Should I have used assailants? Yeah, that probably would have sounded better.
Assailants in China stab 28 people to death and injure another 113. To give it some perspective, if it had been a shooting in the US it would have been the second most deadly, assuming nobody dies from injuries.
Obligatory sarcastic remark about China needing to ban knives.
Well, the point is was not just one person, it was (apparently) a large group.
Oghier
3329
I don’t understand your post. You seem to be pointing out that, 1) I have the wrong data for death caused by bears and 2) People can, in fact, be killed by unarmed attackers, and that it happens more often than murders by rifle. The bear comment was a joke, meant to suggest that the guy probably wasn’t in any real danger. The assault rifle business I don’t understand, as I didn’t say anything about banning them, and there was no rifle involved in this case.
What I am suggesting is that, if a scuffle breaks out at a Wal-Mart between two adult males, and neither has some medical condition that makes them particularly frail, then the odds are extremely low that either party will die or suffer any injury more serious than a broken nose. A fistfight at a Wal-Mart is not the same thing as a gang kicking someone to death, an abusive husband strangling his wife, a drunk attacking his girlfriend’s 6-year old, or the other horrific things you read about in the paper. Those are situations where deadly force may be necessary, justified and laudable. Here, while it’s always possible to get knocked out and hit your head on the way down, that is extremely unlikely.
I don’t have anything against gun owners. I’ve been one for 30 years, and most of my friends are as well. I do have a serious problem with assholes who think that getting punched in the face means they get to kill the other guy, particularly when it occurs in a setting where they’re surrounded by other people and there is no particular reason to think the other guy is trying to murder you. That’s not self-defense. That’s a pussy who happens to have a gun along with him.
From what I have read about this situation, fear of losing a fistfight may well constitute self-defense in AZ. The shooter wasn’t even booked for a crime. I think that’s absolutely nuts.
Houngan
3330
Sorry Oghier, my knee jerked a little there. I field a lot of posts that use something like your bear statement as fact, rather than a generalization used for effect (lord knows I’ve been on the wrong end of that plenty of times myself.) That plus suggesting that it was likely the shooter who started it seemed like a nonfactual indictment. I would agree with everything in your second post, with an addition and a caveat; I’d add that if you choose to carry a weapon, it is incumbent on you to avoid confrontations like this if at all possible. The caveat is that we don’t know what transpired, and a quick read of the article says that charges may be brought depending on what the cameras and witnesses say actually happened. That seems like a reasonable path of police work to me.
On a different note, while doing a bit more research I came upon this:
http://www.navajopost.org/2014/02/19/kyle-wayne-quadlin-shots-navajo-man-claims-self-defense/
Kyle Wayne Quadlin allegedly got into an altercation with Kriston Belinte at the Chandler Wal-Mart earlier this week. As more details emerge, Police say Quadlin shot Belinte in the name of self-defense, but Belinte wife (who was with her husband at the time) said that is not what happen.
. . .
According to Shirley, Belinte was a construction worker who was an experience tradesman in masonry and even won awards for his achievements. As police continue to their investigation, some members of the Navajo Nation are expressing their anger on social media as they learn of the tragic news.
Which is bizarrely inept for a print publication’s website. Other articles seem fine:
Since the early 1970′s the NNWFD has provided job training to the Navajo people. It’s based in St. Michael’s, AZ. According to the Navajo Nation Business website, the tribe has a staggering 50 percent unemployment rate, higher than the national average.
People took their outrage to social media. Jay Smith said “I believe it, I don’t think there’s been a day the Navajos are not in the news for mis-use of funds, its seems to be the normal thing in window rock.” he wrote on the Navajo Post facebook page.
olaf
3331
http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2014/04/040714-special-advisory-test-examination-and-classification-7n6-545x39-ammunition.html
This is the latest Obama gun control BS. The ATF is banning the importation of surplus 5.45x39 ammo for no good reason. It’s not armor piercing, it has been available in the US for 30-40 years. It’s just cheap. And they don’t want that.
So now, Obama is responsible for standard testing carried out under a 1986 (when the amendment was passed) law (which, on reading, does seem to be pretty stupid in terms of defining handgun ammunition, but their job’s following the law and not making it). And it’s banning one very specific classification of ammunition.
Uh-huh.
Instead of looking at, say, manufacturing more amo in the US…
That is not actually true. It is armour piercing; the standard russian 7.62x39 and 5.45x39 rounds both contain steel penetrators.
