Bear with me. I find this series of letters to the editor interesting and couldn’t pick a single quote but instead chose to use them all. Whether or not a fourth letter appears is anyone’s guess.

Dec. 16 — To the Editor:

Let me start by thanking all the pro-assault rifle folks for coming to our boycott demonstration at KTP on Dec. 8. Our boycott of KTP continues to bring attention to the horrific sale of semi-automatic rifles by KTP, and the pro assault rifle supporters also bring needed attention to this matter.

One striking persistent comment of pro 2A people is that they don’t like calling assault rifles “assault rifles.” They prefer the term, as Michael Dow states in his LTE, a “certain kind of sporting rifles known as the AR.” I don’t know if Michael Dow knows, or cares to know, what the high-speed bullets of such ARs do to bone or organs of people when they are struck, but that is well known to the doctors who treat such injuries. Those bones or organs are pulverized, destroyed, as the high-speed bullets tumble in their path of destruction through the body. That is why so many people die in the mass shooting that are becoming the “new normal” in our country. This is far from “sport,” and it is terrorizing our people, our children. This is “our tyranny.”

The bottom line is that the vast majority of US citizens want a safe society, and we are determined to do what is reasonable to make our society safe.

– Leonard Korn MD, Immediate Past President, New Hampshire Medical Society, Why We Continue to Boycott Kittery Trading Post

Two days later another reader fired back with their own letter. I only wish he had known enough about firearms history to mention early repeating arms can be traced to the 14th century – yes, really…primitive though they were they existed. And let’s not forget the sixteen-shot wheel-lock of the 1590s.

But I digress:

Dr. Leonard Korn recently wrote a letter to the editor…

Unfortunately, in the editorial, he also chose to discuss firearms; a subject on which he clearly has severely limited knowledge.

He suggested that the Trading Post sold “assault rifles” – they do not. Even a cursory fact check about “assault rifles” would reveal that, among other things, they must be capable of selective fire; in other words, able to operate in full auto mode similar to a “machine gun”. The Trading Post does not sell these. It does, however, sell firearms that resemble rifles that can be used this way, but resemblance does not equal functionality.

Dr. Korn speaks of the damage done by these “assault rifles”. Curiously, he separates out the “assault rifles”, suggesting that the damage done by them is greater in some way than that from any other rifle, pistol, or shotgun – it is not.

What he describes is the result of contact with a very fast moving object, such as a bullet, or for that matter a car.

He further seems to think that the Second Amendment is restricted to the technology of the day. He says our forefathers were referring to muskets, not self loading rifles – again, it just isn’t so. They were a wise lot. Let’s face it, if restricted to the technology of the day, the First Amendment would only apply to the printed word. You see, electronic media in all it’s forms didn’t exist back then. – Everett Leland of Kittery, Maine, Writer’s View on Guns, Trading Post, Ill-Informed

It wasn’t over yet, though. Here comes letter number three from the anti side:

Everett Leland wants us to believe that Doctor Korn is too dumb to know what an assault rifle is. Anyone can plainly see that the Kittery Trading Post sells military style weapons that look nothing like sporting rifles and that is their appeal. Clearly the intent of these weapons is to kill people. You only get one shot at a deer. These weapons come with large capacity magazines that have no sporting purpose. That is why they are favored by criminals and are smuggled over the border to arm the narcotic gangs. This of course contributes to our nation’s immigration and drug overdose problems but let’s not get into that now.

Everyone also knows that these weapons are easily converted to automatic fire as has been demonstrated numerous times; the most dramatic being the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Why would a manufacturer of these assault rifles include a “man card” with each purchase? Unbelievably, you get a wallet sized card you can carry around that says that since you own this assault rifle you are a real man. – Bill Kingston of New Castle, Writer’s Defense of Assault Rifles is Obviously Specious

Man card? Well…yes, Bushmaster made a less-than-bright decision to do the man card thing almost a decade ago. The link has long since expired but there are still some advertising images around:

These arguments are endless and the anti-gun side has a tendency to get down in the dirt right off. Maybe it’s time we learned to respond in kind (but for the love of God, stop gifting them ammunition to use against us).

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

151 COMMENTS

  1. Well that was about 20 minutes that I’ll never get back in my life. I don’t even want to repeat the mile long incorrect statements made in that article all the way from 223 Remington or 5.56 NATO being specially designed to destroy bones and organs when it’s relatively one of the smaller of all Centerfire rifle cartridges on the market. It’s this way so that soldiers can carry more ammunition in a combat situation plus it’s better to wound an enemy than to kill one because if you wound an enemy it takes two or more people to carry that person to Aid where if you shoot and kill them nobody stops to help them. It’s what’s known in the military Community as a force multiplier. This is nothing more than a long bit of hogwash oh that’s funny I should say it that way don’t you think.

    • Right? After deer season this year my step-daughter asked to learn to shoot my AR-15. I showed her the ammo, how to load it in the magazine, how to load the rifle. She asked why I didn’t use it for deer hunting – I told her, while legal in my state, I feel it’s a little under powered for the job; and while it would do it if necessary, my other rifle does better – then I showed her the cartridge from my .30-06; Her eyes got big. the next statement was “and that little itty bitty one is the one they want to ban because it’s to powerful?”

      Yeah, silly isn’t it?

      • I’ve had these kinds of conversations with people before and, if at my house, I’ll go grab a 5.56, 30-30, .270, 30-06, and usually a couple oddball things like a 12 gauge shell and a 45-70, and ask them to guess which one goes in my AR. Rarely, if ever, do they guess the 5.56.

        I have had some, when they realize the tiny one is the scary assault round of death and destruction ask how the little one can be so powerful. “Uh, it’s not”, I reply.

        It is shockingly common that people will make these claims about things they have absolutely no knowledge of. To me, it always comes off like a couple of guys who have spent their entire lives as fisherman on a tropical island authoritatively discussing survival strategies for Himilayan mountaineers.

