Shockingly graphic photo essay on the destruction caused by AR-15's in today's WP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These photos and videos are necessary. I’m a school shooting survivor. Nothing is going to remotely change without literally showing people what will happen if they’re shot. Nothing.

Nothing is going to “change” at all. This issue is over in the US, no matter what we think of it. Simple machines that propel a small piece of metal down a tube are a very old technology. Back in the 1980s you had just a few numbers of manufacturers who had the equipment to make them. Now people are 3D printing the receivers at home. Or milling them from metal since the machinery for that is now relatively cheap to own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These photos and videos are necessary. I’m a school shooting survivor. Nothing is going to remotely change without literally showing people what will happen if they’re shot. Nothing.

Nothing is going to “change” at all. This issue is over in the US, no matter what we think of it. Simple machines that propel a small piece of metal down a tube are a very old technology. Back in the 1980s you had just a few numbers of manufacturers who had the equipment to make them. Now people are 3D printing the receivers at home. Or milling them from metal since the machinery for that is now relatively cheap to own.

Not everyone is as easily defeated as you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Not everyone is as easily defeated as you.

I’m not “defeated”. I’m just being a realist and I make my decisions based on objectivity rather than emotion. And I’m a hobbyist in other areas (RC planes and amateur rocketry) who has a lot of the same equipment and understands the design of the guns.

The Washington Post can and should publish anything they want, but this is the same WaPo that also ran a good, analytical piece a few years ago stating that my child’s chance of being shot to death on school property and during the school day is less than one in 700 million, and that we need to stop letting emotion and fear play a part in the conversation.

I don’t hunt deer or deal with coyotes or foxes near my livestock, but growing up in a small town in the 80s, a lot of my “country kid” friends did. Many had AR-design or similar box magazine rifles back then and nobody really thought much of it, except back then they were relatively expensive. It was cheaper to buy a more traditional-looking wooden stock rifle.

Nowadays that “AR” 15 or the bigger 10 is just a ubiquitous “pattern” with no remaining patents, so anyone from an upstart company to a hobbyist in his garage can CNC mill one - or thousands. That genie left the bottle decades ago with the computer revolution.

Go into an outdoor / hunting store (not just a gun store) like Bass Pro Shops or Scheels, and you aren’t going to find many old 1950s-style walnut stocked and blued-steel rifles. From an aesthetic perspective that’s too bad, but Gen-Z doesn’t care for the design of grandpa’s deer rifle. Most everything for large or medium game is going to be an AR pattern aluminum gun; you simply have to snap on an upper barrel that’s chambered for a more powerful caliber that can take down a deer.

Among Gen-Z hunters and target competitors, these rifles are popular. Any Democrat politician with some urban and suburban constituents knows that. Politically, this issue is a done deal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not everyone is as easily defeated as you.

I’m not “defeated”. I’m just being a realist and I make my decisions based on objectivity rather than emotion. And I’m a hobbyist in other areas (RC planes and amateur rocketry) who has a lot of the same equipment and understands the design of the guns.

The Washington Post can and should publish anything they want, but this is the same WaPo that also ran a good, analytical piece a few years ago stating that my child’s chance of being shot to death on school property and during the school day is less than one in 700 million, and that we need to stop letting emotion and fear play a part in the conversation.

I don’t hunt deer or deal with coyotes or foxes near my livestock, but growing up in a small town in the 80s, a lot of my “country kid” friends did. Many had AR-design or similar box magazine rifles back then and nobody really thought much of it, except back then they were relatively expensive. It was cheaper to buy a more traditional-looking wooden stock rifle.

Nowadays that “AR” 15 or the bigger 10 is just a ubiquitous “pattern” with no remaining patents, so anyone from an upstart company to a hobbyist in his garage can CNC mill one - or thousands. That genie left the bottle decades ago with the computer revolution.

Go into an outdoor / hunting store (not just a gun store) like Bass Pro Shops or Scheels, and you aren’t going to find many old 1950s-style walnut stocked and blued-steel rifles. From an aesthetic perspective that’s too bad, but Gen-Z doesn’t care for the design of grandpa’s deer rifle. Most everything for large or medium game is going to be an AR pattern aluminum gun; you simply have to snap on an upper barrel that’s chambered for a more powerful caliber that can take down a deer.

Among Gen-Z hunters and target competitors, these rifles are popular. Any Democrat politician with some urban and suburban constituents knows that. Politically, this issue is a done deal.

Not everyone wants to roll over for the NRA. You may not have any fight in you but many others still do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not everyone is as easily defeated as you.

I’m not “defeated”. I’m just being a realist and I make my decisions based on objectivity rather than emotion. And I’m a hobbyist in other areas (RC planes and amateur rocketry) who has a lot of the same equipment and understands the design of the guns.

