"Oh, my goodness, the AR-15 MILITARY ASSAULT CARNAGE DEATH MACHINE can shoot thirty rounds in 15 seconds! How can anyone 'need' such a weapon of death?"
While no weapon should be banned, the wrong one is being sought for ban here. In all the cases that people are getting upset about, the firing is going on in close quarters, like a school.
A six shooter - a plain old six shooter, like a poor man might have carried back in the 1800s - can do as much damage as that AR-15. It wholly depends on the shooter, not the particular weapon. This should be obvious - it's like how you can go to Lowes and buy the cheapest to the fanciest hammer, and the only real difference will be what the guy hammering brings to the table.
If a carpenter is using the cheap hammer, he's going to do better than me using the fancy one. And if two novices are using a fancy and a cheap hammer, their performances will still be comparable - for crap.
But what does being "limited" to a six shooter mean when compared to an AR-15?
Well, it means that you can get all the way up to the school without being detected, handguns being easy to conceal, AR-15s not so much.
It means you can draw and aim it faster, as it is lighter and less bulky than that dreaded AR-15.
It means that it will NEVER jam, no matter what, a claim that no AR-15 or M-16 could have made for it.
It means you can aim just as well, as everything in your target environment is going to be within fifty yards, unless your "rampage" is being conducted in the middle of an empty football field.
It means you can shoot just as many. Oh, of course dropping a thirty round clip and slamming in another one is quicker, but we're speaking in terms of "seconds" not "minutes".
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Major Nidal Hasan, the shooter at Ft. Hood
Killed 13, Wounded 30. With a handgun.
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You could fire six shots with a six shooter, drop the shells, slam in a reloader, and be back firing in, just off the cuff, two seconds. Sure, with practice. Which means that while the AR-15 guy is firing off a round per second, taking thirty seconds to go empty, the six shooter guy needed an extra 8 seconds to fire off the same number!
Now, I know that most of you only know about shooting from movies, but believe me, in any real combat environment in which accuracy is being sought, no one is firing one a second anyway. They acquire the target, they fire, the pause, the acquire another target, they fire - so 8 seconds is making no difference in ultimate "kill counts" for the times these shooters are "active".
And if any wish to pipe up about how "What if they aren't acquiring targets, but just shooting indiscriminately into a crowd?" Then those few reload seconds still aren't making much of a difference, especially as the odds are is that most will be wounded, as opposed to killed.
See, the reasons why real soldiers don't spray bullets indiscriminately is because that doesn't work very well for killing. It's why the "full auto" feature of the military's M-16 is really rarely used. In fact, I'd almost say "never" used.
So please don't comment back that "Well, hur dur, 8 more seconds, someone could kill a few more kids!" Bullets aren't magic, and you can't have it both ways.
Either the guy is an expert marksman, in which case he can take out a high number of kids no matter what weapon he is using - making a ban of any pointless. Or he's not a marksman - making a ban of any pointless.
