by john harrison
1. Since 1982, 122 handguns of all types, against 43 rifles of all types including ARs and clones, have been used in mass shootings in the US. A handgun is the real weapon of choice for most mass shooters. In fact, since 1982 rifles of any type have been used by mass shooters less than 25% of the time, more than 75% of the time mass shooters have used either a handgun, and/or a shotgun. For example, the Virginia Tech shooter used two pistols to kill 33 people and wound 17 more. Gun control proposals which ignore these facts to target only the wrong weapons, for the wrong reasons, are not likely to be useful much less represent “common sense”. See: (https://www.statista.com/statistics/476409/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-weapon-types-used/)
It is a myth that ARs are the weapon of choice for mass shooters.
2. AR stands for Armalite Rifle the maker of the original AR. It does not stand for assault rifle. All real assault rifles are fully automatic weapons. In a sense, calling every tricked out, black rifle, an “AR” is rather like calling any generic supermarket soda, a “Coke”. It is not just wrong, it is also misleading. The civilian version of an AR is semi-automatic only, saying otherwise is disingenuous but it is often implied that a civilian AR is a military weapon. Ignorance about such important facts is not useful. No civilian black rifle, including all civilian ARs, are military grade weapons. No real military in the world uses semi-automatic only infantry weapons. Calling an “AR” or any other civilian black rifle “military grade” or “military type”, or calling a magazine a “clip” are all indications of profound ignorance about weapons.
It is a myth that ARs and AR clones are military grade assault weapons.
3. Those opposed to guns always include suicides by gun in their total “gun violence” numbers. Since suicides total about two thirds of those that are killed by a gun each year, this makes the number killed by guns look much more massive than it actually is. The Australian experience conclusively proves that this approach is both dishonest and profoundly misleading. The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. Thirty-five people were killed and 21 were wounded when a man with a history of violent behavior beginning in early childhood opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two, semi-automatic rifles. Coming only six weeks after the Dunblane massacre in Scotland, this mass killing at Port Arthur horrified the Australian public and had powerful political effects.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from 1985–2000, 78% of firearm deaths in Australia were suicides. Since the great gun buyback, total firearm suicides have dropped precipitously. However, even though immediately following the Great Gun Buyback there was this massive fall in firearm suicides, this was more than offset by a 10% increase in total suicides in both 1997 and 1998, the two years after the firearm buyback.
The Australian experience shows that merely removing a substantial number of firearms from the public had no detectable effect on the total number of suicides even though it did reduce suicides by gun. The singular effect of removing the guns was to change the method used for some suicides. Only after Australia finally realized that the Great Gun Buyback had had no effect on total suicides did they get serious about dealing with the causes of suicide. This Vox gif tells the real story:
It is a myth that gun laws are likely to have any effect on total suicides except perhaps increasing them by the misdirection of funds.
4. An AR, or any rifle, chambered in the 5.56 mm cartridge is not considered by experts to be a particularly “powerful”, or deadly weapon. Almost all states do not allow deer to be hunted with a 5.56 mm rifle since 5.56 mm ammunition is not considered to be powerful enough to reliably kill deer. See e.g., Virginia “Center fire rifles used for deer or bear must be .23 caliber, or larger.” A 5.56 mm cartridge corresponds to .223 caliber and thus is illegal for deer in Virginia. The weapon used by the Florida shooter could not even penetrate the hurricane rated glass at the school even though he fired multiple rounds at the glass at point blank range. Many handguns and all shotguns at that range could have smashed that glass. In fact, because they are considered too under-powered for today’s battlefield, the Army is in the process of replacing its 5.56 mm chambered rifles with more powerful rifles. In Florida, the killer used a 5.56 mm to kill 17 and wound 16. By contrast, using two pistols at Virginia Tech the shooter killed 33 and wounded 17. Any gun can be used to kill people and pistols are more often used for that purpose than any other firearm.
Describing a 5.56 mm chambered rifle as particularly “powerful” or dangerous is another myth.