(A) How is this Obama’s fault, given that it’s being rejected under the (amended) 1968 GCA?
(B) The advisory clearly states they’re being rejected because they contained a steel core, could be used in certain handguns, and were not destined for gov’t use, thus fell under the GCA ban on “armor piercing ammunition.” It also clearly states it doesn’t apply to all ammo of that caliber, just this batch of Russian ones.
Are you just bored, or is this a slow news day for Obama-fueled outrage?
For all practical purposes, it can’t be fired from a handgun. The alleged weapon is the Onyks Model 89S, which saw a limited-prototype production run of maybe 200 in the early 1990s… in Poland. They’ve never been available on the US market. The ATF’s determination that it can be fired from a handgun does, therefore, seem a little less based on practical considerations regarding the enforcement of the law, and more based on political point-scoring.
Edit: the ATF’s report says ‘a commercially available handgun’, which is the blatant falsehood they’re basing the ammo import ban on.
Edit edit: the 7N6 steel-core 5.45x39 round in question doesn’t even meet the requirements laid out in the Gun Control Act of 1968 in the first place. The relevant text, defining ‘armor-piercing handgun projectile’:
a projectile or projectile core which may be used in a handgun and which is constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper, or depleted uranium
The 7N6 has a steel penetrator rod, but it’s not constructed entirely from steel—there’s a lead inlay that makes up a significant portion of the bullet inside the jacket. Cutaway image.
I’m not very knowledgeable about guns or ammo, though reading legislation is a part of my job. Why is the projectile shown in your cutaway not a one with a “projectile core . . . constructed entirely. . . from . . . steel”? The center (i.e., core) of the projectile is made entirely of steel. The lead inlay means that the whole projectile is not steel, but the legislation doesn’t relate to just the whole projectile. The language specifically contemplates “projectile core” separate from “projectile”.
It seems very likely that it’s because someone tried to import one. The request came from customs…
The law’s definition of pistol ammunition is, sure, silly - but it’s not the agencies place to make the law, or not do their jobs.
‘Core’ has a specific meaning when discussing jacketed bullets—precisely that part of the bullet which is not the jacket, which in this case includes both the lead and the steel. It’s a good illustration of the silliness Starlight mentioned that the law, as written, plausibly excludes a specifically armor-piercing bullet from its definition of armor-piercing bullets.
It appears that Customs does not agree with your specific meaning. Normally, one would look to legislative history to try and get a better understanding of what “core” means here. I’m too lazy to do so.
A functional question-- would this steel core not give the bullet better penetration than if it was all lead? I don’t see why having a layer of softer, outer lead would influence that. The language does not appear concerned with mass of the steel component. A quick Google search turned up this round, which is labeled as armor piercing, while still have lead as per the one at issue.
Customs is welcome to disagree, but supposing the law respects the terminology of the field it’s regulating (which is a dangerous assumption), they’re wrong. I’m not disputing functional grounds—7N6 is also part of a series of 5.45 bullets with improved armor penetration as a design goal. That said, the law’s language would read to any firearms expert as excluding 7N6 and maybe that 7.7mm round, too (depending on how much one wants to quibble over ‘traces’), stated purpose or not.
Fun fact aside: one of the most inexpensive civilian-available 5.56x45mm cartridges is surplus M855 armor-piercing, which is legal because it’s produced in the US and originally earmarked for government use.
What political points could the ATF possibly score over this? AFAICT, the only ones to notice are right-wing gun sites (who I imagine watch the ATF like the proverbial hawk); none of the left-wing gun-control sites have even mentioned it, that I could find.
Unless the point is a ban on Russian goods as political reprisal over Crimea, but that seems a stretch.
I love that the small liberating act of approving a new handgun for import indirectly caused a much wider reduction in liberty. These awkward bureaucratic ironies amuse me.
I’m also sure the guy that ruined it for everyone isn’t getting a lot of fan mail right now.
Sarkus
3344
Yeah, I read about this last week. Whoever triggered the ban is probably hoping the details don’t come out.
Its not going to impact much, though. Surplus 5.45 is not exactly a big part of the ammo market. Its not like the outcry you would see if 762x54r surplus got banned, which is probably by far the most in demand surplus Russian stuff at the moment. And that’s for a bolt action surplus military rifle.
Still seems like a tempest in a teapot, but mostly I’m bemused at “patriotic” American gunowners complaining about how they can’t buy cheap Russian ammo. :)
jpinard
3346
