Despite all we have been taught by 1950's reruns, the police are not there to protect you. This might surprise you, but follow along for a moment.
"To serve and protect" is a line of utter bullshit. THere is no law that says they have to do jack shat in a hat.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that a cop has no obligation or duty to act, even if he knows there is a crime in progress. Warren vs. District of Columbia
Yeah, they were raped and the cops were like "fuck off, donut break."
To be fair... there are so many officers out there, who will lay down their lives in harms way, in service to our community. There is no denying that fact. This piece is not meant to denigrate their sacrifice and hard work every day, in any way.
And then there are the cowards who should have never put on the uniform.
The sad fact of the matter is, no matter how many gun laws you make, no matter how may booths you have to walk through, the police cannot protect you.
Shoot, they might not even want to. They get a medal tho.
In the wake of recent tragic shootings, millions of people are suddenly familiar with the weapon, but actually have no real understanding of what they are talking about when they speak of it. The rabble rabble of gun-control advocates has become an ignorant roar. I happen to be against most restrictions on gun ownership myself, but this article is meant to inform, no matter what your stance is on the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
To start, the term "assault rifle" is being sorely misused by the media, as always. To be an assault rifle, the weapon must be a selective-fire full-auto capable machine-gun. Which means that when you pull the trigger and hold it, the bullets will continue to fire automatically until the magazine is empty. Or, that you may "select" your fire to a "burst" mode in which (usually) three rounds will be discharged per trigger-pull, preserving ammunition and increasing accuracy, while at the same time putting some serious lead-on-target. Finally, you may select a standard semi-automatic rate of fire, meaning a bullet will fire once each time you pull the trigger. A semi-automatic rate of fire is the most accurate, and preserves the most ammunition. Contrary to the Hollywood perception, standard semi-automatic is the most effective method of fire, whereas full auto machine gun fire is generally the least efficient selection for killing people. Full-auto fire is often referred to as "spray and pray" because you spray a lot of lead, and pray you hit something. You might also pray that you don't run out of ammo before you actually hit your targets as well.
M-16 Variants
Kalashnikov AK-47
The U.S.-designated M-16 is the standard combat rifle for our military personnel. It is a selective-fire assault rifle specifically designed for combat use. First deployed in the Vietnam War, it was not well-received at all by combat troops at the time. The weapon jammed frequently, was unreliable, and the small caliber round lacked killing power. Despite its initial lackluster performance under combat conditions, the weapon has been continually refined over the years since to become the standard, not only for the United States military, but for military and police forces around the world. "Western" nations in particular favor this rifle over its chief rival, popularly known as the AK-47, which was originally designed by Soviet hero Mikhail Kalashnikov. That weapon is widely circulated among nations with Communist leanings and/or anti-American sentiment. It might be said that the M-16 is to the AK-47 what Kentucky bourbon is to Russian vodka. The pros and cons of each weapon are debatable, but you might see either or both at any real party.
Today, the M-16 is available in a wide variety of configurations with Colt being the leading manufacturer and supplier to the U.S. military. Some other manufacturers have been licensed by Colt to produce the rifle, with many other manufacturers also producing "knock-off" versions of the popular weapon. Colt also produces the M4, which is essentially a shortened tactical combat version of the M16, initially designed for Special Operations use, as well as other military-grade variants. They also produce the now ubiquitous AR-15.
Contrary to popular misconceptions, the "AR" in AR-15 does not stand for "assault rifle." It was the original military designation for the version of the M16 produced by manufacturer ArmaLite, who sold the design rights for the original M16 to Colt back in 1959. You see, ARmalite, the first letters of the manufacturer name, not "assault rifle." Colt now uses the AR-15 designation strictly for civilian-use only models of the popular rifle. Civilian-use models are actually stripped of their "assault" capability, and do not have selective or fully-automatic fire. The AR-15 has the appearance of the popular soldier's rifle, but not the same capability. You might say, the AR-15 is like a 4-cylinder Ford Mustang. Looks fast, but really doesn't have any ponies under the hood. The AR-15 is no more deadly than any other rifle on the market, and is certainly no assault rifle.
The name Bushmaster does not refer to any sort of special capability either. Bushmaster is simply the name of the manufacturer who produces a rifle similar in appearance to that manufactured by Colt. The designation AR-15 is now widely applied generically to any rifle of similar appearance, but in truth, rifles produced by companies like Bushmaster are not authentic AR-15's at all. This is sort of like calling any generic aspirin a Bayer, or even like calling a Coke a Pepsi. Same, but different. So despite the menacing-sounding name "Bushmaster," once again we are left with a watered-down generic version of reality.