5. Contrary to many reports, the current AR bullet itself is not especially lethal. While the original M-16 had a muzzle velocity of 3,250 ft/s (M193 round), the current M4 used by the Army has a muzzle velocity of 2,970 ft/s (910 m/s) (M855A1 round). The original ammunition for the M16 was the 55-grain M193 cartridge. When fired from a 20″ barrel at ranges of up to 100 meters, the original, thin-jacketed, lead-cored, bullet still traveled fast enough (above 2900 ft/s) that the force of striking a human body would often cause the round to yaw (or tumble) and if it hit bone, to fragment into about a dozen pieces of various sizes thus created wounds that were out of proportion to its caliber. The newer 5.56 mm bullets and those fired from shorter barreled rifles like the one the Florida shooter used, do not travel fast enough to do that. Like most other ammunition, today a 5.56 mm bullet’s effectiveness depends on shot placement. Calling a 5.56 mm chambered rifle especially lethal or dangerous because of the bullet is another indication of ignorance and is also wrong.
The .223 Remington cartridge is the commercial equivalent of the 5.56 mm NATO. From a physical dimension standpoint these cartridges are indeed one in the same. Externally, there is no measurable difference between them. There is, however, one significant difference between the two.
Manufacturers load .223 Rem. to 55,000 psi, as established by SAAMI (Sporting Arms & Ammunition Institute). The maximum average pressure for the 5.56 NATO is about 61,600 psi, as established by the U.S. Military. This is 11 percent more than civilian .223 Rem. pressures. Because the 5.56 mm NATO is a military cartridge, SAAMI hasn’t set pressure limits for it. This is why all the military data, all the military experience with the 5.56 mm cartridge simply does not apply to civilian ammunition, but that has not stopped people from using military data to mislead the ignorant.
It is a myth that the bullets used in the 5.56 mm rifle are especially deadly.
6. Quite often armed civilians have stopped mass shootings in progress in spite of several mistaken and misleading reports to the contrary, See, e.g., Mother Jones. Given that almost all mass shootings in America have happened in “Gun Free Zones”, even this many successful civilian interventions is extraordinary. Since this list, from the Washington Post for some reason excludes those stopped by a retired or off duty policeman and ends in 2015, there are even more examples of civilians stopping mass shootings but it is representative.
“1. In Chicago earlier this year, (2015) an Uber driver with a concealed-carry permit “shot and wounded a gunman [Everardo Custodio] who opened fire on a crowd of people.”
“2. In a Philadelphia barber shop earlier this year, (2015)Warren Edwards “opened fire on customers and barbers” after an argument. Another man with a concealed-carry permit then shot the shooter; of course it’s impossible to tell whether the shooter would have kept killing if he hadn’t been stopped, but a police captain was quoted as saying that, “I guess he [the man who shot the shooter] saved a lot of people in there.”
“3. In a hospital near Philadelphia, in 2014, Richard Plotts shot and killed the psychiatric caseworker with whom he was meeting, and shot and wounded his psychiatrist, Lee Silverman. Howver, Silverman shot back, and took down Plotts. While again it’s not certain whether Plotts would have killed other people, Delaware County D.A. Jack Whelan stated that, “If the doctor did not have a firearm, (and) the doctor did not utilize the firearm, he’d be dead today, and I believe that other people in that facility would also be dead”; Yeadon Police Chief Donald Molineux similar said that he “believe[d] the doctor saved lives.” Plotts was still carrying 39 unspent rounds when he was arrested. [UPDATE: added this item since the original post.]
“4. In Plymouth, Pa., in 2012, William Allabaugh killed one man and wounded another following an argument over Allabaugh being ejected from a bar. Allabaugh then approached a bar manager and Mark Ktytor and reportedly pointed his gun at them; Ktytor, who had a concealed-carry license, then shot Allabaugh. “The video footage and the evidence reveals that Mr. Allabaugh had turned around and was reapproaching the bar. Mr. [Ktytor] then acted, taking him down. We believe that it could have been much worse that night,” Luzerne County A.D.A. Jarrett Ferentino said.
