Flash Suppressors Do Not Kill People

"These tragedies must end," says President Obama, referring to Adam Lanza's horrifying assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last Friday. Although it is hard to disagree with that sentiment, the measures Obama favors cannot reasonably be expected to prevent such thankfully rare but nevertheless appalling outbursts of senseless violence.

After the massacre, press secretary Jay Carney reiterated Obama's support for reinstating the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., promised to introduce a bill aimed at doing so next month. But we know for sure that an "assault weapon" ban would not have stopped Lanza or made his attack less deadly, because it didn't.

The rifle that Lanza used, a .223-caliber Bushmaster M4 carbine, is legal under Connecticut's "assault weapon" ban, and the federal law used the same criteria. Except for specifically listed models, both laws cover semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines that have at least two of these five features: 1) a folding or telescoping stock, 2) a pistol grip, 3) a bayonet mount, 4) a grenade launcher and 5) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel.

The fact that such features have little or no functional significance in the context of violent crime reveals the folly of trying to distinguish between "good" and "bad" guns. Any gun that can be used for self-defense or other legitimate purposes also can be used to murder people.

Guns like Lanza's, modeled after the Colt AR-15, are among the most popular rifles in America, with an estimated 3.5 million sold since 1986. Only a tiny fraction of them are ever used in crimes.

Prior to the federal "assault weapon" ban, firearms covered by the law were used in something like 2 percent of gun crimes, and these were mostly pistols, according to a 2004 study sponsored by the National Institute of Justice. FBI numbers indicate that rifles of any kind (not just "assault weapons") are used in less than 3 percent of murders. Even killers with multiple victims are much more likely to use ordinary handguns than "assault weapons."

I use those scare quotes because the very term "assault weapon" was invented by the anti-gun lobby as a way of blurring the distinction between semi-automatic firearms, which fire once per trigger pull, and machine guns such as the selective-fire assault rifles carried by soldiers. The president himself either does not understand the difference or deliberately obscures it, calling upon Congress to ban "AK-47s" and "automatic weapons."

Given the fraudulent rationale for the "assault weapon" ban, it's not surprising that the NIJ study found little evidence the law had reduced gun violence. "Should it be renewed," University of Pennsylvania criminologist Christopher Koper and his co-authors concluded, "the ban's effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement."

That was so even when taking into account another aspect of the law that Obama wants to restore: its ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. While it is debatable whether the few seconds it takes to switch magazines or guns makes an important difference in attacks on moviegoers in a darkened theater or on first-graders in an elementary school, Lanza did use 30-round magazines, and this restriction at least looks like a relevant response to mass shootings.

So many large-capacity magazines are already in circulation, however, that it's hard to see how reinstating this ban would stop a determined killer from obtaining them. Even when the ban was in force, Koper found, there was "an immense stock" of about 30 million such magazines, and the number surely has risen since then.

Likewise, with around 300 million guns in circulation, there is not much that new laws can do to prevent a man bent on slaughtering innocents from obtaining one. The understandable grief and anger provoked by the Sandy Hook massacre does not change that unavoidable reality.

I started putting together an AR-15 - been researching for months and started buying components recently. The CT shootings made me accelerate my schedule a bit.

The hardest part, by far, isn’t learning about the weapon, choosing the right components to insure functionality/reliability, or making those parts work together.

The hardest part is trying to figure out what the applicable federal laws say, try to interpret what they mean, and guess how they apply.

With an AR-15 (and I suspect other rifles in it’s class), you can add (or remove) several parts that can have little to nothing to do with the capability of the weapon and immediately go from legal, to felony possession.

And that completely leaves out the possibility and danger of misinterpretation by any LEOs you might come in contact with, who likely understand the relevant legislation less than the rifle owner.

It’s beyond crazy.

A not too distant analogy would be putting a huge spoiler ana a fart can muffler on a Civic and saying it’s now legally a race car.

Short question with a long answer.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.223_Remington

“While the 5.56mm NATO and .223 Remington cartridges and chamberings are very similar, they are not identical.