      • in the past I have put a 223 next to cartridges from 357mag, 44 mag and 45 Colt as a comparison for people who don’t know much about firearms and any thoughts about the 223 being high powered go away since the rounds are about the same length and the pistol rounds are a fair bit fatter

    • I really wished people would stop parroting this whole it was designed to wound instead of kill because its more manpower intensive. That’s stupid. When was the last time we faced an enemy that cared for its wounded? The Germans maybe? It certainly wasn’t the Japanese, the North Koreans, or the Chinese who didn’t give a rats ass about their wounded and that was before the 5.56. The Viet Cong and NVA weren’t much better in that regard. I really doubt the Soviets cared much either. Not to mention if you do just wound the guy great he’ll be patched up in a few months and be back to shooting you all over again.

      • For anyone who’s seen the movie “Starship Troopers” or read the [vastly superior] Heinlein novel, the troop ship “Roger Young” was named after an actual person, an Army enlisted man who won the MoH in the Pacific.

        The Japanese wounded him… MULTIPLE times. His response? He killed a LOT of Japanese until they finally killed him with a burst of machine gun fire to the face. Somehow I doubt that the Japanese were happy at having created a “burden” for his comrades by wounding him.

      • Thank you! Never in my 12 years and counting as an infantry officer did I or any of my boys train to wound. What utter nonsense.

    • The whole “5.56 was designed to wound not kill” is simply a myth. A very old and very hard ingrained myth, though, so don’t blame yourself for believing it. This myth is so ingrained in people’s minds I’m sure even the brass at the pentagon believes it. The xm193 certainly wasn’t designed with that in mind, and m855 was designed to penetrate Warsaw Pact body armor. The new m855A1 was designed around body armor threats as well.

      • I think the M855 was designed to penetrate the steel helmets at 600 yards (meters?).

        • Could be. I just remember it was a ridiculously long distance for a head shot from an M16/M4.

        • Sorry to inform you. The only reason they put the steel penetrator in the M855 is for balance. It takes 88 rounds to penetrate AR 500 Steel plate.

      • It is amazing how many people refuse to accept that the reason the M-16/M-4 in 5.56 was adopted to replace the M-14 in 7.62 is simply that an M-16 plus 100 rounds weighs less than an M-14 plus 40 rounds. Backpackers get it – I just ask them why they don’t carry a 12″ cast iron skillet with them when it is a better cooking vessel than the thin little steel/aluminum/titanium pans they do carry.

        • If I remember right they went from 240 rounds to 660.

          There was also the fact that the 7.62 in the M14 was pretty much uncontrollable in full auto. Of course full auto isn’t much of a concern now a days.

        • Yea, I couldn’t remember the actual load out but recall that the ratio was roughly 4/10. I’ve never had a chance to fire an M-14 on FA but have certainly heard that it is a beast – first shot on target and the rest are anti-aircraft fire.

        • Ian at Forgotten Weapons calls the M14 on auto-fire a “minute of berm” rifle, provided he’s standing within 25 yards of the berm.

        • First time firing the M14 on FA was humbling. After firing one box on semi I was instructed to “engage safety, remove one empty magazine from rifle, place on table in front of you, remove one magazine from pouch and load into rifle. Operate bolt and load a live round into chamber. Move safety to fire, move selector to auto fire, firing a 3 round burst, commence firing”….can still hear his voice, lol.

          Anyway, I thought (am) a good enough shot and rifleman but I wasn’t prepared for this first experience. My burst ended up running the 20 rounds in the mag, my first full auto mag dump. Over time it was easier to control that rifle but it was never going to deliver controlled FA fire in my hands.
          Oddly enough, firing the same round, I found the M60 easier to fire from the shoulder than the M14.

          Oh, back on topic. The good Dr writing the letter above is a tool. Intelligent though he may be, he seems to be a guy who educated himself to the extent necessary to regurgitate talking points without regard for those annoying facts we sometimes hear about.

      • Isn’t it harder to “shoot to wound”. I would think you’d have to be an excellent shot to get the legs and arms. I’m still new, and happy to just get on the paper target.

    • It’s not designed to “just wound.” It’s designed to be the minimum required to kill with reasonable range and accuracy in exchange for lighter weight and lighter recoil. M855 however is designed just to penetrate Soviet steel helmets, and loses much of the lethality that made the M193 effective.

  2. Indeed, those high speed assault bullets pulverize bone. It’s especially apparent when you compare them with a slower bullet, like a .45 ACP, that gently massages and caresses bones.

    • To be fair, stealing souls is hard work. The .45 is too busy conjuring spells at time of impact to totally vaporize flesh and bone.

    • It seems to me I’ve heard a number of times how devastating the injuries were in the Civil War from those slow, heavy and soft mini-balls the infantry rifles shot that not only crushed bone but made it splinter and send bone shards through the flesh.

      • I have heard it stated that the Civil War was a war fought with modern weapons and medieval medical treatment.

        • And you would be correct. Gatling guns are still in use today, as are brass cased, primer ignited ammo. Very little difference. No “plasma rifles in the 40 Watt range”…. yet.

        • Went to the museum in Gettysburg. The number of .60 – .75 caliber rifles behind glass was amazing. Can’t imagine any clean hits, anywhere on the body. The smashing effect of the bullets (conical/Minie’) had to be just horrendous.

    • .45 acp, You can practically see the bullet float up to their body and give it a nudge. Looks like a bumblebee.

      And they have such a mild sound when fired. You hardly notice it.

  3. He’s the kind of moron who causes me to wish certain people could be banned from voting or maybe we should any automobile that exceeds 60 mph because speed kills.

    • I think he is the ‘special’ kind of moron that should, under no circumstances, be allowed to practice his bleeding and leeches(excuse me, the modern term now is; chemo and radiation) on any living humans.
      But, the sheeple seem to love them, and the more ridiculously stupid, the better. So, once again, I am in the tiniest batch of minorities.

    • Timothy – totally agree with your thoughts; then I remembered a quote from Car and a Driver magazine around 25 years ago, generally attributed in my memory to the late (and revered) David E. Davis:
      “Speed doesn’t kill, rapid deceleration does.”