“5. Near Spartanburg, S.C., in 2012, Jesse Gates went to his church armed with a shotgun and kicked in a door. But Aaron Guyton, who had a concealed-carry license, drew his gun and pointed it at Gates, and other parishioners then disarmed Gates. Note that in this instance, unlike the others, it’s possible that the criminal wasn’t planning on killing anyone, but just brought the shotgun to church and kicked in the door to draw attention to himself or to vent his frustration.
“6. In Atlanta in 2009, Calvin Lavant and Jamal Hill broke into an apartment during a party and forced everyone to the floor. After they gathered various valuables, and separated the men and the women, and Lavant said to Hill, “we are about to have sex with these girls, then we are going to kill them all,” and began “discussing condoms and the number of bullets in their guns.” At that point, Sean Barner, a Marine who was attending Georgia State as part of the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Education Program, managed to get to the book bag he brought to the party; took out his gun; shot and scared away Hill; went into the neighboring room, where Lavant was about to rape one of the women; was shot at by Lavant, and shot back and hit Lavant, who then ran off and later died of his injuries. One of the women was shot and wounded in the shootout, but given the circumstances described in the sources linked to, it seemed very likely that Lavant and Hill would have killed (as well as raped) some or all of the party goers had they not been stopped. This incident of course involves a member of the military, not a civilian, so some may discount it on those grounds. But Barner was acting as a civilian, and carrying a gun as a civilian (he had a concealed carry license); indeed, if he had been on a military base, he would generally not have been allowed to carry a gun except when on security duty. [WP added this item since the original post.]
“7. In Winnemucca, Nev., in 2008, Ernesto Villagomez killed two people and wounded two others in a bar filled with 300 people. He was then shot and killed by a patron who was carrying a gun (and had a concealed-carry license). It’s not clear whether Villagomez would have killed more people; the killings were apparently the result of a family feud, and there was no information on whether Villagomez had more names on his list, nor could one tell whether he would have killed more people in trying to evade capture.
“8. In Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2007, Matthew Murray killed four people at a church. He was then shot several times by Jeanne Assam, a church member, volunteer security guard and former police officer (she had been dismissed by a police department 10 years before, and to my knowledge hadn’t worked as a police officer since). Murray, knocked down and badly wounded, killed himself; it is again not clear whether he would have killed more people had he not been wounded, but my guess is that he would have. (UPDATE: he apparently went to the church with more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition).
“9. In Edinboro, Pa., in 1998, 14-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a teacher at a school dance, and shot and injured several other students. He had just left the dance hall, carrying his gun — possibly to attack more people, though the stories are unclear — when he was confronted by the dance hall owner James Strand, who lived next door and kept a shotgun at home. It’s not clear whether Wurst was planning to kill others, would have gotten into a gun battle with the police, or would have otherwise killed more people had Strand not stopped him.
“10. In Pearl, Miss., in 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed and bludgeoned to death his mother at home, then killed two students and injured seven at his high school. As he was leaving the school, he was stopped by Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who had gone out to get a handgun from his car. Sources that state that Woodham was on the way to Pearl Junior High School to continue shooting, though I couldn’t find any contemporaneous news articles that so state. [UPDATE: For whatever it’s worth, Heidi Kinchen of The Advocate (Baton Rouge) notes that Myrick was in the Army reserves and in the National Guard, though he was obviously not on duty at the time of the shooting.]” (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/03/do-civilians-with-guns-ever-stop-mass-shootings/?utm_term=.128016ae191d)
And, of course last year (2018) at least 26 people were killed and 20 were wounded in Texas after a gunman dressed in tactical gear opened fire at a church outside San Antonio. He was stopped by an armed citizen who had to race to his home and back to get his own AR type semi automatic rifle before he could return fire. The gunman was among those killed.
If a news source says that no mass shootings have been stopped by armed civilians, they are either profoundly ignorant or lying, neither is useful in a debate about a matter of importance. (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/11/05/mass-shooting-reported-at-texas-sutherland-springs-church.html)
It is a myth that armed civilians have not stopped several mass shootings and sometimes they used an AR to do it.