While there is a myth that 5.56 NATO cases are thicker and hence have less capacity than commercial .223 cases, this has been shown to be false. Each brand of case and each manufacturing lot has a slightly different case capacity; 5.56 NATO and .223 commercial cases tend to have nearly identical case capacity when measured using the water test. The NATO specification allows a higher chamber pressure. NATO EPVAT test barrels made for 5.56mm NATO measure chamber pressure at the case mouth, as opposed to the location used by the United States civil standards organization SAAMI. The piezoelectric sensors or transducers NATO and SAAMI use to conduct the actual pressure measurements also differ. This difference in measurement method accounts for upwards of 137.9 megapascals (20,000 psi) difference in pressure measurements. This means the NATO EPVAT maximum service pressure of 430 megapascals (62,000 psi) for 5.56mm NATO, is reduced by SAAMI to 379.21 megapascals (55,000 psi) for .223 Remington. In contrast to SAAMI, the other main civil standards organization C.I.P. defines the maximum service and proof test pressures of the .223 Remington cartridge equal to the 5.56mm NATO.

The 5.56mm NATO chambering, known as a NATO or mil-spec chamber, has a longer leade (also referred to as the throat), which is the distance between the mouth of the cartridge and the point at which the rifling engages the bullet. The .223 Remington chambering, known as SAAMI chamber, is allowed to have a shorter leade, and is only required to be proof tested to the lower SAAMI chamber pressure. To address these issues, various proprietary chambers exist, such as the Wylde chamber (Bill Wylde)or the ArmaLite chamber, which are designed to handle both 5.56mm NATO and .223 Remington equally well. The dimensions and leade of the .223 Remington minimum C.I.P. chamber also differ from the 5.56mm NATO chamber specification.

Using commercial .223 Remington cartridges in a 5.56mm NATO chambered rifle should work reliably, but generally will not be as accurate as when fired from a .223 Remington chambered gun due to the longer leade. Using 5.56mm NATO mil-spec cartridges (such as the M855) in a .223 Remington chambered rifle can lead to excessive wear and stress on the rifle and even be unsafe, and the SAAMI recommends against the practice. Some commercial rifles marked as “.223 Remington” are in fact suited for 5.56mm NATO, such as many commercial AR-15 variants and the Ruger Mini-14, but the manufacturer should always be consulted to verify that this is acceptable before attempting it, and signs of excessive pressure (such as flattening or gas staining of the primers) should be looked for in the initial testing with 5.56mm NATO ammunition.”
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So, to sum up, shooting .223 Rem ammo from a rifle chambered in 5.56 NATO is perfectly safe but the round might not be as accurate as when fired from a .223 Rem chamber. Shooting 5.56 NATO ammo from a rifle chambered in .223 Rem is probably OK but there is a one-in-a-million chance something bad could happen(over-pressure). Still, people do it all day and don’t worry about it. Some .223 Rem chambers are engineered to handle the pressure of 5.56 NATO cartridge. I’d be careful, though, because some aren’t. Check the website of the rifle’s manufacturer.

The president himself either does not understand the difference or deliberately obscures it, calling upon Congress to ban "AK-47s" and "automatic weapons."

This is a point emphasized and warned against by George Orwell, about Communists (of whom Obama is one): that is, deliberately vague and misleading use of language.

Orwell watched in horror as the Spanish Stalinists used this kind of trickery to isolate, turn on, and then arrest and try their erstwhile Labor Syndicalist allies in the Spanish Republican movement. The reason was to get control of the Republican movement and war effort -- it didn't matter that the Republicans were sustaining grave reverses at the hands of Franco's Phalange during this time, or that the Communists' wrangling and grabbing for control was actually hurting the overall cause. The Communists actually ended up executing numbers of "trial" victims.

In the course of these betrayals and murderous control grabs, Orwell himself was forced to flee Spain, injured gravely and for life (he was unfit for service when he volunteered in Britain a few years later).

Thereafter, he warned everyone who'd listen about the treachery of Communists and their weaselly language, which he lit up prominently in both Animal Farm and 1984.

We’ve come a long way from 1962 when Thomas J Dodd and Emanuel Cellar proposed the first Federal registration for handguns.

“WE don’t want to take your guns away, we ONLY want to register them! Rifles and shotguns will not be affected!-Dodd & Cellar.

What they did not tell you...

(”And we want to ban the import of 5 shot bolt action military surplus rifles and handguns to protect the CT gunmakers”)

1980..”WE only want to regulate handguns! Rifles and long guns are not the problem!”-HCI release

1981 “The NRA is a RIFLE ORGANIZATION! They should give up their handguns and they can keep their rifles!”-Lee Grant on GMA

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