  4. I was wondering if the anti’s Matrix bullet dodging copypasta would return.
    Next up: under a ban, once all the charged magazines are used up there won’t be anymore.
    It’s great that one neednt be correct to be “right.”

    • Usually hear that last bit as you don’t need to be correct if you are politically correct but I like your version better. On a related note anyone hear anything about 3d printed mags reliability?

      • @IvanTheTroll12 on Twitter has come up with a spring bending jig, and has fired 300 rounds from a printed mag without damaging it.

  5. This is far from “sport,” and it is terrorizing our people, our children. This is “our tyranny.”
    Dr. Leonard Korn

    News for Dr.Korn,the Second Amendment isn’t about sport but rather the Tyranny you wish to impose on We The People .

  6. “these semi-automatic rifles with magazines holding twenty or more high velocity bullets of destruction. These weapons need to be in the hands only of our police… ”
    Truly have to wonder why these people seem so comfortable with the police needing to pulverize bones and organs.

  7. As a former Medic and civilian Paramedic I can objectively state that the rounds from .223 / 5.56 do not “pulverize” organs.

    Korn is a psychiatrist projecting his Freudian fears of size onto a gullible public. His knowledge of firearms is data gained from the “usual suspects”, most likely, Bloomberg et al. It is interesting that his on-line reviews give him a maximum score of 3…out of 5…apparently he’s not even a good psychiatrist (60% is a Fail in most grading systems). Nothing left for him to do in his dotage but to become a flag bearer for the Left.

    • “Korn is a psychiatrist projecting his Freudian fears of size onto a gullible public. ”

      Yup, another nut using misinformation to create “Children of the Korn”. Another reason why we need such tools.

      “SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED”

    • I dunno, a 64gr ppt I shot from an 18 inch barrel went through a does shoulder, making a half dollar size hole in the bone, turned the lungs into liquid and penetrated out the other shoulder.

      • If your doe weighed 125 pounds, was only 50 yards away, and you were using a nice 64 grain expanding bullet designed for hunting antelope and deer, sure.

        And that is wholly different from most military scenarios where the human attacker is much heavier, often wearing a ballistic vest/plate, and the bullet is a 55 grain or 62 grain non-expanding, full-metal jacket variety.

        Of course I would not want to be on the receiving end of either platform/scenario. Then again, I do not want to be on the receiving end of any firearm platform/scenario — just like I do not want to be on the receiving end of anything that could harm me.

        • So we’re not going to hear about you holding up a phone book and getting your girlfriend to shoot at it with a desert eagle? — Probably wise.

        • No it got up and said “.223 is stinking useless for deer! The old fudds told me so!” And walked off

    • I’ve told people they should go out and find a few soldiers who have survived a torso hit from 5.56 and a few who have survived a torso hit from 300 WinMag and get them to debate lethality. I’d help with that but I’ve never found a person who survived a torso hit from 300 WinMag.

      • I survived a “hit” from a 5.56 that hit my clavicle and ricocheted away from me. Did some damage but the bone stopped it from doing more. I have a nice scar you can barely see but it certainly didn’t “pulverize” the bone. In fact the bone is credited with saving me from further damage.

  9. What about all the bones and organs mangled and people killed with the proliferation of high speed vehicles on the road today. We were much safer with the safe Model T.

  10. Modern democrats are THE domestic enemies our Founders warned us about. Clean and oil your rif…..uh, I mean assault weapons, folks. Looks like we’re gonna need em.

  11. “He further seems to think that the Second Amendment is restricted to the technology of the day. He says our forefathers were referring to muskets, not self loading rifles – again, it just isn’t so. They were a wise lot. Let’s face it, if restricted to the technology of the day, the First Amendment would only apply to the printed word. You see, electronic media in all it’s forms didn’t exist back then. – Everett Leland of Kittery, Maine”

    I enjoy this point made in the letter so much. I cannot wait to use this!!!

    Bravo Mr. Everett, this will quickly blunt one of the favorite ignorant points of the antis.

  12. I will again say that OFTEN these letters are FAKE , written by papers themselves to advance the owners agenda.

    It should be noted that this …. ” Rifles and ‘ fast ‘ bullets are extra bad ” .. talking point has been making the rounds on a variety of LEFTIST media for several weeks now.
    ” VICE ” so called news did a report on this just recently.

    It’s like they all got the same MEMO … or something.

    SCRIPT – Top 10 Media Fakes
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHDDQVZ-A98

    • I can see their point. Perhaps we should have a law (duh) in order to minimize all these naughty rifles and fast bullets, that every American be required to own at least 2 handguns at all times, and to present one at the voting booth before being given a ballot. Slow bullets forever!!

      • We could still have rifles, they just have to be chambered for big, slow, cartridges. Imagine how much less lethal gunshot wounds would we would all be if we all carried rifles in 45-70. 300 grain bullets at 2100 fps probably won’t even break the skin (of an APC).

  13. I think the author of the letter regarding “High-Speed Assault Rifle Bullets Pulverize Bones and Organs” misses the point of the existence of the weapon. The purpose of the bullet is to do exactly that, and that results in the bad guy stopping doing what he was doing. How it is used is up to the person pulling the trigger. If criminals and countries behaved themselves, there would not be a need for using such devices on humans, but since we humans remain with the predatory instinct, the need for such weapons also remains. When man or country decides to threaten the rights and existence of another, it’s one’s duty to resist with extreme measures, hence the 2nd Amendment.

  14. Pulverizing bones and organs is the desired effect if you don’t want to be killed by your adversary. If you shoot at him with small, apologetic bullets which do no harm, he will kill you. I don’t know how Dr. Korn made it through med school or, for that matter, how he is able to tie his shoes.