7. ARs are often used by farmers, ranchers, and others to hunt varmints such as prairie dogs, feral hogs, snakes and many other non-game animals. In part because of its inherent accuracy, ARs are also the weapon of choice for many shooting sports. Shooting sports are the fastest growing sector of sports in this country. In addition, many AR clones are available in calibers other than .223/5.56 mm and thus are used for hunting game animals.
Saying that AR’s are not generally used as farm equipment, hunting weapons or in shooting sports is a myth.
8. Since replacing the M14 in 1964, the M16/M4 family of fully automatic service rifles has become the longest-serving standard rifle for the U. S. military. Despite its troubled beginning, the M16 and M4 have earned reputations as reliable and effective weapons. A lot of the improvements to the original M-16 were created by civilian tinkering.
This is a picture of the type of M16 rifle that I was issued in 1967. Initially, it proved to be unreliable and American soldiers and Marines died because of that.
This is the standard infantry rifle in use today. There are too many changes to detail, but many of them were first suggested, introduced and/or developed further by civilian tinkerers.
While the Army has now improved its magazines and stopped the practice, for years Army units facing combat deployments would buy crates of civilian Magpul magazines with their own money to replace the magazines provided by the Army. Even now many believe that the civilian Magpul series of magazines are still better than the new magazines provided by the military. An assault weapons ban would stop this tinkering and improvement process that our military has benefited from greatly. Passing a bill that outlaws large capacity magazines would stop this work on improving them. In spite of some misleading press reports, the Florida shooter did not use any large capacity magazines, his were all 10 round magazines. They were the only ones that would fit in his backpack.
It is a myth that banning civilian ARs and/or large capacity magazines will not have any other adverse consequences.
9. The CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm), the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/sunday-review/the-assault-weapon-myth.html) and the FBI data agree on at least one issue, they all say that the numbers do not show that the prior “Assault Weapons Ban” had any effect whatsoever on mass shooters or gun violence. However, the supporters of a new assault weapons ban say it is “common sense” to expect a different result this time from doing the same thing that did not work the last time. Why do some people want to again do something that has been proven not to work in the past? Ignorance and simple fear stoked by that ignorance are probably only a partial explanation.
Even though only armed guards have worked in the past, some still oppose them just as people opposed armed guards at airports when hijacking planes was popular in the 1970’s. In fact the current discussion about school security mirrors the same arguments that were raised about the dangers of armed airport security when more than 130 planes were hijacked in one four year period several years ago. However, armed guards stopped airplane hijackings almost overnight. Why some people do not want to talk about much less do the only thing that has been proven to be effective in protecting children in schools from shooters is simply incomprehensible to knowledgeable people, and to almost all parents.
The FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports do not define mass shooting but do provide information on the number of victims, and the reports have been used by researchers in conjunction with news reports or other data sources. Quite often news article incorrectly state that Australia has not had a “mass shooting” since the Great Gun Buyback of 1996. Like the idea that the Great Gun Buyback of 1996 had a positive effect on suicides this statement is factually incorrect as well.
Variation in How Mass Shootings Are Defined and Counted
| Source |
Casualty Threshold (for injuries or deaths by firearm) |
Location of Incident |
Motivation of Shooter |
Number of Australian Mass Shootings since the gun buyback |
| Mother Jones (see Follman, Aronsen, and Pan, 2017) |
Three fatal injuries (excluding shooter)* |
Public |
Indiscriminate (excludes crimes of armed robbery, gang violence, or domestic violence) |
5 |
| Gun Violence Archive (undated-a) |
Four fatal or nonfatal injuries (excluding shooter) |
Any |
Any |
7 |
| Mass Shooting Tracker (undated) |
Four fatal or nonfatal injuries (including shooter) |
Any |
Any |
8 |
| Mass Shootings in America database (Stanford Geospatial Center, undated) |
Three fatal or nonfatal injuries (excluding shooter) |
Any |
Not identifiably related to gangs, drugs, or organized crime |
7 |
It is an myth that prior experience indicates that an “assault weapon” ban would have any effect on mass shootings or gun violence.