There's a thinker
Finally, we have the ".223" portion of the rifle's description. To the uninformed, the number sounds like a big technical number that probably makes this rifle more deadly than other rifles. Again, not actually so. Technically, the number .223 refers to the diameter of the bullet. Twenty-twos's are often used for small-game hunting, like birds and squirrel, and for backyard tin-can plinking on summer afternoons. Some BB/pellet guns even come in a .22-caliber design.
Admittedly though, there is some difference between a .22-caliber pellet fired from an air-rifle, and a .223 round fired from an AR-15. The difference here is not about the width of the round but how fast the round travels. It will still make a very small hole, but it will hit a target with a lot more energy, giving it more penetration power, and allowing the round to travel further distances. This is made possible because more gun-powder is loaded behind the projectile than in a standard .22-caliber round, forcing it out of the gun a lot faster.
The .223 is actually the smallest commonly used rifle ammunition, despite a relative high-power gunpowder load like that used in a combat rifle or a hunting rifle. Even when used for game hunting, the .223 ammo is not a large enough caliber to take down commonly hunted game such as deer. As a matter of fact, this small ammunition is used specifically in combat operations to not kill the enemy, but rather to wound the enemy instead. Why would you not want to kill an enemy in combat you ask? Because a wounded enemy will require aid from their comrades, distracting them from the fight, whereas a dead enemy can be left to be dealt with later when the fight is over. Just to make that perfectly clear, the .223 caliber rifle, when used as an anti-personnel weapon, is meant to wound the target rather than to kill it outright. So technically, this would make this rifle the "safest" rifle that a civilian could possibly own. A person is less likely to be killed by an AR-15 .223 round than by any other rifle shot. You can see from the image provided here, the difference between a .223 round used in the AR-15, a .308 round commonly used in bolt-action hunting rifles, and the 7.62mm round used in AK-47 style rifles.
Ammo Comparison
We could talk all day long about the merits and lethality of different sorts of ammunition, from rifle loads, to jacketing, to hollow-tips, to fragmenting rounds, and so forth. You can search for yourself numerous charts which display comparisons of all different sorts of ammunition. No one type of ammo is necessarily any more deadly than the other. It all comes down to how it is used. And the same goes for any firearm.
From the zip-gun to the shotgun, to your grand-dad's hunting rifle, to your brother's combat rifle, no one firearm is inherently more dangerous than the other. It all comes down to how it is used. While the public suddenly panics over the AR-15, we seem to forget that school shootings are not a new phenomenon and that even old-fashioned weapons were used in the past to commit similar crimes by bizarrely deranged individuals, such as Charles Whitman.
Whitman's Weapons
In August 1966, Whitman opened fire from the tower of the University of Texas in Austin, killing numerous people. His rampage actually began with the murder of his mother and wife with a knife, not a firearm. He then mounted the tower killing several people there with a shotgun, before sniping the campus from his accomplished vantage point, with WWII-era rifles. His self-authored account of his own mental breakdown is chillingly familiar to so many mass murders and particularly school shootings. Sixteen people died in that event nearly a half-century ago.
All in all, at the end of any day, there is no single firearm which is truly "safer" or more dangerous than another. Nor are firearms any more or less dangerous than other methods of killing. Timothy McVeigh used farm fertilizer to kill 168 people, many of them children. The Unites States government used fire to kill the inhabitants of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. Among the dead there were twenty-one children under the age of sixteen.Your kitchen cabinet probably contains enough bleach and ammonia that would make enough mustard gas to wipe out hundreds of people.
Firearms are just a tool, like any other, in the hands of man. They can be used for evil, they can be used to defend against evil. They can be used for Olympic-grade sport, they can be used to feed your family. Madmen will always find a way to kill innocents, even if they do it by taking away your guns.
Right off the bat I will openly admit that my family has had a gun accident. An accidental discharge that went through the floor and could have hit the person in the room downstairs. Worse, it was a minor who fired the shot after his father's pistol slipped out of his pocket after a day at work. This crap does happen, sad as it may be, and even tragically at times.
There was another time, where I was at scout camp. I literally split an arrow in the bulls-eye. Got the top award for camp that Summer, plus another award for shooting. Next year I almost shot the instructor because I wasn't paying attention. (I was focused on the target, not the rules of the range.) No gun, just a stick of wood basically.
