Grey Matters

What are they smoking over at Rolling Stone? Okay, stupid question, but they really outdid themselves in a July 14, 2014 piece.

They must have been really hard up for material to have published Rolling Stone contributor Kristen Gwynn’s “article” titled, “The Five Most Dangerous Guns In America.” This noteworthy article should be held by magnets to every refrigerator in America.

Her methodology to determine the five most dangerous guns was exhaustive. She ranked them according to how many were recovered from crime scenes. She came up with this list:

• Pistols
• Revolvers
• Rifles
• Shotguns
• Derringers

Personally, on a topic this important, I think it should have been the Ten Most Dangerous, or Twenty-Five. Why leave us hanging like this? Why such a narrow focus? Tell us more!!

<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/pictures/the-5-most-dangerous-guns-in-america-20140714>

There’s a wealth of good information there like: “pistols are defined by their built-in barrel…” and “Rifles were created to improve the accuracy of smoothbore muskets, for which the musket ball was often an bad fit due to manufacturing complications.” (Proving that their proof reading is on par with their research.)

As it happens, when someone on a chat list to which I subscribe mentioned that the “regular reason” people want certain rifles was to “kill people from a great distance from a place of concealment” I happened to be in the process of watching the “Sniper 101” series of videos available on YouTube. Very interesting stuff. The fellow who produced the videos (Rex) goes into great detail. GREAT detail. Most videos are 20-30 minutes long and I’m on part 62 currently. (Rex also scores his own soundtrack.)

Folks with a Hollywood education likely believe that to “kill people from a great distance from a place of concealment” all you need to do is buy a Big Rifle, attach a Big Scope, insert a Big Bullet then aim the crosshairs at the target (through a hole you cut in the hotel window with a glass cutter) and pull the trigger. It’s more complicated than that. There’s science involved, lots of science.

Years ago, when the local Gun Club shooting range was in a different location, the longest shot we could make was about 300 yards. I enjoyed ringing the 300 yard gong, though in hindsight, I was woefully ignorant of ballistics and long distance shooting technique back then.

I consider “great distance” to be anything over a couple of football fields. The Sniper 101 series is about “extreme long distance” shooting. One video has Rex shooting at 1388 yards. (He missed, but corrected for it later.)

In recent years, I’ve been honing my handgun skills (mostly Glock) and playing with my Uzi. But I’ve been thinking about some rifle bench rest shooting down the road and started watching “Sniper 101”. Very interesting stuff.

For example, when a rifle is fired, the bullet, if you could see it in extreme slow motion, would be revealed to start and stop several times. Upon ignition of the shell’s primer, there may be enough pressure created to dislodge the bullet from the shell casing. It would travel forward just far enough to encounter the bore of the rifle, then stop, the friction being too much for its then very low momentum. Once the powder charge starts burning (pressure vs time is an almost bell-shaped curve), the pressure reaches a point sufficient to start a bullet down the barrel to the point where it encounters the rifling — the lands and grooves that cut into the bullet so as to impart a stabilizing spin. At this point, the bullet stops again because the pressure has not yet built to the point where it can overcome the friction of the rifling. But that occurs soon enough and the bullet it again accelerated down the barrel to the muzzle.

Now, you’d think that at the point where the bullet leaves the barrel, it has attained the maximum velocity of its short trip. In fact, however, the pressure wave of hot gasses exiting the barrel behind the bullet continue to push the bullet and accelerate it even more. And it all happens in a little over a millisecond from ignition of the primer.

Rex talks about barrel harmonics and nodes. And how the powder charge can affect those harmonics and consequently, the size of your groups. (More powder is not always better.)

There’s geometry and calculus. Science. Lots of science. If I’m immersed in the Gun Culture up to my knees, Rex is up to his eyeballs. You’re probably familiar with windage and elevation adjustments. Rex goes into compensating for barometric pressure, temperature and humidity. The official Army manual has it exactly backwards regarding humidity, saying that it slows a bullet when the opposite is true. Turns out that water vapor is less dense than air.

Entertaining and educational stuff. I doubt I’ll ever need to “kill people from a great distance from a place of concealment” but this video series will help me ring the gong.

In response to Hamas’ latest attacks, Israel is sending in their crack Israeli Defense Force.
 
 

While discussing the demographics of gunshot victims on a chat list, one person (whom I’ll call Bruce, to protect his real identity) opined: “Best not to take guns from home where they are needed to protect home and haul them into town so they can settle any local squabbles as well as due to inability to shoot straight, shoot as many bystanders as possible”. As poorly constructed as that sentence is, I got the gist of it. “Leave guns at home. Do not take them to town to settle squabbles, besides, you’re such a bad shot, you’ll hit bystanders.” Or something like that.

To which I replied:

Guns don’t get “taken into town to settle local squabbles“. They’re already in town, in the hands of gang members who use them to settle local squabbles.

This is “gang culture”, not to be confused with the “gun culture”, of which I am a member.

Since April, I have shot nearly 5,000 rounds of 9mm and not once was it to settle a squabble. Not one shot in anger. Just honing my shooting skills. My wife shot perhaps 700-800 rounds as well. No squabbles were harmed in the firing of her Glock.

Like many who cannot see the forest for the trees, “Bruce” believes that the best way to curtail the “gun violence” of the lawless gang culture is to impose yet more legal restrictions on the gun culture, i.e., the folks who actually obey the law.

Abusers of firearms are easily identifiable demographically. Until we start addressing the cultural problem of that demographic, “gun violence” will continue. No one wants to see this problem solved more than the gun culture, since we bear the brunt of efforts to “fix” it.

The fixes offered are ineffective because they do not address the problem. They may address fear of the problem! but not the problem itself. Magazine capacity limits and the assault on “assault weapons” don’t address the tools of gang culture nor the mindset (or the government policies that created it) of that demographic. You are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be shot by an “assault weapon”.

Restricting the carrying of guns by law abiding citizens just plays into the hands of the gang culture, who prefer their victims disarmed.

And perpetuating stereotypes like the average Joe who uses a gun to “settle squabbles” is a disservice to all.

That’s what it was called by a field correspondent on the evening news: “Israel’s war on Gaza“. Hamas fires rockets into Israel, Israel shoots back and it’s called Israel making war on Gaza.

Much was made of the fact that many have died as a result of Israel’s response while no one was been killed by the Hamas attacks on Israel. Apparently, because Hamas is ineffective, Israel should not strike back.

For its part, Hamas is getting exactly what they want — civilian casualties — the better to claim aggrieved status. So they locate their rocket launchers in civilian neighborhoods where there is certain to be collateral damage.

And this makes Israel the bad guy.

I am reminded when, as a kid, I was visiting a neighbor across the street and we got into a squabble about something or other. We fought. The other kid’s mother came to the door and wanted to know what was going on. My opponent declared, “It all started when he hit me back!”