Somehow the hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses that occur annually never seem to make it into these reports. Must be an oversight.

What CBS would never mention is that semiautomatic weapons are also used to protect people and save lives. Single-shot rifles that require physically reloading may not do people a lot of good when they are facing multiple criminals. Or, for that matter, if the first shot misses or fails to stop an attacker. People wanting to protect themselves and their families might not have the luxury of time to reload their guns.

CBS gives wall-to-wall coverage to mass public shootings, whether they be the attacks at the Pittsburgh synagogue, Sutherland Springs church, New Zealand mosque, or Stoneman Douglas High School. But nowhere in their coverage to do they mention that all of these places were gun-free zones where people couldn’t defend themselves.

The ultimate irony is that if CBS and other gun control advocates succeeded in banning .223-caliber rifles, larger-caliber hunting rifles would become more popular. A shot from such a gun would be more likely to kill someone. Whether this misinformation is a result of ignorance or political bias, the end result is to make Americans less safe.

– John Lott in When Television News Anchors Become Gun Control Activists

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

50 COMMENTS

  1. No one needs a .223. last I checked there aren’t hordes of rabid poodles roaming the street.

    An AR 10 in 308 on the other hand should be mandatory.

    • M193 IS one of the BEST home and self defense rounds out there.

      MUCH safer than.308 ANYTHING for civilian use.

      • Sorry, but I disagree, nothing .22 beats 12 gauge anything for home defense.
        The .223 was designed to wound not kill. Also because pansy-assed draftees whined the .308 was too big and heavy.

        • How long are people going to keep repeating the fuddlore that the the military adopted a primary round to wound the enemy? The Army was so reluctant to adopt anything less than a .30 cal, there is no way they just wanted a round to wound.

        • That’s not true. I suspect it had more to do with the military industrial complex making a buck. Generals always like new toys. They were rushed into combat and failed.

          I would take the M14 over the unreliable M16A1 any day.

          To this day I don’t and won’t own an AR 15 or an M4.

          I do own several bolt action rifles in .308 and an Springfield M1A SOCOM 16.

          A Ruger mini 14 in .223.

          • “The beautiful thing, DJ, is you have the freedom of choice, as do I.”

            Oh yeah? Well, we will see about that.
            – anti-gunners

        • .223, 9mm, .25 .22. .9mm, anything shuted with any one if these calibers eventually die.,

        • Doesn’t matter. As some here have heard (read) me say before, one of my best friends died almost immediately from a single .22LR to a vital organ. 12-ga, .45 ACP, 9mm, .25 ACP “mouse gun”, who cares…

          Shot placement counts. Choose what works best for you, and train with it. Then you’ll be able to make the most of it when the balloon goes up.

        • Vlad(he is old troll under a new name) is referring to the Joe Horn shooting of two illegal alien burglars in Mr. Horn’s own yard.

      • .30-30 loaded with 125gr hollow points. Provided your front lawn isn’t much over 100 yards.

    • It is true that the 5.56mm round was designed to comply with NATO concepts of a battlefield where attacking forces would actually pause in their advance to treat and remove wounded troops. Initially, the M-16 was a terrible platform to deliver that round, and the M-16 was used in a war where the enemy was NOT willing to pause and treat wounded troops. That combination of failures gave the 5.56/.223 a bad rap it suffers still today.

      The problems with the AR platform have mostly been addressed and the ammo has significantly improved since 1968. Still, the 5.56/.223 does not penetrate like the .308, does not have thee same down range accuracy, and has a significantly less kinetic impact. On the battlefield, those issues can be significant. In a self defense role, the AR-15 platform 5.56mm/.223 caliber round is well suited for a range of challenges. The carbine length AR-15 can be used indoors with less difficulty than larger, heavier rifles, and “spray and pray” in close quarters at least is going to hurt dome ears and likely encourage a rapid retreat!

      The real problem with defensive use of a .308, is also present in .223 – over-penetration. The walls (interior and exterior) of most houses will not stop either round. Careless or panicked fire of either round risks unintended injuries to uninvolved people in houses across the street or even blocks away.

      I agree that a 12 gauge will do the job with fewer unintended consequences, but an AR-15, is clearly a better civilian defensive weapon that anything chambered in .308!

      • I’m not an expert on the subject, but I don’t suppose the fact that the average Joe can hump twice as much ammunition in .223 as apposed to .308 had anything to do with it’s selection did it?

        • This, plus the 5.56 wasn’t “designed to wound.” They wanted a small caliber, high velocity round. The M14 in full auto was basically uncontrollable, and they wanted something lighter. To meet the supersonic as 500 yd requirement, the .222 case was lengthened, and the .223 Remington was born. At the time, the .222 Remington was a popular varmit and benchrest round.

      • I think the adoption of the 5.56 was all about the money. I think it might also be the case with select fire.

