Well, who the heck could have understood you. I made an assetion. You quoted the assertion and said nothing other than "proof please". I proved my assertion. I'm not a mind reader.
Inevitable gun control argument thread....
- Thread starter .Shane.
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MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Err...I think you are agreeing with me...not disagreeing. A heavier, but slower, bullet from a pistol will achieve your desired effect...a lighter, but higher velocity bullet wont.
My personal preference would also be a shotgun, but I have a pistol because I don't want to go through the walls behind the target, not because of wound dynamics. Believe me, you give me a human target 10 yards away, I'll take a battle rifle over a pistol any day of the week.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Again, totally depends on the situation. At 10 yards, no obstacles, I would prefer an automatic weapon over anything and just spray and pray. With obstacles, a carbine or pistol that I could react quickly with. With obstacles and no concern for innocents nearby, I would probably just chuck a grenade in and walk away.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
Your speculation is wrong. There is a popular saying around the online gunner community.
"A pistol is only useful for fighting your way back to the rifle you left at home"
90% of people shot with a handgun survive. When it comes to a high powered rifle, that statistic decreases significantly.
The size of the bullet does not determine the size of the wound channel. Infact at high velocity the size of the bullet is really insignificant. The velocity a bullet travels determines the size of the wound channel.
High powered rifles simply have more stopping power than even the most powerful handguns. There is no question.
I'm not a physics man so I'll just show you some pictures instead.
"Wound channels" with common handgun rounds.
"Wound channels" with common rifle rounds.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Your speculation is wrong. There is a popular saying around the online gunner community.
"A pistol is only useful for fighting your way back to the rifle you left at home"
90% of people shot with a handgun survive. When it comes to a high powered rifle, that statistic decreases significantly.
The size of the bullet does not determine the size of the wound channel. Infact at high velocity the size of the bullet is really insignificant. The velocity a bullet travels determines the size of the wound channel.
High powered rifles simply have more stopping power than even the most powerful handguns. There is no question.
I'm not a physics man so I'll just show you some pictures instead.
"Wound channels" with common handgun rounds.
"Wound channels" with common rifle rounds.
Errr. Why are the rifle rounds fired 'through' a loaded ak 47 mag? Wouldnt firing through such an item shatter the bullet and give a false woud channel in comparison with a bullet that wasnt fired throught a loaded ak47 magazine?
Its not exactly fair to compare handguns and rifle ballistic gel cuts if you didnt duplicate how they were fired.
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It is more to do with the design of the bullet than the weapon that fired it - bullets designed to expand / shatter on impact will do much more damage than ones designed to go straight through - I believe that bullets that shatter on impact are outlawed by the geneva convention, but not sure.
The big difference between rifles & handguns is that rifles tend to be more accurate over a longer distance.
The big difference between rifles & handguns is that rifles tend to be more accurate over a longer distance.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
I think you are referring to 'flechette' rounds that are outlawed. Those are rounds designed to separate in flight in order to hit a wider target area....course that means you hit far more than just your intended target.
The round used in the US M-16, the 5.56 ball, has a tendency to shatter on impact because its such a small round. I recall being told that its specifically designed to cause maximum wounding damage even on a grazing hit. I have heard stories of people being shot accidently with a m16 where the bullet entered a guys wrist, shattered and fragments supposedly travled along his bones and muscles to exit out another part of their body, i.e. shoulder, torso, leg or even foot.
Crazy things happen when a bullet fragments and tumbles.
True, but thats got more to do with barrell length than bullet design. Basically, your handgun rounds are hollowpoints or more flat headed in order to promote the round mushrooming and giving the round more stopping power. Rifle rounds have a more tapered appearance and are designed for a ballistic path to their target.
From what I have been able to read on the subject, its apparent that shooter skill counts for far more in stopping power (ie. shot location) than whether you use a rifle or a handgun.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
http://home.snafu.de/l.moeller/Zielwirkung/Frog.html
Here are some better diagrams of wound channels.
7.62 NATO round
30-06 round (Ouch
)
5.56 NATO round
45 ACP round
357 JSP round
CaptainF
The Professional Poster
I wonder how they measure these things...
Live test subjects?
Live test subjects?
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
Standard military 5.56 and 5.45 FMJ rounds will fragment on impact. I believe your thinking about hollow point rounds. Those are outlawed by the geneva convention.
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
I wonder how they measure these things...
Live test subjects?
They use ballistic gel and also pig carcases sometimes. Some have used real human corpses.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
I wonder how they measure these things...
Live test subjects?
Actually, one test I read about done around the turn of the last century used live cows to determine bullet stopping power....
And the real kicker was with some of the weaker rounds they had to finish the cows off with a sledgehammer....
Pokurcz
Emperor
It is obvious that the logic in my previous statements is inescapable; however the logic in opposing statements is predominantly equally sound.
The problem does not lie in the use of logic but in the premises (“surprise”
.
What is unsound, from the point of view of a European, is the fundamental premise of Americans that owning a gun is a right opposed to the European, that it is a privilege.
The reason IMO for the American view to be the faulty one from an objective position (yes I am a European, but hat does in it self not disqualify me logically from the possibility of having an objective opinion), is that owning a lethal firearm is a great responsibility that not everyone can handle, especially in a tense or threatening situation. It is therefore bad for a society and its members if too many of them have access to such weapons.