  15. I don’t know why we even get bent out of shape by all of this crazy hyperbole about any firearms. Truth is- Americans are becoming as ignorant about guns and ammo as the rest of the western world. Arguing is ridiculous, take your borderline friends shooting. Seriously. Don’t try to justify anything or set the record straight, just let them shoot the stuff you have fun with. I taught in public ed for 40 years and during that time I took all sorts of teachers, men and women to the range and still do. I let them choose what they want to shoot but insist we start small so they aren’t scared off. I’ve yet to take anyone that didn’t have fun and quite a few later on bought guns of their own.

    In this day and age it’s pretty tough to get into shooting if there isn’t some sort of mentor. An average person walking into an indoor range is easily intimidated, especially by the mannerisms of a lot of the swagger inside. Many outdoor ranges require membership and a key so that’s often not an option. I was lucky to have my father introduce me to shooting when I was a kid, and lucky to have a farm across the road where we neighhood kids could go out daily and hunt, shoot at ground squirrels, and just explore and plink. Not so today. We’d all be a lot better off to find someone out there who doesn’t shoot and introduce them to it. No preaching, just let them shoot in a safe manner, like my dad did.

    Once someone knows something about firearms in general they’ll be able to form their own well-reasoned and experienced opinions. Isn’t that something we’d like to see, rather than idiot, nonsense letters to the editor?

    • I will admit that I do get, to use your words, bent out of shape by hyperbole like this, but I try not to take it out on people in person – especially those who are merely misinformed. Telling someone that they are flat out foolish to their face rarely makes them listen to the rest of what you say.

      Like you, if they are friends or colleagues, I do try to take them to the range and give them some hands on experience. I also try to start small (.22LR) and work up. I typically take along a decent selection of hand and long guns in terms of type and power. This gives me a chance to talk to them about power levels and the definition of various action types. On range trips like this, the guns I’ve found that the completely uninitiated people are generally most intrigued by are the ARs and the “cowboy” guns. People tend to be nervously excited about ARs and then, after shooting one, tend to be, well, “meh”. Lever rifles, revolvers and break action shotguns though seem to be a big hit with people – personally I think it’s the moving parts. Throwing levers and cocking hammers seems to be something people really enjoy. People often really like black powder revolvers and rifles too. Again, I think that is because of all the ‘things to do’ when shooting them. To a somewhat lesser extent, bolt actions also seem to be fun for newcomers. Semi-auto long guns don’t really seem to be what most newbies I’ve known find the most interesting.

      I’ve also discovered that good accuracy is really unimportant to newbies. I tend to take large targets and set up at short distances because as long as they hit something, they don’t much care about tight groups. In general, I also try to take them out shooting on informal, public land type ranges. There seems to be a lot less nervousness when a small group is out in the mountains than when a novice has to cope with a formal range and all the strangers. Only once have I ever had a friend go on a trip like this and then say, “I never want to do that again.”

      They also discover that an AR in 5.56 has very little recoil compared to and is clearly not as powerful as most any other centerfire rifle.

      • You make a lot of sense. I have ARs in .300 blk, 5.56, and 7.62, OK fine. 3-4 decades back I handled a fine SAA, don’t even recall the caliber or the price tag, action like hot knife thru melted butter and light, crisp trigger. Haven’t been able to forget it. Wife had it wrapped under the tree with leather holster and a box of .45 Long Colt. OO! OO!

        • A single action revolver is just plain fun – all day, any day. It’s especially fun when it is a nice single action revolver.

        • They’re even more fun in .44 magnum. Although, maybe not all day unless you start filling the cylinders with .44 special after a while.

        • You guys will have to come shoot my old FA 7 1/2″ .454 Casull if you really want to have “fun”…

  16. Even if what the ‘ good doctor ‘ says was true , which much is not , it does not make any difference , since our founders established the 2nd amendment for pulverizing other two legged vermin and not for sporting . If I believed a full automatic weapon in my personal hands was so much the more effective to pulverize a human enemy than my semi-auto versions I would convert most of my firearms over , because most of my firearms are in my possession for the remote possibility I may need them to pulverize the bones of things I DO NOT intend on eating . My very first bolt action 30.06 is still in my safe and it is still the firearm of choice when I want meat in my freezer . it is 45 years old and in point of fact almost identical to the assault rifle used for the pulverization murder of our American president , John Kennedy .

    • An old friend of my Grandfather’s used to say, “If my 30.06 won’t kill it I don’t want to go where it lives to hunt it.”

  17. It is a myth that the 5.56 NATO or .223 Remington is designed to tumble. Any bullet under some conditions can tumble.

    What is true is that when I load my own I embed tiny little hammers and chisels into the bullets I make myself. The very latest in Nano Technology. Once the fake copper jacket peels away and those little hammers and chisels get loose inside a bad guy or a zombie, they tumble about smashing every bit of bone there is.

    Yup, one hit with one of them hammer and chisel bullets and a bad guy, or a zombie, ain’t noth’un but a sack of bio-waste to shovel up.

    • See if anyone here is old enough to remember this! In the mid-’60s, before I had ever seen one, it was widely reported that the M16 fired a bullet with a triangular cross section, which tumbled through the air. I was pretty excited, since as a shooter for 10 years or so I could not imagine how that could possibly work. Imagine my disappointment …

      • Never heard that one. I have heard several crazy ones – fastest bullet made, longest range military round, designed to enter but not exit the body and tumble all around – but the all time goofiest i’ve heard is that the 5.56 the military has uses special bullets that civilians can’t get and, therefore, I can never know just how powerful and deadly it “really” is. For that guy I tried to explain that this is just ridiculous and that one of the reasons that military rounds are historically popular is cheap, surplus military ammo. This nut contended that there is no such thing as mil-surp ammo. No amount of lake city brass would sway him.

        • Exactly so. Military bullets are designed for performance and cost per round is one factor in that. There’s a budget, they want more for less and they never stop pushing. See it all the time in the defense plant I work in today.

          Civilian market gets standard military ammo a couple of ways. DoD buys mass quantities and slap an expiration data on it. Or, if it isn’t actual surplus in that sense, it is both deliberate and accidental over production by ammo makers. The sell to the public the same us the DoD because they are already geared to make it by the barrel full. Economy of Scale, true in every industry.