The Washington Post can and should publish anything they want, but this is the same WaPo that also ran a good, analytical piece a few years ago stating that my child’s chance of being shot to death on school property and during the school day is less than one in 700 million, and that we need to stop letting emotion and fear play a part in the conversation.

I don’t hunt deer or deal with coyotes or foxes near my livestock, but growing up in a small town in the 80s, a lot of my “country kid” friends did. Many had AR-design or similar box magazine rifles back then and nobody really thought much of it, except back then they were relatively expensive. It was cheaper to buy a more traditional-looking wooden stock rifle.

Nowadays that “AR” 15 or the bigger 10 is just a ubiquitous “pattern” with no remaining patents, so anyone from an upstart company to a hobbyist in his garage can CNC mill one - or thousands. That genie left the bottle decades ago with the computer revolution.

Go into an outdoor / hunting store (not just a gun store) like Bass Pro Shops or Scheels, and you aren’t going to find many old 1950s-style walnut stocked and blued-steel rifles. From an aesthetic perspective that’s too bad, but Gen-Z doesn’t care for the design of grandpa’s deer rifle. Most everything for large or medium game is going to be an AR pattern aluminum gun; you simply have to snap on an upper barrel that’s chambered for a more powerful caliber that can take down a deer.

Among Gen-Z hunters and target competitors, these rifles are popular. Any Democrat politician with some urban and suburban constituents knows that. Politically, this issue is a done deal.

Well that’s all cold comfort for the next set of slaughtered children. Ho hum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Not everyone wants to roll over for the NRA. You may not have any fight in you but many others still do.

I’m not here to have any fight for or against. I just like to analyze the math. The NRA is not some random, amorphous thing that just appeared out of thin air. They have millions of members voting with their hundreds of millions of dollars, just like any lobby has the right to do - if they can find that sort of membership base.

To tell the truth, the NRA is totally dysfunctional right now with a bunch of leadership scandals. And yet gun control still polls terribly. It's a loser political issue.

I have no desire to get on board with a gun control platform when there’s this illogical fixation on rifles as seen in this thread. Look up the FBI homicide rates yourself. On average there are around 300 or 350 homicides by rifle per year, or one a day in a country of ~350m citizens / residents. That number is (and I’m not joking about this…) around the same death rate as autoerotic asphyxiation, falling out of bed, being killed by a lawnmower, and falling off ladders.

Of course not all the rifles used for homicides are AR pattern ones, so the actual AR homicide rate may be a smaller percent of that one per day.

Let’s say there are 25m AR rifles in the US and you bought them back at an average purchase price of a grand each and you assumed 100% compliance. That’s a $25b expenditure that could be put toward something that kills many hundreds a day, such as cancer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Not everyone wants to roll over for the NRA. You may not have any fight in you but many others still do.

I’m not here to have any fight for or against. I just like to analyze the math. The NRA is not some random, amorphous thing that just appeared out of thin air. They have millions of members voting with their hundreds of millions of dollars, just like any lobby has the right to do - if they can find that sort of membership base.

To tell the truth, the NRA is totally dysfunctional right now with a bunch of leadership scandals. And yet gun control still polls terribly. It's a loser political issue.

I have no desire to get on board with a gun control platform when there’s this illogical fixation on rifles as seen in this thread. Look up the FBI homicide rates yourself. On average there are around 300 or 350 homicides by rifle per year, or one a day in a country of ~350m citizens / residents. That number is (and I’m not joking about this…) around the same death rate as autoerotic asphyxiation, falling out of bed, being killed by a lawnmower, and falling off ladders.

Of course not all the rifles used for homicides are AR pattern ones, so the actual AR homicide rate may be a smaller percent of that one per day.

Let’s say there are 25m AR rifles in the US and you bought them back at an average purchase price of a grand each and you assumed 100% compliance. That’s a $25b expenditure that could be put toward something that kills many hundreds a day, such as cancer.

Please educate yourself about where the NRA is getting their millions. The gun manufacturers would just like to make profits. Period. They could not care less about anything else. If you want to use your vote to make gun manufacturers rich go ahead but most of us have more important priorities.

[Anonymous]

Yeah but everyone who buys a gun knows full well (and supports the fact) that a percent of their purchase is going to go to the NRA. So again, that’s just people voting with their dollars, which is their right.

Also, keep in mind with my math above, that the actual compliance rate is going to be practically nothing if the government went so far as to buy back rifles. The death rate of law enforcement officers alone would be higher than the current annual death rate from homicides from the devices. And people can just 3-D print another receiver in their garage.


It’s illogical, no matter how you slice it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah but everyone who buys a gun knows full well (and supports the fact) that a percent of their purchase is going to go to the NRA. So again, that’s just people voting with their dollars, which is their right.