10. While an “assault weapon” ban will do nothing to protect children in schools and others in “Gun Free Zones”, it will probably make it much harder to identify a potential shooter before they start shooting. Pistols are much easier to hide than AR clones. Even at the fastest rate of passage, such a ban will not be in force anywhere for at least a year, or more. Nor would it have any effect at all for several years after that because of the millions of civilian AR clones already sold.
Based on the numbers, passage of an “assault weapons” ban has nothing to do with protecting children, or reducing violence. Only controlling entry to schools with armed guards has been proven effective at protecting school children from shooters. Anyone that opposes armed guards, opposes the only proven way to protect children in schools from shooters. Why?
In any event simply enforcing existing laws could have stopped the Florida shooter (bringing bullets onto school property, the reason he was suspended from the school he shot up, is a federal felony). The FBI has admitted that it blew it, not once but twice, when they were expressly warned about the Florida shooter but did nothing.
The Broward County Sheriff has been in full damage control mode ever since the tragedy occurred. By misdirecting everyone to focus on “assault weapons” the Sheriff has thus far saved his department from explaining why one of his officers ran away, and three of his officers “staged” outside the school while the shooter killed children they were sworn to protect inside. Generally the advice of an utter incompetent should be, and can be, safely ignored.
It is a myth that an “assault weapon” ban would increase school security.
Ideas that would help: Immediately ban bump stocks and all other “work arounds” that make a semi-automatic weapon fire like an automatic weapon, limit the entry to schools to one point, place a trained, armed guard inside at that single school entrance, put easily thrown bolts on all classroom doors keyed to the same elevator keys that police and firemen already carry. Since almost all such doors are steel fire doors this alone would stop most shooters.
Simply enforcing the existing laws would also be useful. If the Air Force had done what it was supposed to do, the shooter at the Texas church would have been barred from buying the gun that he used to shoot up that church. If the FBI had made a simple telephone call to the school in Florida, not an investigation just a single telephone call, it would have learned both his home address and enough evidence to arrest the Florida shooter for a federal felony with the 5 year federal prison sentence before he began shooting and killing kids.
More laws that are also not enforced will not help. We really do need to enforce existing laws, and to put the people that violate them into prison. Of the 80,000 +/- people that were turned down after a gun background check in 2012 there were only 44 prosecutions. Yet, those were almost all federal felonies, so about 79,956 federal felonies were ignored. I am not picking on President Obama’s administration, because President Trump is probably not doing any better. I just could not find more recent information. Unfortunately, this is just the tip of this particular iceberg. The existing federal gun laws are not being enforced and people have died because of it.
It took two catastrophic failures of law enforcement to enable the Florida shooter to do his bloody work. If the FBI had done its job, with the Speedy Trial Act and federal sentencing guidelines the Florida Shooter would have been sitting in a federal prison that day, not shooting kids.
If Florida Deputy Sheriff had been at the school door instead of out of position, actually entirely out of the building and then he ran even further away to hide. Or, if that Florida Deputy Sheriff had returned to his post, rather than running away, and had confronted the shooter, he might have won the gun fight like the school resource officer did a few weeks later in Maryland. Or, if the three other Broward County deputies that responded had done something they might have been able to subdue an untrained teenager instead of “staging” in the parking lot hiding behind their cars while the shooter was shooting more kids inside the school.
To the extent a lesson was needed it was provided by the completely different result in Maryland’s Great Mills High School shooting where Deputy Blaine Gaskill did his job. The shooter was shot and stopped.
Enforcing existing laws and finding out how to prevent these kinds of failures could actually help protect our children now. Banning the wrong weapons, for the wrong reasons, or enacting other myth laden “gun control” measures out of ignorance, and that have been proven not to work in the past, will only ensure that there are many more such tragedies.
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