(And I would like to ad, that the European view has predominantly proven itself to be closer to objectivity and the general world opinion on most matters)
However I do understand that the situation is different in the USA, especially the prevalent feeling of insecurity that seems to haunt a lot of its citizens. Despite all that not even half of the population owns a gun, even though the case might be different in some states. So evidently the paranoia is apparently limited to the paranoid, even in the US.
The problem does not lie in the use of logic but in the premises (“surprise”
.What is unsound, from the point of view of a European, is the fundamental premise of Americans that owning a gun is a right opposed to the European, that it is a privilege.
The reason IMO for the American view to be the faulty one from an objective position (yes I am a European, but hat does in it self not disqualify me logically from the possibility of having an objective opinion), is that owning a lethal firearm is a great responsibility that not everyone can handle, especially in a tense or threatening situation. It is therefore bad for a society and its members if too many of them have access to such weapons.
(And I would like to ad, that the European view has predominantly proven itself to be closer to objectivity and the general world opinion on most matters)
However I do understand that the situation is different in the USA, especially the prevalent feeling of insecurity that seems to haunt a lot of its citizens. Despite all that not even half of the population owns a gun, even though the case might be different in some states. So evidently the paranoia is apparently limited to the paranoid, even in the US.
MobBoss
Off-Topic Overlord
Spoken like a true european fuedal lord. How dare the peasents arm themsevles! They cant be responsible enough to be trusted with that.
Welcome to the USA where we consider everyone equal. Odd concept to the EU-centric I know, but we kind of demand it here.
Its not so much a feeling of insecurity as we dont like being dependent upon others for anything, security included.
Errr. No, I dont think it an issue of paranoia....in case you didnt hear...the VT shootings were actually real.....
Pokurcz
Emperor
"Errr. No, I dont think it an issue of paranoia....in case you didnt hear...the VT shootings were actually real....."
Real in deed, but from an European POV it would not have happened if the guy would not have had such an easy access to guns, he did by it legally just a some five weeks before his crime...
Had gun control been as restraining as in for example Sweden he would probably never have acquired a gun and at the most killed much less people with a knife. People with knifes are much easier to run away from.
"Spoken like a true european fuedal lord. How dare the peasents arm themsevles! They cant be responsible enough to be trusted with that."
Spoken like a true American suffering from a complex of inadequacy facing the superiority of "European Culture".
It is fascinating that despite wealth and might a lot of you suffer from this complex, as if no matter how rich you get it is still not as good as "old money". Money is money, just as culture is culture. There is quite a lot of American "high culture" not to be ashamed, trust me.
And what is that talk of equality all of a sudden, to me that sounds like something a socialist would preach: 'No matter how talented and hardworking someone might be, he still should not earn more than anybody else.'
I mean, some people are just more responsible than others and mentally well equipped to handle stressful situations. If you infringe a bit into peoples "right" to own guns, the chance that the guns stay out of the hands of unsuitable people rises to more acceptable levels.
A lot more people in the USA get killed by guns because of accidents and such than the guns manage to "save" in threatening situations, you can bet your ass on that!
Real in deed, but from an European POV it would not have happened if the guy would not have had such an easy access to guns, he did by it legally just a some five weeks before his crime...
Had gun control been as restraining as in for example Sweden he would probably never have acquired a gun and at the most killed much less people with a knife. People with knifes are much easier to run away from.
"Spoken like a true european fuedal lord. How dare the peasents arm themsevles! They cant be responsible enough to be trusted with that."
Spoken like a true American suffering from a complex of inadequacy facing the superiority of "European Culture".
It is fascinating that despite wealth and might a lot of you suffer from this complex, as if no matter how rich you get it is still not as good as "old money". Money is money, just as culture is culture. There is quite a lot of American "high culture" not to be ashamed, trust me.
And what is that talk of equality all of a sudden, to me that sounds like something a socialist would preach: 'No matter how talented and hardworking someone might be, he still should not earn more than anybody else.'
I mean, some people are just more responsible than others and mentally well equipped to handle stressful situations. If you infringe a bit into peoples "right" to own guns, the chance that the guns stay out of the hands of unsuitable people rises to more acceptable levels.
A lot more people in the USA get killed by guns because of accidents and such than the guns manage to "save" in threatening situations, you can bet your ass on that!
I'm drawing upon some ancient memory here, but wasn't there a technique where people carved an 'X' on their bullets' tip, and this encourages fragmentation? And that such behaviour was illegal?
What's the percentage of homes with guns in Sweden now? In 1993 it was 15% (against the US' 40%).
Fatal accidents involving guns in the US totaled approximately 600 in the year 2000. Estimates of the number of defensive uses of a gun vary widely, but even the lowest estimate is over 100,000 per year. It is obviously impossible to know what percentage of those uses actually saved a life, but it seems likely to be higher than 0.6%.
Che Guava
The Juicy Revolutionary
Random question: how much does it cost to become a legit gun owner? I mean, from the gun, to the ammo, to the license or whatever else is required, how much does defending yourself cost these days?
BugFatty300: Very complete analysis! THank you!
BugFatty300: Very complete analysis! THank you!
It sounds like a Mastercard commercial...
The gun is probably $300-400 at minimum. Good concealed-carry holster $50. Ammo $30-40/100rds at most. Concealed carry license can be anywhere from $10 (here in New Hampshire) or 0$ (Vermont) to a couple hundred bucks (the state might require a training class) or so - if it is obtainable at all.