Part ONE:
Just a few days ago a man was found with an illegally owned and modified sawed-off shotgun in a residential community that was originally set up for women to escape domestic violence. They are also alleged to have left a baby home alone all night, with the shotgun. Neglect aside, which is bad enough of course, there is another point here.
A follower of our page also lives in that residential community that is meant to be a haven from violence. There are many children who live there, and the place is meant to help people get back on their feet after they fall. Whether it be a devastating house fire, a devastating domestic partner, or simply the devastating loss of a good job. This residential community out on Route 55 in Dutchess County is sketchy at times, granted, but ultimately a god-send to our neighbors in the most dire of straits.
Our follower ended up in a confrontation, with this character just a few weeks ago, while this alleged shotgun owner appeared to be breaking into a room there, as he was passing by to the soda machine. It quickly became violent. Thankfully the police were on scene within a few minutes as the resident tried to fend off this belligerent with a stick.
But there is the crux.
The person who was trying to fend off an attack by what he says was a "berserker" was left with a stick to poke this guy off, and waiting critical minutes for the police. What would have happened if that man got into his room to get his sawed off shotgun?
Moreover, the victim in that attack owns a shotgun legally. Bought, paid for, background checks and all. Owned and paid for right here in Dutchess County where the 2nd Amendment is dubious at best..
Now we have a man who is intimately familiar with firearms, responsibly. He is a veteran, has worked in law enforcement, as a Firefighter, and an EMT. But he can't have his own legal gun in his home because he happens to be very poor at the moment. In the very same housing community where someone left their kid alone all night to "hit da club" maybe, and leave the 1 year old with the sawed-off. The same person who attacked another resident just weeks before. But we can't protect ourselves here with legally owned firearms.
This is a the consequence of a gun-free zone.
Part TWO:
An old friend of mine suffered a brutal family tragedy. She saw her father shoot her mother, then shot her again with a fatal shot before killing himself as the police raided. I can't possibly imagine, don't want to really, what she suffered... and must still suffer as a bold survivor. Yet there is something to be learned from this brutal event.
First, the father had been sent to jail already. There was an order of protection in place. He was violent in the home, allegedly, to the point that the judge set a large bail. A very large bail actually. (Something like a quarter-mil if I remember right.) From what I understand though, the named victim was not informed when the alleged perp made bail. (If a perp gets out, a phone call should be mandatory in the case of a violent offense.)
Now, to my understanding, New York State law makes it mandatory that firearms be removed from the house when a domestic violence charge is alleged, even before being proven. That appears to be the case case here, the judge ordered that all firearms be seized from the house.
A few weeks later that father, husband, named perpetrator showed up at his home where his wife and children were. He made entry, and shot his wife, once, with a wound that was not immediately fatal. For the next few hours the police from every sort of department and specialty surrounded the house. And sat there. Until he finally murdered his wife and himself. (In front of their daughter, who lived.)
Now I wasn't there, so it's easy to Monday-morning quarterback some things. My point here is not to shit on the police or say they should have done something better.
My point here is to shit on the law itself. The law does not circumvent the 2nd Amendment.
If it were not mandatory to take the guns out of the house, those women would have been armed.
Period.
Part Three:
I have also been what is called a "first-responder." I have worked in law-enforcement, as a firefighter, trained as an EMT. (Firefighters are the best tho.) Jack of all trades master of none you could say.
But I got pissed the hell off when my department Chief banned me from carrying my legally owned firearm into the house, while at the same time giving an exemption to a volunteer who also happened to be a sworn LEO.
Now don't get me wrong here, I don't think a cop should have to disarm to come into a firehouse. But at the same time, I don't think a firefighter should have to disarm either. Granted, a FF should never carry a gun on an alarm. (Even if cop, day job or not.) Also, all firearms should be secured better than leaving it in the top of your locker. But here it how it went down...
Our Chief banned all FFs from bringing our legally owned and properly secured firearms onto the property. No just in the house, but that means I can't even put my pistol in my gun box that I have specially banged into my dash, hampering my response as a volunteer FF.
Now take it a step further. The entire reason they made this a policy was because some moron firefighter went off his rocker and carried a gun into the meeting where they fired him. He didn't actually do anything, but I admit I warned the officers that I knew he was armed.
Soooo, as it wound up, he got fired, threw a bunch of crap around the room and walked out. Then they made a no gun policy. But here's the real catch.
They made it against policy for FFs to carry their legal guns, while the guy who got fired has every right to enter a public building with his gun and shoot all of us, if he were to be a nut like that.
All in all, you can never stop a nut, a gun is just a tool.
There are better ways to kill a lot of people if you think about it. .... Whuuut?