          There are some specialized bullets for the .50 BMG cartridge. Not much of a secret, can read all about them on the internet, Wikipedia, videos on YouTube.

  18. Wal…I’ll admit that I have very recently heard about the “man card.” But the “man card” I am trying to earn involves being able to execute four consecutive carbine shots at fast speed at 50 yards, hitting within a 4” circle. It’s not about the rifle at all.

    I did ask if there is a “woman card” available…but I’m not there yet so I guess it doesn’t matter. Yet.

    • The woman card would be the same 4 shots in the same timeframe… but done while a man stands to the side giving you advice and telling you that you are doing it wrong 🙂

      • @liljoe

        Haha, that’s awesome. I was waiting for someone to say that the woman card was a pink knitted card after I accomplish my goal, break down crying with joy and demand a safe space to process my emotions. 🙂

  19. “Everett Leland wants us to believe that Doctor Korn is too dumb to know what an assault rifle is.”

    That is because Doctor Korn *is* too dumb to know what an assault rifle is.

    Looks like his ignorance of small rifle round power and capabilities has already been dealt with by the rest of y’all.

  20. This is the most uneducated, borderline retarded weapon related article I have ever read in my entire life.

    Not even going to try to “fix” all of these misunderstandings and false use of words..just know that after the 2nd civil war, knowledge of the Second Amendment and it’s relations will be force educated to the masses. Because its aparrent Americans have become too retarded to simply google facts on their unalienable righrs and relations (like guns) to those rights. Smdh anyone who doesn’t understand simple facts about guns doesn’t deserve the protected right.

  21. The Second Amendment is *absolutely* about “military-styled” “weapons of war”.

    We should not shy away from this assertion. Affirm it clearly and unabashedly.

    Every time Second Amendment opponents talk about “military-styled” “weapons of war”, our response should be a quick and unblinking “yes, sowhat?” The follow-up one two punch should consist of: 1) stating that parity between civilians and the military is a fundamental right which defines liberty and provides a check on government tyranny, and: 2) clearly levelling the charge that anyone who wishes to limit the scope of exercise of the Second Amendment is doing nothing less than seeking to abridge liberty and undermine our democracy.

  22. I find it appalling that so many so called Educated people cannot think for themselves, but have mind fu***d themselves into believing they can! Because of this delusion they also Don’t believe In God, Country or the American way, instead for fame, glory, gigantic Ego with a dictatorial Superiority complex they produce master pieces of perfidy then claimed too be the real deal! and we the un washed are supposed to believe this smoke and mirror’s yep, sure, you betcha next life,
    x

  23. I was reading an issue of “Military History” magazine the other day when I came across an article that described how archeologists had recently uncovered a burial pit from the Civil War, containing amputated limbs irretrievably mangled by the far more “humane” .58 Minie bullets which were apparently far “kinder” than today’s 5.56mm bullets.

    You don’t have to be an idiot and a liar to… Oh whom am I kidding? You absolutely HAVE to be an idiot and a liar to support invidiously racist gun controls.

  25. Any ultrasound technician could tell this Doctor that he is full of crap about “assault rifles” being exceptionally deadly because of their high velocity projectiles. Ultrasound technicians are well aware that the speed of sound in most human tissues is about 1,500 m/s. The speed of sound in skull bone tissue is 4,000 m/s. Depending on exact load, the muzzle velocity of a projectile from an AR-15 is about 800 m/s to 1,000 m/s. See here:

    http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1983/7/83.07.05.x.html

    With only some 300 homicides committed in the US with rifles of any type each year, mostly in rural communities, it is highly doubtful that this doctor has ever treated a wound from an AR-15.

  26. For something fun to do, shoot a semi soft round lead ball into ballistic gell with a hot loaded 44 bp revolver. You really don’t need pointy fast atom smashers after all.

  27. I would caution anyone who is pro-gun to avoid arguing over the minutiae that we all take for granted. Caliber, FPS, weights, ranges, and so one, are all mind-numbing to the vast majority of the voting public who don’t have a solid opinion one way or another. I would also argue that the left purposely throws those bones at us, so we fight amongst ourselves, and alienate the people who we need to understand the value of the 2nd Amendment.

    The anti-gun crowd is constantly spinning a new story to captivate the vast middle ground to bring them to their side. The reason being, the left doesn’t need to flip many middle ground people to their side to flip the votes they need. Unfortunately human nature is such that we respond to emotional stories, instead of factual statements. Sadly, the left is way more adept at manipulating feelings instead of arguing facts. I have no doubt that the the intent of the left is to remove guns from our public consciousness, the same way they did in England, over many years. It’s much easier to take away rights, when you never knew you had them.

    The point to all of this is, we have to educate the pubic with a coherent message as to what the 2nd Amendment actually means to the Country, and to the people. We have to show what happens to countries that disarm their people. We have to show how the entire point of the 2nd Amendment was to ensure that the people of the United States never became subjects of a tyrannical government. Yes, the 2nd Amendment allows us to protect ourselves, but the true intent was to allow the citizens to protect the concept of America. America is great in-spite of the Government, not because of it. America is the people, not the Government. By surrendering our 2nd Amendment rights, it only encourages us to surrender more of our rights, or even allow them to be taken away.

    • I’ve pulverized a couple of bones. Of course, I did it by coming into contact with the ground at a relatively high speed. Oh, and there is this one incident with a particular power tool.

    • He’s not a doctor. He’s a psychiatrist.

      Psychiatry is a “ridiculous profession and it’s getting worse. It’s becoming almost like palm reading or phrenology. It’s been relegated to pop best sellers and talk shows. The only people that take it seriously are upper middle class people who are lonely and can afford to pay someone to listen to them.”

      ― Ian Shoales

  29. That is why they are favored by criminals and are smuggled over the border to arm the narcotic gangs. This of course contributes to our nation’s immigration and drug overdose problems but let’s not get into that now.

