It just doesn't work!

Here are 4 versions of the US armed forces M16

They are very much assault rifles

Above the rear hand grip is a lever for adjusting the rate of fire

Including fully automatic or continuous fire

Standard caliber has been 5.56 MM (.223 caliber)

Although recently larger calibers have been made available.

This is a Colt AR-15 with a standard clip, and laser sights

It fires only as a semi-automatic or a single discharge for each trigger pull

This IS NOT an assault rifle. 

This one is in .223 caliber but other calibers are available in similar looking weapons from a variety of manufacturers 

This weapon IS NOT legal in Canada due to the number of rounds the clip will hold.

There will be more comparison pictures at the end of this article.

Apparently firearms are doing a number of things they never did when I was still using them. I have often lamented the circumstances that make it difficult and usually impossible to do any type of shooting any more but perhaps it is best since those models that have become popular are apparently very dangerous.

No, Sheila, that is what is called sarcasm. Firearms don’t do anything by themselves.

True some of the equipment that is out there wasn’t available when I was involved in reloading, bench rest, and pistol comparisons. The reason it wasn’t available then is that much of it was junk then and is junk now.

On the other hand, most of the equipment we tested 30 years ago has been added to and improved. There where many items that I still see as the very best to be found in the worlds of design, engineering, machining and fabrication. Nothing man-made surpasses them.

Perhaps the inside of today’s computers is a marvelous thing. I wouldn’t know since if you take them apart they never work again. On the outside they look like so many plastic pieces that sometimes actually fit together. None of those outer parts fit together as perfectly as the cylinder on a Ruger Super Blackhawk fits into the frame.

However, these testaments to mankind’s progress are receiving some very bad press through no fault of their own.

The following quotations are from a 2007 study published by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy

The study, titled "Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?", was conducted by Don Kates, a criminologist and constitutional lawyer, and Gary Mauser, a criminologist and professor at Simon Fraser University

“Luxembourg, where handguns are totally banned and ownership of any kind of gun is minimal, had a murder rate nine times higher than Germany in 2002."

"Where firearms are most dense, violent crime crates are lowest, and where guns are least dense violent crime rates are highest,"

“This explains why many shootings take place in ‘gun free zones’ like schools and movie theatres rather than in police stations or gun clubs.”

"Adoption of state laws permitting millions of qualified citizens to carry guns has not resulted in more murder or violent crime in these states. Rather, adoption of these statutes has been followed by very significant reductions in murder and violence in these states,"

“Chicago, a state with some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, has experienced a sharp increase in homicides and shootings this year.

Massachusetts also tried to curb gun violence with a comprehensive package of gun laws in 1998, but murders with firearms increased significantly, as did aggravated assaults and robberies involving guns and gunshot injuries, according to the Boston Globe.”

“The 1996 Australian gun confiscation program was a mandatory gun buyback program that involved the government purchasing over 650,000 guns from citizens.

However, researchers from the University of Melbourne concluded in 2008 that there is little evidence to suggest that the buyback program in Australia ‘had any significant effects on firearm homicides and suicides.’"

“In Britain, which banned virtually all handguns in 1997, the total number of firearm offences began to go up, increasing by 89 percent from 1998 to 2008, as the Daily Mail noted.

"In the late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were confiscated from those owners law-abiding enough to turn them in to authorities. Without suggesting this caused violence, the ban's ineffectiveness was such that by the year 2000 violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe's highest violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States."

The Harvard study concluded with the following warning to lawmakers who want to further regulate gun ownership in the U.S.: "The burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death mantra, especially since they argue public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations that have imposed stringent gun controls have achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those correlations are not observed when a large number of nations are compared across the world."

(Read the full article at http://www.hngn.com/articles/141814/20151020/harvard-gun-study-the-more-guns-the-less-criminal-activity.htm )

(Or read the study itself at http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf )

Firearm statistics from 2012

In the US Guns are used 80 times more often to protect a life than to take one. This is comparing self defence against suicide, homicide and accident combined. This is comparing incident against incident and includes all violent crime. It does not take into account the number of deaths or injuries that might have occurred during any given incident since in many cases, there was no death or injury. It also only includes those instances that were reported.

If the beast attempted to rape Miss Mary and she presented a firearm he then ran away. She put the weapon back in her purse and did not report the incident. That incident does not become part of the statistics.

There are approximately 270 million privately (2012) owned firearms in the USA

Each year in the USA a gun is used about 200 thousand times by a woman to avoid sexual abuse. That figure includes instances when no firearm was actually displayed or seen by anyone.

3 out of 5 felons say they will not mess with an armed person.