Also, keep in mind with my math above, that the actual compliance rate is going to be practically nothing if the government went so far as to buy back rifles. The death rate of law enforcement officers alone would be higher than the current annual death rate from homicides from the devices. And people can just 3-D print another receiver in their garage.


It’s illogical, no matter how you slice it.

You are just a lazy defeatist. Others will take on the industry without the likes of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah but everyone who buys a gun knows full well (and supports the fact) that a percent of their purchase is going to go to the NRA. So again, that’s just people voting with their dollars, which is their right.

Also, keep in mind with my math above, that the actual compliance rate is going to be practically nothing if the government went so far as to buy back rifles. The death rate of law enforcement officers alone would be higher than the current annual death rate from homicides from the devices. And people can just 3-D print another receiver in their garage.


It’s illogical, no matter how you slice it.

Go play with your little 3 d printer in your garage if that how you want to spend your time and energy. Leave this fight to people with some strength and determination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I literally don’t feel well enough today to go look but I’m glad they’re showing some of the carnage.

Too many gun nuts get to play pretend that AR15 guns don’t do anything special. Literally on this site in the last three months or so, one of those ignoramuses was arguing that there’s nothing especially bad about the wounds from these weapons, even though the doctors who have had to treat these wounds talk about the massive damage they do, in part from “cavitation.”

The GOP wants us all scared and cowering.

Show me a modern centerfire rifle round that doesn’t produce cavitation. Every comparison I’ve seen by the anti gun crowd has shown the effects of 5.56mm AR15 ammunition vs PISTOL ammunition which isn’t apples to apples. A bullet from a 30-06 hunting rifle from 100 years ago will produce more devastating wounds, not to say the 5.56mm wounds aren’t already devastating.

Why not just say you want to ban or heavily restrict all semi automatic rifles? That would actually be an effective policy. It doesn’t make sense to try to ban AR15’s while leaving other models still legal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I literally don’t feel well enough today to go look but I’m glad they’re showing some of the carnage.

Too many gun nuts get to play pretend that AR15 guns don’t do anything special. Literally on this site in the last three months or so, one of those ignoramuses was arguing that there’s nothing especially bad about the wounds from these weapons, even though the doctors who have had to treat these wounds talk about the massive damage they do, in part from “cavitation.”

The GOP wants us all scared and cowering.

Show me a modern centerfire rifle round that doesn’t produce cavitation. Every comparison I’ve seen by the anti gun crowd has shown the effects of 5.56mm AR15 ammunition vs PISTOL ammunition which isn’t apples to apples. A bullet from a 30-06 hunting rifle from 100 years ago will produce more devastating wounds, not to say the 5.56mm wounds aren’t already devastating.

Why not just say you want to ban or heavily restrict all semi automatic rifles? That would actually be an effective policy. It doesn’t make sense to try to ban AR15’s while leaving other models still legal.

Yes, it is purely an emotional argument. They want you to follow the science when it comes to vaccines, but they won’t take the time to learn about ballistics to put together a cohesive rational argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I literally don’t feel well enough today to go look but I’m glad they’re showing some of the carnage.

Too many gun nuts get to play pretend that AR15 guns don’t do anything special. Literally on this site in the last three months or so, one of those ignoramuses was arguing that there’s nothing especially bad about the wounds from these weapons, even though the doctors who have had to treat these wounds talk about the massive damage they do, in part from “cavitation.”

The GOP wants us all scared and cowering.

Show me a modern centerfire rifle round that doesn’t produce cavitation. Every comparison I’ve seen by the anti gun crowd has shown the effects of 5.56mm AR15 ammunition vs PISTOL ammunition which isn’t apples to apples. A bullet from a 30-06 hunting rifle from 100 years ago will produce more devastating wounds, not to say the 5.56mm wounds aren’t already devastating.

Why not just say you want to ban or heavily restrict all semi automatic rifles? That would actually be an effective policy. It doesn’t make sense to try to ban AR15’s while leaving other models still legal.

Yes, it is purely an emotional argument. They want you to follow the science when it comes to vaccines, but they won’t take the time to learn about ballistics to put together a cohesive rational argument.

Ok fine. ban or heavily restrict all semi automatic rifles. Life will go on just fine without any of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Go play with your little 3 d printer in your garage if that how you want to spend your time and energy. Leave this fight to people with some strength and determination.

Dude, I already explained it’s not my hobby, or my sport. I’m only interested in the science behind it, and “cost/benefit” math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Go play with your little 3 d printer in your garage if that how you want to spend your time and energy. Leave this fight to people with some strength and determination.

Dude, I already explained it’s not my hobby, or my sport. I’m only interested in the science behind it, and “cost/benefit” math.

This is a politics thread. Go to the science thread then.