        I have heard statistics that there was 1 hit in 10,000 rounds fired in Veitnam.

        Just imagine a full auto .30-06 rifle in every soldier’s hands in Vietnam. Just imagine the ammo cost versus the 5.56. Lots of brass, lead, and powder in those .30-06 rounds.

      • Another advocate for the “designed to wound rather than kill” myth. Pure BS.

  2. We don’t need to proliferate the Creedmore. Pretty sure that would result in a global ELE.

    • It is about time for Creedmoor Week again, isn’t it?

      • “It is about time for Creedmoor Week again, isn’t it?”

        You’re not planning on going full Pg2 on us, are you, Gov? 😉

  3. Get with the times. We now have 6.5mm PRC.
    6.5 Creedmoor is now old hat, bring on the new jokes.

    That said, the liberal media has always carried water for the Bloombergs of the world. It’s what they’re paid for, otherwise, like the obsolete printed rag corps, they’d go out of business.

  4. I’m sure my 300 Win Mag is much less lethal than a .223… it’s just an old Browning BAR, an inherited hunting rifle. Not a scary extendo-clip, pistol-gripped, assault-machine, auto-AR, cop-killer bullet firing weapon of war.

    • Scooter,

      I would argue that a semi-automatic rifle chambered in 5.56 x 45mm NATO with 30-round magazines is potentially more lethal than a Browing BAR chambered in .300 Win. Mag. with its integral 4-round box magazine.

      The key concept here is something that I believe military tactics experts call “firepower”. Sure, that .300 Win. Mag. rifle delivers about 5 times the energy of a 5.56 x 45mm NATO rifle with each bullet. Equally certain: that 5.56 x 45mm NATO rifle can deliver 30 bullets compared to the .300 Win. Mag. rifle’s four or five bullets.

      If I needed to defend myself in close-quarters combat, I would take an AR-15 over a Browning BAR chambered in .300 Win. Mag. every time.

      Now, if we were talking about defending from attackers at 600 meters, then I would take the Browning BAR chambered in .300 Win. Mag. every time.

  6. Lott: [Mainstream Media] News Operations Are Extensions of Gun Control Advocacy Orgs

    This is my surprised face.

  7. Again, not a bombshell! Actual bipartisan news coverage? Now that would be a bombshell.

  8. They are and have been for some time the propaganda wing of the Marxist left,nothing new here unless one has been living under a rock for the past 40 years or so.

    • … and here we go *again*.

      Yet again, still.

      Pg2, for the time being, I’m keeping a list of every time you make a comment that you tie into your whack-job anti-vaxx shilling, and actual TTAG gun comments. You know, talking about…guns. Call it a gun comment ‘report card’.

      And throw it right back into your face when you do it again…

  10. Is the 5.56 lack of performance due to the fact that it’s being shot from a carbine length rifle (16″-18″) barrel instead of a rifle length barrel (20″) it was designed for.

    Why don’t we split the difference and designe an M16 in .260 Remington or even 75 grain .243 Winchester.

    • 6.8 spc was suggested, but for assorted reasons was rejected. 77 gr. load in 5.56 was a fair compromise. Just have to rebarrel lot of guns to shoot it.

        • Yes.

          (Actually, longer projectiles need a faster twist rate to stabilize, but if the radius is fixed, a heavier projectile must be longer unless you can use a much denser material for the projectile. Lead and copper are already fairly dense materials, so…)

  12. “The ultimate irony is that if CBS and other gun control advocates succeeded in banning .223-caliber rifles, larger-caliber hunting rifles would become more popular. A shot from such a gun would be more likely to kill someone.”

    Duder, that’s been their incremental approach to a de facto 2A repeal for years now. They’ll go after the “military-style sniper rifles” next because no one really NEEDS such a dangerous and powerful weapon to hunt a deer…

    It’s a slippery slope argument, but Cali’s progression of gun control laws show that it’s no fallacy in this case. Today’s compromise becomes tomorrow’s loophole that needs to be closed “for the children” or whatever…

  14. Keep coming after us you wacky media people and we will come after you. If you want to screw with the Bill of Rights we can screw with it too. Every argument you use to promote the 1st Amendment we can use to support the 2nd. If we don’t have have the 2nd what protects your dumb butts when the government comes after you? And if they screw up the 2nd they will then go after the first. Your buddy Barry would have. Trump is just telling you to tell the unvarnished truth not trying to put you out of business although some of you are that to yourselves.

  15. What would some stupid news media do about someone attacked them…tell the offender stop I’m a jackass news caster and a Democrat….sometimes they just don’t get it till it hits home. I wouldn’t believe any news caster or newspaper if Christ himself said it was the truth.

  16. And once they ban your .223 MSR, they’ll ban your hunting rifle next.

    THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Comments are closed.