Gun ownership rate per 100 residents

USA            88.8

Yemen         54.8

Switzerland  45.7

Finland        45.3

Highest Homicide rates per 100 thousand residents

Honduras              91.6

El Salvador            69.2

Côte d'Ivoire         56.9

Jamaica                 52.2

When these figures were first released the USA was way down this list at #103 with 4.8 per 100 thousand. With the recent mass shootings the figure has increased but it is hard to keep those figures up to date. The current estimate is 10.8 per 100 thousand.

A recent study published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy concluded that there is a negative correlation between gun ownership and violent crime in countries internationally (more guns = less crime).

In general Nations with strict gun control laws have substantially higher murder rates than those who do not. In fact, the 9 European nations with the lowest gun ownership rate have a combined murder rate 3x that of the 9 European nations with the highest gun ownership rate!

In the UK where handgun ownership is illegal, there have been 2034 violent crimes per 100 thousand versus the USA where there were 466 violent crimes per 100 thousand during the same period.

These figures in themselves can be highly misleading since the UK and the US record information differently. For instances a death by firearm in England which does not result in a conviction or which is proven to be self defence is not included in total homicide figures. In the US in 2012 firearms related deaths resulted in 7,133 which, using the UK method of record keeping would mean there were only .95 deaths per 100,000 population.

The actual homicide rate for 2012 as recorded by various US bureaucratic bodies was 14,827 which meant the percentage was 10.3 per 100,000 the same as it is most years. (And the same as it was for death by motor vehicles) And in most years about 65% of the total by firearm is due to suicide.

An analysis of FBI crime statistics reveals that those states which have adopted conceal carry laws have reduced

Murders by 8.5%

Rapes by 5%

Aggravated assaults by 7%

Robberies by 3%

Again these figures can be somewhat misleading since crimes are often recorded in different manners by different jurisdictions. A “robbery” for instance is a violent crime and recorded as such. A county next door might record a similar crime as a “burglary” which is not a violent crime. Thus two dozen “mugging” or “burglary” would not be included in the FBIs violent crime stats even if reading down the report revealed there was a firearm involved.

The following stats (again, 2012) have been drastically upset since following their collection 24 US states have passed “Stand Your Ground” legislation. These laws, all worded differently but which are in three basic categories, mean that those being attacked (and in some cases only feeling that they are about to be attacked) may, under most circumstances, defend themselves. As a result some figures have changed. For example the “error rate” under both police and citizen columns has increased. In addition there are more incidents since a citizen being attacked with a firearm is one incident and the response from the citizen is a separate incident.

US Police                                      VS     US Armed Citizen

794,300                                             80,000,000 gun owning          
police officers13                                            citizens

 

11%                                                            2%error rate
error rate14

14.3                                                            2.3 average deaths
avg. deaths of a shooting                           of a shooting rampage
rampage stopped by police15                                                         stopped by citizens

606                                                             1,527
criminals killed each year                           criminals killed each year

Keep in mind that the “average deaths when stopped by …” is somewhat misleading. The citizen was able to stop the slaughter at 2.3 because he/she was there. The police officer had to get there. As for the “error rate” the police officer is often operating in a high stress environment at least during his/her shift and in some cases 24 hours per day. They often feel they are in a combat zone and find they fired too quickly several hours (or perhaps days) after the event. This often destroys them for further employment. It is also the same reason why officers react too slowly during disaster situations.

In 1982, Kennesaw, Georgia passed a law requiring heads of households to keep at least one firearm in the house. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89% in Kennesaw, compared to just 10.4% drop in Georgia as a whole

Today, the violent crime rate in Kennesaw is still 85% lower than Georgia's or the national average.

I do not believe that anyone should own, handle or attempt to defend themselves with a firearm unless they first received extensive training.

This is what the Canadian forces has designated a "C7". It is similar to the US M-16 but several modifications were incorporated for the Canadian military. It has been issued in 5.56 MM (.223) for several years but all services in NATO have recently started looking for larger calibers such as the NATO 7.72 MM or .308 Winchester. This is an assault rifle with a select fire lever. It is capable of firing single shot, bursts of 3 and fully automatic which would empty this clip in seconds.

This is a Browning 750 Woodsmaster. It is designed strictly for hunting and IS NOT an assault rifle. It is available in .243 Win., .270 Win., .308 Win., .30-06 Springfield and .35 Whelen. It is a semi-auto and NOT an assault rifle.

This is a Browning "Short Track" in .308 (BAR). It is a semi-auto and intended for hunting. It IS NOT an assault rifle.

This is an AK-47 in the most common version. It is definitely an assault rifle with the select fire lever visible. It is usually found in the Russian or Warsaw Pact 7.62 MM which is shorter and less powerful than the .308 Winchester. It is also produced in at least a dozen versions with nylon stock and fore-piece and with a variety of sights. It is also produced and sold in North America in a semi-automatic version which ... IS NOT an assault rifle. The magazines (clips) must be no larger than 10 rounds in Canada and this one is at least 40 rounds.