    I wonder where they got their full autos. We know they got some of their semi autos from Obama/FBI/ATF. With guys like these traveling back and forth between America and Mexico, why do we keep the border open for them to freely do their violent business? Do you want real machine guns being smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico? Hell, what about the grenades they have?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLX26c-dBBs

  30. I call anti-gun people, RACIST, for a reason. And I can articulate why I use that word. Unfortunate liberals have used this word when it does not apply. They have diluted the term. Like they have diluted standards of conduct and responsibility for many decades now.
    And FUDDs are the same. Racist.

    Liberal emotionalism does not trump historical facts or the science of firearms.
    Tell them they support the rape of women. Tell the Liberals they are comfortable letting innocent people being unable to defend themselves against attack. Because its true.

    Liberals are comfortable when a boy is raped. Liberals are comfortable when a little girl is kidnapped, never to be seen again, and her parents murdered. And the parents were disarmed.

    Liberals are VERY UNCOMFORTABLE when a civilian uses a gun and is successful in stopping the attack.
    Because if they are successful then even more people will think they can learn about guns in a positive way. Simply having a gun will not be a negative thought to the general public.

    Liberals vote for candidates who support disarming law abiding civilians. This is part of the great divide we have in America now.
    Personally I don’t think everyone needs an AR-15. Most gun ranges in the country can’t accommodate them. Most are limited to small caliber hand gun ammunition only. But you have the freedom to buy an AR-15 if you wish to.

    What is your opinion Liberal gun owners?

    • @Christ T

      I find that lately I am asking myself more and more: What is the real problem here that (some) people are trying to solve? And are the proposed solutions anything more than band-aids?

      Some people are trying to solve the problem of violence. No one is entirely sure what creates this problem of violence and therefore there is little consensus about how to solve it. Solutions range from mental health services to ERPOs to gun removal to arming teachers. Most meant to deal with the symptom more than the cause.

      Some are trying to solve the problem of the cause. These people are looking at social, cultural and developmental factors. They have theories about how if you changed the context the outcome would be different. Maybe yes and maybe no. The problem is that the theorized solutions involve the severe curtailment and/or removal of rights given by the constitution of this country. Once taken away, it’s not going to be an easy thing to get those back if the experiment fails. It’s too high a price to pay.

      Some are perhaps creating a different problem, which is the problem a ruling class has with a population that can fight back. The only solution to this perceived problem is disarmament, and in terms of ruling class, that appears to be quite a bipartisan deal with little difference between the sides.

      I guess it’s a matter of which part of this thorny pie any one of us are trying to approach at a given time.

      • Because I was born in California and raised under the Mulford Act, and watched how it was unequally enforced, I have a different view of Liberals than most people do. On TTAG and anywhere else.

        And please don’t bring up former Gov Reagan. He is a dead president. Guess who long ago endorsed the Mulford Act and the gun control movement? And guess who runs California now?

        • “… rights given by the constitution of this country.”

          You’re probably gonna get some blowback on the phrasing of that particular statement. I’ll try to avoid that particular argument and address your point of the “problem of violence.”

          One of the things that I have often commented about, here and elsewhere, is this notion that in the modern U.S. we have a “problem” with “violence”. Where is this problem? Less than one tenth of one percent of the U.S. population is confronted with violence that involves a firearm each year. People go on and on about “gun-violence” and yet, virtually no one ever actually experiences any. This is among the things that annoys me most about the so-called gun debate – that many people argue as if there is a large and ever-present threat of gun related crime in each or our daily lives when, in fact, there is not. 160,000 to 170,000 “gun crimes” are committed each year in this country – not all of them violent crimes. Around 11,000 to 14,000 suffer death due to (non-self inflicted) gunshots each year. There are 330 *million* people in this country – that works out to less (much less) than one one hundredth of one percent of the population. Why should I, or anyone else, care about a risk to my safety at this level? The booze and tobacco I expose myself to are two or three orders of magnitude more likely to kill me. I’m nearly as likely to get killed by a runaway horse as a bullet.

          Oh, BTW, I’m sorry about the volume of crap you have had to absorb here in recent months. I probably don’t agree with you on more than a few issues but I will always try to keep it civil.

        • @Myname

          Feel free to correct me anytime. I can sometimes be careless in comments, much more so than in articles because they’re more stream of consciousness. And thanks for the support, too.

          Having been in a country recently that is really violent and yet is considered the safest country in that part of the world, Namibia, I came back with a lot of musings about how much people worry about violence, which may or may not be related to how much violence there is. But if people perceive there to be tons of violence, they are going to have all the fears that people have about that.

          It took me spending five weeks in a country that is just dangerous as hell to realize how differently you think about safety where there really isn’t any such thing. You have to completely let go of your ideas and expectations about any of that so you won’t go nuts.

          I notice how every time I come back from overseas, the most common question isn’t, what did you see, who did you meet, what did you learn. It’s, were you safe? And when you say, Hell no! There’s no such thing as safe in Africa! – people are appalled that you went at all.

          We are as a nation kind of addicted to all that it seems. The idea of safety. I think people who do Dangerous Things are much less so, climbing sports (Free Solo, amazing amazing film), motorcycle people, gun shooters. That’s why we are regarded as weirdos. Those are my current musings, anyway.

        • Elaine, I recognize that one’s perception of safety and/or danger is very much dependent on where and how one lives (as it turns out, I am not a stranger to the third world either). I am still, however, very much influenced by data. For instance, I do not particularly enjoy commercial air travel, though I have experienced it several times. I recognize, even during unpleasant flights, that the probability of my suffering harm during a flight (even one that is experiencing 8.2 on the richter scale turbulence over the south pacific) is the same as the probability that the cat I have at home will kill me – it is just not going to happen.

