US to enforce law' banning assault weapons

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – The Obama administration wants to crack down on the sale of assault weapons that are arming Mexican drug cartels, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with NBC television.

Clinton late Wednesday called letting a previous US ban on the sale of assault weapons expire "a mistake."

"I think these assault weapons, these military style weapons, don't belong on anyone's street," said Clinton who pushed for the ban as a New York senator.

"During the time period from 1994 to 2004, when the ban was in effect, our police in America were able to drive crime down because they didn't have to worry about these assault weapons getting into the hands of criminals and gang members," the chief US diplomat said.

"So we will make the case that we need to put more teeth in the law, try to prohibit the sale outside of our borders of these guns," Clinton said.

"We're going to talk to the Congress, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's a very heavy lift," Clinton said.

On the plane to Mexico City, Clinton said drug gangs were "outgunning" Mexican law enforcement with military-style equipment that also included night-vision goggles and body armor.

Clinton is scheduled to visit a police station in Mexico City on Thursday as part of her consultations on the drug wars that have left 6,300 people dead in Mexico since 2008 and that are spilling over the border in the form of kidnappings and other violence.

She is due later to travel to the northern city of Monterrey, near the border with Texas.

http://www.auto-ordnance.com/PA-1TH_t.html

People that want to ban weapons would cry if you owned
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Any run of the mill gun can make anybody dangerous. A great rifle with great scope cannot make "anybody" more dangerous at 1000 yds. I don't care what gun, scope or ammo, unless the person with their finger on the trigger KNOWS what their doing, they'd be extremely lucky to hit anything out to 1000 yds.

Example: The trajectory of a .308 at 500 yds. DROPS about 30" more than at 400 yds.

The same round drops an ADDITIONAL 40" at 600 yds.

Unless the person already KNOWS the distance, he needs to be able to measure and judge his distance.

Most avg. hunters are used to hitting something at 200 maybe 300 yds. sometimes even out to 400 yds.. He can guess at droppage and get a kill going from 200 to 400 yds., the bullet will drop an additional approx. 30", but a 200 yd change from 400 yds to 600 yds. is almost an ADDITIONAL 6 foot drop. Care to figure what that round would drop an additional 400 yds.?

At 1000 yds. crosswind, headwind, humidty, heat, all start playing MAJOR factors. It takes someone very experienced, with very good equipment to make that shot.

Most cops are going to be in an urban environment, with most "sniper" shots under 200 yds.. A average person with avg. experience with an avg. hunting type rifle is adequate. The same .308, scoped at 100 yds. the drop at 200 yds is only 4".. Meaning that virtually anybody who can aim and shoot is deadly.

The real issue is, just because guns are outlawed doesn't make cops any safer. They STILL have to approach every person and every situation as and armed confrontation.

Answering a simple call to a home, is the person in the house a criminal or law abiding citizen? Is he armed?

If the person in the house is a law abiding citizen who has guns in the house, is no threat to the officer. But make that person a criminal/gangbanger that makes the situation entirely different.

Its NOT the gun that makes the situation dangerous, its the character of the person. A person of good character is no more dangerous with a gun or without.

Outlaw guns, and is the badguy disarmed? More than likely not. But the good guy is. But if a good guy is no more dangerous with a gun as without, how is a cop safer?

Care to figure what that round would drop an additional 400 yds.?

It depends on what you are sending out the muzzle, but a 168 grain Federal boat-tailed hollow point (match ammo) will drop just under 22 feet more from 600 yards to 1000 yards, if it was going 2600 fps coming out of the pipe.

Perhaps I should have specified: "Make dangerous people inclined toward murder more dangerous".

Certainly, the style of shooting with a bolt action versus a semi-automatic is different for most shooters. With a follow up shot slower with a bolt action, (on average, some bolt action shooters are very quick) the shooter is liable to take the time to make the first (and often only) shot count, much as those of us who learned to hunt small game with a rolling block .22.

