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EVERY 48 HOURS An
Analysis Of Assault Rifles An Analysis Of Assault Rifles Traced
To Crime In Maryland September
2006 authored
by CeaseFire Maryland Inc. Board Member Susan Peschin 4th comment on Ceasefire's
"EVERY 48 HOURS" Phil
Lee1 Dec 29, 2006
(rev. 3/8/08) [ Testimony
] Ms. Peschin asserts on page 6: The best way to understand what
assault weapons are is to understand what they are not. Assault weapons were
not originally intended for competitive shooting or legal for hunting.16 16 According to Maryland Code,
§10-416, "A person may not hunt deer with any firearm that uses an
ammunition clip holding more than 8 cartridges or bullets. In this paragraph,
`ammunition clip' includes a cartridge or bullet holder called a banana
clip." Ms. Peschin appears not to be aware of a common practice
to reduce capacity in shotguns and rifle magazines for the purpose of
hunting. She falsely asserts that firearms that can hold more
than eight rounds are not legal to hunt deer in Maryland; that “a person
may not hunt deer with any firearm that uses an ammunition clip holding more
than 8 cartridges or bullets.” To the contrary – the Maryland DNR says, about
using firearms with higher capacity than eight rounds: “Firearms used for deer
hunting may not have an ammunition clip loaded with more than 8 cartridges or
bullets. If a clip has the capacity to hold more than 8 rounds, the clip does
not have to be physically blocked, but no more than 8 cartridges or bullets
may be loaded.” In hunting mammals or fur-bearing species other than
deer, such as woodchuck, fox, coyote, opossum, nutria, fisher, skunk, raccoon
or vermin, the DNR has no such limit on how many rounds can be loaded in a
hunter’s firearm. In target practice and shooting competition, Ms. Peschin
does not appear aware that the AR-15 and the M-1A are commonly used in
competitions and have been for more than 20 years. Ms. Peschin asserts on page 7: Semiautomatic assault weapons (like AK and AR-15 assault rifles and UZI and MAC assault pistols) are civilian versions of military assault weapons. There are virtually no significant differences between them. Ms. Peschin is talking nonsense. The ATF approves the designs of these
civilian versions to ensure they cannot easily be converted to fully
automatic firearms (machine guns).
The ATF thinks there is a significant difference otherwise why bother
to ensure this difficulty of conversion.
The Congress of the United States banned ownership of newly created
automatic firearms more than a decade ago – 1986 in the otherwise accurately
named Firearm Owners Protection Act (McClure-Volkmer). It appears the Congress of the United
States thought there was a significant difference between automatic and
semiautomatic firearms. The Army of
the United States purchases M-16s, which can fire three round bursts
automatically (with one pull of the trigger), but does not buy any M-16
design with only semi-automatic capability such as the civilian AR-15. Obviously the United States Army thinks
there is a significant difference. The German Army (Bundeswehr) uses the Heckler-Koch HK
G36 assault rifle which can be operated as a fully automatic machine gun in two round
bursts or continuous fire. Their army
does not purchase semi-automatic versions of this firearm. The previous main rifle of the Bundeswehr
was the G3 which also had a fully automatic mode. The G3 was adopted by the military of
Germany, Greece, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Cyprus, Portugal, Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, Turkey, Pakistan, El Salvador, and Thailand, but no semi-automatic
versions of these rifles have been adopted and purchased by these
countries. I suggest that the
militaries of these countries think there are significant differences between
the fully automatic rifles and the semi-automatic versions available to
civilians. At http://www.constitution.org/jw/mil-m.htm
is stated: "To survive the average citizen of Israel possesses firearms capable for fully automatic fire. Israel has more automatic weapons per capita than any nation than perhaps Switzerland.(239) Submachine guns are a daily part of an Israeli's life. Not only is the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) fully armed at all times, but so are average citizens. The typical farmer carries an Uzi machine pistol with him in the field. The factory worker and the housewife have Uzis nearby at all times. Few Israelis venture out in an automobile without having their machine guns by their sides. To enter into certain areas, such as the Gaza strip and the Sinai desert, areas taken from Egypt, one must, by law, be armed." Ms. Peschin should try to persuade the Israelis to turn
in their automatic firearms for semiautomatic versions given that she thinks
there is no significant differences to the machine guns they currently
have. It would be interesting to
record Israeli reactions to Ms. Peschin's sales pitch. On p7 Ms. Peschin asserts: Civilian semiautomatic assault weapons incorporate all of the functional design features that make assault weapons so deadly. They are arguably more deadly than military versions, because most experts agree that semiautomatic fire is more accurate—and therefore more lethal—than automatic fire.18 and cites as authority the NRA in her footnote: 18 "How Effective is Automatic Fire?" American Rifleman, May 1980, page 30. According to the article's author L.F.Moore, "The
proliferation of this philosophy [(it is assumed) "hits" can be
assured by simply pointing in the general direction of the target and
depressing the trigger until the weapon is empty] among American GI's may
help account for the expenditure of thousands of dollars per each
"kill" in the Vietnamese war; and the fact that far more ammunition
had to be expended per "hit" in that war than in World War II.
Recent testing has shown that even highly trained and capable riflemen score
approximately 50% more hits in semi-automatic fire than in fully automatic.
Neophyte marksmen prove virtually incapable of obtaining hits in fully
automatic fire." (ref: http://www.constitution.org/jw/mil-m.htm
) I wonder if Ms. Peschin and Ceasefire would be willing
to support a return to civilian markets in the U.S. of the "safer"
fully automatic versions of these rifles? Ms. Peschin proclaims the perils of design features for
some semi-automatic rifles as being useful for "hosing down"
an area by "spray firing from the hip". She claims that "numerous military
sources show how the functional design features of assault weapons are used
specifically for this purpose," but gives not one reference to a
document or training film for the Army approving this practice. Shooting from the hip with any firearm is
notoriously inaccurate and that is why it is, in the common vernacular, known
to mean wild and inaccurate. It is a common belief among people ignorant of firearms
that hip shooting (a la the Hollywood version of western gunfights) was the
way to shoot your enemies rapidly.
This belief has been debunked in many places including Time
Magazine in 1931. The August 3
issue claimed in a note on the Texas-Oklahoma "Bridge War" that
Ranger Captain Tom Hickman had "hit 18 out of 20 matches at 50 feet
shooting from the hip." Ranger
Hickman was contacted to verify this reported claim -- why after the fact and
not before Time reported this claim?
His response in the Aug. 31 issue of Time said "The
thing that puzzles me is the fact that the publishers of the different
newspapers and magazines would use such a story as the shooting yarn without
making the least effort to verify it. During the entire dispute over the Red
River free and toll bridges, I did not have a pistol in my hand . . . ." Ms. Peschin suffers from too much contact
with Hollywood movies of violence and too little contact with the reality of
violence. One of the best trick shots of the 20th Century was
Edward McGivern who did perform stunts in public events involving shooting
from the hip. Despite the skill he
developed by many years of practice with thousands of rounds of ammunition
fired, he said "Personally, I make use of and depend on the sights
whenever it is at all possible to use them, even when working on the fastest
aerial target shooting and other speed performances where it is quite
generally believed, by many, that sights are not used. This belief is entirely wrong and should
be corrected . . . ", Ref: Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting,
1938 King-Richardson Co.,
Springfield, Mass, page 396. 1 Phil Lee has a PhD in Mathematics. |