          I understand that people fret about violence in general and “gun violence” in particular but my quantitative nature forces me to address the numbers and those numbers reveal that very, very few people get shot in the U.S. each year. Naturally, for those who are harmed, or close to those who are harmed, that is probably small consolation but it is, nonetheless, true. I would love to say that I have never been touched by the tragedy of gun-related death but, unfortunately, my late brother is evidence to the contrary. Even still, I recognize that it is me and my family who are the outliers. The vast majority of us don’t deal with that kind of death – no matter what the news programs say.

        • Oh, on the topic of “were you safe?”, I’ve gotten the same question. My response is usually something along the lines of, “define safe”. Personally, I think that people in the U.S. have become a little too attached to the notion of safety in everyday life (yes, I am one of the rock climbing, gun shooting types you alluded to) and I think that this has, to a certain extent, colored the way people discuss many things in the public arena, including guns. I would observe that for the average American household, “insurance” ranks in the top two or three expenditures each month.

        • @Myname

          Yeah. I’ve actually been revolving how to write an opinion piece about this – our incessant obsession with safety in this country and how it affects every public discourse, from what you are allowed to say, to what you are allowed to wear, to policy. All of it. Of course, guns are always going to be at the top of the No Fly list because guns are a magnet issue for all of that fear. But I think it’s a lot bigger than guns. A LOT bigger. Guns just are a flash point for the obsession.

          I mean, people in other countries have guns and they don’t spend nearly the amount of time roiling about it that we do over here. They’re just tools.

          I recently became single and started dating again and I’ve been astounded at how, when I meet up with guys for a coffee, it turns out that most of the people in my age range are On Something. Weed, booze, prescription pain pills, you name it. It’s like the norm anymore for people to be doing something that numbs them out everyday so that they won’t feel anything uncomfortable. I think the same cultural forces are at work here. No one wants to deal with any form of fear or discomfort. So the answer is for everyone to eat pills or get high and get rid of guns and such.

          • “No one wants to deal with any form of fear or discomfort.”

            You are seeing the legacy of “the greatest generation”; three later generations where children were raised to remain children.

        • @Myname

          And if you didn’t see Free Solo….see it…best movie I saw all year. I was clinging to my seat the entire time. Alex Honnold is a freak of nature.

        • @Sam

          I have this theory that the “Soma” of Aldous Huxley’s 1984 is actually here and it’s legalized weed. But, that’s my own little version of Conspiracy Cuckoo and I know it.

        • @ Elaine

          Yeah, I’ve seen it – incredible. I am most definitely *not* that good a climber. I own rope, I fall. Even still, I think that you are right that even some small sort of risk being part of one’s life has an impact on how we view this issue of safety. I’m not entirely sure where the growing obsession with safety comes from though because we already live in one of the safest, if not the safest, societies in human history. Perhaps that is the issue – when most of the really terrible threats have been mitigated to the degree they have, even minor discomforts become a problem by comparison.

          I think this is why many gun owners, particularly those that are also outdoorsy hunting/camping/fishing types, are so annoyed by what they see as weakling/snowflake/victim culture. Even if you have only spent a couple nights of your life trying to keep a fire going after a thunderstorm has destroyed your tent, it is pretty hard to take seriously some dude whining about how terrible life is because someone said something he doesn’t like and his latte was a bit cold.

          In my experience, however, this obsession with safety is not necessarily a permanent condition. I have known plenty of people who grew up with helicopter parents and were safe and secure in the heart of suburbia who heeded the call to “go west, young man” and after a few years of work and exploration found that danger is relative and that reward is generally preceded by risk. Of course, sometimes those risks leave a person with some scars but, I find it easier to give the benefit of the doubt to the people that have a few scars.

        • Thanks Guardiano. I’ve been mixing those two up since high school (I read the books at the same time) and apparently that hasn’t changed!

      • I don’t need everyone threatened with violence we can’t prevent to lay down and die: I’m OK with treating the symptom sometimes. I’m OK with the victims able to treat the immediate local symptoms of violence n broken people themselves, at need, if that’s what it comes to.

        We Treat Symptoms All The Time: That’s a Good Thing

        Treating symptoms has a long, legitimate, and often successful history. Sometimes it’s called “supporting treatment”: keep them from dying of the symptoms long enough for the root-cause to sort itself out, itself. This doesn’t always work, but then neither does root-cause treatment. There isn’t always a symptom treatment to apply, but then neither do we always have a root-cause treatment. Neither limitation has anything to do with writing off the people we *can* try to help.(*)

        I’ve even heard of this strategy in the mental health context. Sometimes, people aren’t so much broken as so deep in a poo-storm we mitigate the symptoms with some temporary suppport so the depth doesn’t swamp them or damage them.

        So, with cultural or perhaps species-embedded violence, until somebody can fix the root cause, for real, all of it,(**) I’m OK with treating symptoms if that might help. I think we’re better off with distributed symptom treatments, available quickly at need.

        That’s the medical analogy version of: “Armed citizens if they want to be, so they can #shootback, if that’s what’s left to them to survive with. I’m not OK with removing their option, if that’s an option they want.

        I reserve the prerogative to treat the symptom, immediately and locally, should that symptom be trying to pulverize my bones whether with a firearm or some other way. And I would preserve that same prerogative for anyone else. Nobody is required to lay down and die because that’s just a symptom of something else.

        “Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill em right back.”

        (*) The majority of treatment for stroke and brain-hemmorage is symptom mitigation: keep you alive from the symptoms, many ironically from the healing process itself, long enough for healing to do it’s work and calm down. I may be biased. I’m alive right now becuase symptom mitigation for TBIs is a thing.

        (**) G-23 Paxilon Hydrochlorate didn’t work out very well…

        • @Jim

          That was a great post. Flawless.

          I just wrote a piece about helping a friend with a TBI regain his shooting practice. TBI is some serious business. I’m so glad you are alright.

        • Spot on, Jim – something that those who want to address only root causes of violence don/t think about. As to whether or not we ought to concern ourselves with violence in the US since it is relatively safe compared to other places, Tom Givens says it well – to paraphrase, interpersonal violence is one of those low probability, high consequence events. Whether killed or ‘just’ suffering from the effects of an aggravated assault, the people experience life changing circumstances. I try to avoid those places where such events happen most frequently (such as certain parts of big cities or Walmart parking lots), and then carry an emergency rescue tool to deal with the symptoms in other areas should they acutely appear.