With the exception of some of the Stoner variant rifles and the M1A, most semiautomatics are not as accurate as a decent bolt action, all else being equal.

Anyone engaging in shooting as a martial art is going to do their homework, and while the average gangbanger may rely on volume of fire to achieve their ends, forcing them to rely on accuracy might imbue them with the zeal for marksamnship to learn the rifleman's craft to a much higher order. The amount of deflection, change in aiming point for downhill shots (from rooftops or upper floor windows), to learn the ballistics of their rifle's ammunition, to load their own to match-grade specifications, to, in a word, become more professional with a firearm would not make the streets any safer for police--nor opposing gang members, although the general public might suffer less 'collateral damage'.

For those who delude themselves into thinking that a 30 round magazine will make up for neglected marksmanship skills, the likelihood is far less of creating the effective, specific, fatal mayhem those with an accurate rifle and knowledge of marksmanship can create, especially if there are a number of people so inclined with a coordinated sense of purpose.

In an urban environment, all distances can be known to anyone who is so inclined. Angles from rooftop positions, windows, etc. can all be figured beforehand. This is the perp's home turf, not the officer's.

As you noted, any weapon makes one more dangerous than the absence of one given the predillection toward being dangerous, but refinements in weapons technology, tactics, and technical skill come about because of a perceived need to gain a tactical or strategic advantage over (or negate) one an adversary is perceived as having.

I come from an open area of the country (Northern Plains) where 300 yard shots on whitetail are the norm. Overall, most hunters here are reasonably good shots to 400 and 500 yards, who know the ballistics of their favorite cartridge. Most won't take a 400+ yard shot because of the likelyhood of merely wounding the animal and having to track it. Wind is a major factor. Few, admittedly, are those who can hit a target at 1000 yards (the two I know who can take marksmanship very seriously--they breathe it--and their rifle gores are cleaner than their silverware), at least with any consistency, and wind is as much a factor as (and a far more unpredictable one than) bullet drop for which tables are readily available.

Anyone who wishes to acquire the ability to become proficient at those ranges can, if they religiously dedicate themselves to the task and have good hardware, but most will never shoot as well as their rifles are capable.

However, my point, and one I stand by, is that the perceived need to become more accurate in their fire, over the reliance on volume of fire, could lead to those who intend to do harm becoming more proficient with their weapons, and getting a better and more accurate weapon, which would overall be less safe for those the perpetrators intend to harm.

For police, the idea of a punk with a Lorcin .22 or a Raven twenty feet away isn't as 'unbeatable' as the guy drawing a well calculated bead from a couple of rooftops over with a scoped rifle. YMMV.

Its NOT the gun that makes the situation dangerous, its the character of the person. A person of good character is no more dangerous with a gun or without.

In case my previous comment was not clear, let me reiterate: I agree.

I only forsee the "unintended consequence" of banning semi-sutomatice to be that those who intend to do evil will become more proficient in the use of whatever arms are available to them.

Granted, as well, those who will ignore laws against murder are not likely to be worried about a firearms violation, and that using the actions of the relatively few miscreants (when compared with the vast number of law abiding gun owners) to deprive law abiding people of their rights is an evil act in and of itself, evidence of the cowardice of Government in the face of the people it supposedly exists to serve.

Most of the weapons on the street in Mexico were originally in the possession of the Mexican Army.

IF the gangsters have H&Ks, then that is likely true. If they have AKs and ARs, it's much less likely. Their police maybe, I'm not sure what kind of rifles they use.

Now Greta is saying that AK-47s are not "small weapons", I guess the small weapons would be handguns and .22 rifles.

I hate to tell her, (NOT!), but AK's and for that matter ARs, are "intermediate power" weapons, in contrast to the H&Ks in 7.62 NATO that the Mexican Army used until recently. (They now use an indigious derivitive of a version of the 5.56 H&)

For comparison the H&K G-36

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