s distinct from a target shooting design?

It is definitely true that you will no find an AR15 or Uzi in a duck blind.  Nor will you find a pistol, a revolver or even an old fashioned lever action rife.  But you won’t find a laptop computer, a tube of nice lipstick or a baseball either.  They are about as relevant to duck hunting as an AR15. 

It is also true you will not find them in the olympics.  In addition to being completely irrelevant, it might have something to do with the fact that they aren’t considered accurate enough for that level of competition.  Besides there are many fairly prominent sports that are not in the olympics including rugby, cricket, golf and karate. 

While semiautomatic hunting rifles are designed to be fired from the shoulder and depend upon the accuracy of a precisely aimed projectile, the military features of semiautomatic assault weapons are designed to enhance their capacity to shoot multiple human targets very rapidly… Pistol grips on assault rifles and shotguns help stabilize the weapon during rapid fire and allow the shooter to spray-fire from the hip position.

These two statements in the same paragraph contradict each other.  Multiple targets and shooting from the hip?  Good luck with that.  Shooting from the hip is a great way to not hit anything.  Furthermore, a pistol grip is most certainly not intended to help in shooting from the hip.  The U.S. military does not teach shooting from the hip and its rifles are designed accordingly.  Perhaps it escaped the notice of the Brady’s that all of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have very nice optical sights on their rifles.  Maybe someone could explain how they are used when shooting from the hip.

Barrel shrouds on assault pistols protect the shooter’s hands from the heat generated by firing many rounds in rapid succession.

So, are they saying that with plain old fashioned bolt action hunting rifles the shooter is holding the barrel directly?  Nonsense!  Go look the website of any rifle manufacturer. 

ATF has concluded that assault weapons…’are attractive to certain criminals.’  An ATF survey of 735 hunting guides…found that sportsmen do not use assault weapons.

Exactly what criminals would those be?  Assault rifles are used in 1.4% of gun crimes nationally.  They are big, heavy and not easily concealed.  Not exactly convenient for criminals.

Hunters don’t use assault rifles all that often, certainly not for anything large.  Why?  Because they are not powerful enough.  An ideal hunting round will take down, for example, a deer in one shot.  A great many assault rifles won’t do that.  Also, note the clever phrasing they used.  They are describing hunters as sportsman to the exclusion of target shooters in an effort to argue that these rifles have no sporting purpose.  Go to a rifle range sometime.  The last time I was at one there were no bolt action or pure hunting rifles.  Everything being fired was an assault rifle.

Page 3

Assault weapons may not be used in the majority of crimes – handguns are – but they are disproportionately used in crime compared to their numbers in circulation.

Oh really?  No numbers mentioned.  No footnote or source listed.  Assault rifles are used in 1.4% or crimes nationally.  I’d say what’s disproportionate is the Left’s fixation on them.

Moreover, assault weapons have special appeal to terrorists.

Yet again, no numbers or citations.  Here’s a tip for them.  Go learn about Israel.  The Palestinian terrorists used to open fire on civilians in Israel, particularly at schools.  You don’t see that happening anymore.  Why?  Because Israel allows its citizens to be armed.  In fact, Israeli schools are required to have an armed presence.  Terrorists don’t like it when their victims shoot back.

As Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton said: There is a reason that these weapons are so appealing to criminals. They are designed to be easily concealed and kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

Again, assault weapons were used in 1.4% of gun crimes.  Plus these weapons are NOT easy to conceal.  Remember that one of the anti’s excuses for banning assault weapons is their “military design”.  Well guess what?  It is a violation of the Geneva Convention for troops to their conceal weapons.  Military rifles are most certainly not designed to be concealed.

Page 4

In addition, police departments have found that the ban’s expiration has led to increased criminal access to assault weapons and levels of violent crime, forcing many to outfit their officers with assault rifles of their own. (27)

Considering the ban was widely found to have had no statistical impact on crime, this is suspect right from the start.  So what do they base this on?  An academic study?  Maybe a Department of Justice analysis of crime statistics?  Their own number crunching maybe?  Nope.  Footnote 27 points to a bunch of newspaper articles.  I’ll tell you, that’s a rigorous and exhaustive document they’ve produced.

The Chicago Police Department reported a 10% increase in the number of assault weapons seized. Superintendent Phil Cline said, “[t]hese are guns that can shoot up to 30 rounds with a couple pulls of the trigger. And it puts our police in grave danger out there.

Okay, 10% over what period of time?  How does that compare to the change in other guns being seized?  Chicago has a gun ban so how do you explain any guns being seized.  Also, what’s being categorized as an assault weapon.  We’ve seen games played with the definitions of these before.  None of these are reported and the isolated data points meaningless without the context. 

Note also the outright lie: that these guns can empty a 30 round magazine in “a couple pulls of the trigger”.  I do believe we can pretty safely call the superintendent of the Chicago Police either a liar or totally uninformed.  Say it everyone: one trigger pull, one shot.  So unless you commonly describe 30 as “a couple”, he’s full of it.  “Officer, I was only a couple miles per hours over the speed limit.”

You would also get the impression from the Brady document that they interviewed the superintendent of the Chicago Police.  But if you go to the footnotes you’ll instead discover that they are relying on a a TV news report from a local station.  I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that the reporter involved did not have much expertise in the area of firearms.

And that’s just the first few pages of the Brady document.