        • @Elaine

          No “reply” button directly under yr comment, so threading is weird.

          Thanks for the kind words. Glad I got that right enough.

          On TBI, I’m OK. Glad to be alive. The armed intelligensia hereabouts have been very tolerant of my broken-brain broken rambles, and Cusinarted typing. It’s frankly been a useful recovery exercise, reading and commenting here. I am fortunate and grateful to have that.

          ** Thanks, people. You help me a great deal. I don’t remember to say that enough.**

          Not that you asked, but now I’m in some sort of “uncanny valley” as the roboticists call it, in recovery, support access, n even work. I can do some stuff well enough – hard to position, n not the usual delivery profile.

          Almost normal weirds people out. It’s a good problem to have, considering.

          I wonder, sometimes, how much of the un-personing n rejection on gun-stuff is also an “uncanny valley” problem. The people *almost* “like us” come off way spookier than the very weird.

          “He seemed so normal, but turned out to be one of those gunny people.”

  31. And you “learned” doctors “supposed boycott” of Kittery Trading Post hasn’t done any good. And AR’s are exactly that, AR’s, meaning Armalite Rifle, not assault rifle, or automatic rifle, or a dozen other disingenuous titles you strap on them. Any gun can kill, but so do a litany of other weapons available today. That learned doctor is the liar, not the people who support the 2nd amendment. Most people have tuned you anti gunners out, purely sick of the bullsh*t coming from your mouths.

    • I think I know what you meant – slight edit: “Any gun can kill, …” s/b: “Any gun can be used by a sick mind to kill, …”

  32. For all those chasing unicorns, thank you for your service in taking “undecideds” to the shooting gallery. It’s a fool’s errand, but thank you for trying (and Congrats to those who influenced new shooters).

    The Second Amendment is about all gun owners. Not all gun owners are about the Second Amendment.

  35. A 5.56mm or .223 caliber bullet that has tumbled to propogate sideways throuh human tissue will create a wound track with a cross sectional area of about 0.2 square inch.

    A .45 caliber handgun bullet that undergoes zero expansion to propogate normally through human tissue will create a wound track with a cross sectional area of approximately 0.2 square inch.

  36. Keep an eye on that series because there might just be a forth letter, depending on whether it gets past review. Here’s my response:

    Writer’s Defense of Gun Is Control Obviously Specious

    Mr. Kingston would like us to think he knows about guns and the Second Amendment. He doesn’t. Any weapon not produced for the military, which is not what KTP sells and he knows this, is a sporting weapon. The intent of these weapons is for sport and that’s what they’re used for. The Second Amendment isn’t about and isn’t meant to defend hunting. That’s simply a happy byproduct. Yes, these rifles are used for hunting. Not deer, as most states have minimum bore restrictions. For competition, varminting, feral hogs, etc., there are few things better.

    StratFor debunked lie of the “Iron River to Mexico” in 2011. The overwhelming choice for criminals on both sides of the border is the handgun. So, I’ve already taken the liberty of getting into how these rifles actually don’t contribute to crime for him.

    The Las Vegas shooter did not convert any of his rifles to machine guns, nor is it easy. Just ask any manufacturer of machine guns how easy it is without the necessary machine tools and knowledge. I doubt Mr. Kingston did.

    So, despite Mr. Kington’s ignorant claims about the intent of our Founding Fathers, they did want us to be as armed as we can be. Had he taken his own advice, he’d know what they meant by a “well-regulated militia,” which has nothing to do with gun control. Only a criminal, wife-beater, or those who feel compelled to intimidate peaceable citizens would think otherwise.

    It’s those who want to ban these rifles that feel inadequate when they see someone else with one. So, they want everyone else around them to share in this self-loathing, so they can prey on the rest of us without fear of meeting resistance.

  39. Wow Dr. Korn would really hate to be shot by a 30-06 which is of course a hunting round. He must’ve graduated from Harvard medical school of feels.

    • Well, to be fair, 30-06 didn’t start life as a hunting round but I doubt Dr. Korn knows enough about rifle cartridges for it to matter to him.

  40. And during an abortion…what happens to the bones and organs and flesh???
    600,000+ times a year all over the USA…EVERY single year
    just curious….

  41. I dunno. I had a nice time visiting with the counter-protesters at the Trading Post. People had there spouses, their dogs, their children, and/or their rifles.

    When I was there, there were 11 protesters and, [drum roll] 75-80 counter-protesters!

    I tried to listen in on 2 conversations between antis and pros. It hurt my head! The antis had bullet points (sorry!) out of MDA and they had no thoughtful answers to the comments and questions of the pros.

    The saddest was a passenger in a car stopped in traffic. The protesters had to be on the sidewalk, while the counter-protesters were welcomed on the property. When the car stopped in front of a man with a slung rifle, she held up a shopping bag so she wouldn’t have to see the eeeeevil rifle. Poor snowflake.

  42. He further seems to think that the Second Amendment is restricted to the technology of the day. He says our forefathers were referring to muskets, not self loading rifles – again, it just isn’t so. They were a wise lot.

    I wonder if he thinks that the right to marry is limited to opposite-sex couples.

      • Perhaps.

        But I find it puzzling, to say, the least, that many who claim that the right to marry (even though such a right is not enumerated) includes a right to marry someone of the same sex (even though this did not exist at the time of the Founders) nevertheless claim that the 2nd Amendment does not protect the right to bear semiautomatic weaponry ( let alone fully-automatic weaponry) because the Founders could not anticipate such things.

        • I get your point, and it’s a good one. I was just being snide and taking an opportunity to bitch about the worst SCOTUS decision of my lifetime.

          (I was born after Roe v Wade)

        • “(I was born after Roe v Wade)”

          Lucky, that. Roe v Wade has killed a whole lot more people than bullets.

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