Quoted from the article: “Well, actually I received this message just as the moment we were under the shock of the attack,” Araud said. “So I am a fighter and I am a diplomat, so I decided to respond the way you did, but actually I erased the tweet I think 10 minutes later, saying it’s of no use.”
“But of course, I am supporting of the substance of it,” he continued. “It doesn’t makes sense. It was a theater, a theater hall. Imagine a theater hall and suddenly people enter with machine guns and are really killing people … It is only in the movies someone is using his gun to defend himself.”
I'm no actor and I've never been in a movie, but I sure as hell defended MY HOME with a firearm on December 25, 2012. A persistent intruder on my front porch at 1 AM decided to not engage in any further "conversation" through my front door, after he was lit up by my high powered flashlight and clearly saw the Glock .45 in my hand. CT State Police told me on the phone that they were too tied up with weather related car accidents to send someone out. While the scumbag on the porch left without me firing a shot, I would have had no problem doing what needed to be done if he returned to do worse. My call to 911 was already blown off, so it was very apparent our safety and security was up to me. As far as theaters go, I classify those as a "soft target" requiring me to carry nothing smaller than a .45ACP, multiple spare mags, and a light. My survival will be questionable at best, but I hope to kill at least one attacker in the process. Think old Honest Abe would have served out his second term and died of old age if he had just one guard with a gun that night?
I imagine it must be nice to curl up in bed every night surrounded by a security cocoon. Me on the other hand, I spend my last few moments awake locking and loading and making final security preparations around the house. When we moved out to rural eastern CT, we suspected LE response would not be what we had in our old house. It was confirmed Christmas morning 2012.
There is relatively little question that a higher energy projectile will do more damage.
As far as I know the real argument is over whether typical examples of battle rifles which are characteristically chambered in one caliber rather than the other are superior in an actual firefight.
And I think that the most telling point is that you can rather easily train American soldiers to use AK-47's effectively, while training many troops habituated to the AK-47 to use NATO arms effectively is quite difficult and uncertain.
In other words, NATO arms are technically superior in many ways, but this technical superiority comes at some cost in practical ease of use and maintenance which puts effective use of them out of reach of some significant percentage of the available combatants. This ease of use/maintenance issue becomes magnified by actual combat, where combatants have to deal with a host of other concerns (including not getting shot themselves) which erode the amount of energy/attention they can spare for making sure their weapon functions adequately.
And caliber does feed into this, a larger caliber fired at a lower energy is friendly to many aspects of designing a weapon with forgiving tolerances. That said, the 5.56 round doesn't preclude a battle rifle which is easy to use and maintain. But the preference for 5.56 was driven by the same kinds of technical considerations which didn't take enough account of practical combat. Many people prefer AR-15 rifles simply because it is "American". I don't fault that anymore than a love of Browning designs for the same reason.
But insurgents and paramilitaries the world over have relied on the AK-47 for a reason, and nationalistic feeling isn't high on the list.
all this math is bull to prove whatever point you want to make as to witch round will do the most damage. I have a much easer way, take two frozen pumpkins and set them out at 150 yards. shoot one pumpkin with the best hand loaded ar 15 round you can build and then do the same thing with a sks round. Now go and check the damage and ask yourself witch round you would rather be hit with.
I've actually killed people with the 5.56 bullet, and it works as advertised. Rubber, meet Road. All the techs and all the numbers mean nothing, when it comes to that. Both will kill, and are highly effective at it. All the hair splitting in the world can add nothing to that.
Barrier penetration also comes into play in combat....
This test will cost you all of $1.08 at Home Depot. Buy a concrete block. Shoot block with FMJ 55 gr. M193 and any old 122-124 gr. FMJ x39 round both out of 16" bbls.
If you were pinned down behind that wall, which round would you hope your enemy was firing at you?
Higher energy and more exacting ballistics allow some good armor-piercing tricks using specialized ammo (which is of course prohibited to us lowly commoners).
Which is just another thing for the guy behind the weapon to worry about in a firefight. And we can blame that guy all we want for not being adequately trained to remain cool and collected under fire, that won't change the fact that most people won't because they can't. A rifle that's just a bit simpler to use, and responds well to angry swearing and a bit of abuse in a tight spot, is a big force multiplier because it multiplies the fraction of your force that actually is fighting back rather than forgetting how their gun works.
The ability to reliably engage and neutralize targets at 300+ yards is nice, and I have nothing against it. It isn't always the same thing as having a rifle that still works for everybody when the enemy is 50 yards away. I like single shots at range, but I don't mind having a few extra guys able to watch my back while I'm at it. Whatever works for those few extra guys is fine with me.
6 comments:
Quoted from the article: “Well, actually I received this message just as the moment we were under the shock of the attack,” Araud said. “So I am a fighter and I am a diplomat, so I decided to respond the way you did, but actually I erased the tweet I think 10 minutes later, saying it’s of no use.”
“But of course, I am supporting of the substance of it,” he continued. “It doesn’t makes sense. It was a theater, a theater hall. Imagine a theater hall and suddenly people enter with machine guns and are really killing people … It is only in the movies someone is using his gun to defend himself.”
I'm no actor and I've never been in a movie, but I sure as hell defended MY HOME with a firearm on December 25, 2012. A persistent intruder on my front porch at 1 AM decided to not engage in any further "conversation" through my front door, after he was lit up by my high powered flashlight and clearly saw the Glock .45 in my hand. CT State Police told me on the phone that they were too tied up with weather related car accidents to send someone out. While the scumbag on the porch left without me firing a shot, I would have had no problem doing what needed to be done if he returned to do worse. My call to 911 was already blown off, so it was very apparent our safety and security was up to me. As far as theaters go, I classify those as a "soft target" requiring me to carry nothing smaller than a .45ACP, multiple spare mags, and a light. My survival will be questionable at best, but I hope to kill at least one attacker in the process. Think old Honest Abe would have served out his second term and died of old age if he had just one guard with a gun that night?
I imagine it must be nice to curl up in bed every night surrounded by a security cocoon. Me on the other hand, I spend my last few moments awake locking and loading and making final security preparations around the house. When we moved out to rural eastern CT, we suspected LE response would not be what we had in our old house. It was confirmed Christmas morning 2012.
There is relatively little question that a higher energy projectile will do more damage.
As far as I know the real argument is over whether typical examples of battle rifles which are characteristically chambered in one caliber rather than the other are superior in an actual firefight.
And I think that the most telling point is that you can rather easily train American soldiers to use AK-47's effectively, while training many troops habituated to the AK-47 to use NATO arms effectively is quite difficult and uncertain.
In other words, NATO arms are technically superior in many ways, but this technical superiority comes at some cost in practical ease of use and maintenance which puts effective use of them out of reach of some significant percentage of the available combatants. This ease of use/maintenance issue becomes magnified by actual combat, where combatants have to deal with a host of other concerns (including not getting shot themselves) which erode the amount of energy/attention they can spare for making sure their weapon functions adequately.
And caliber does feed into this, a larger caliber fired at a lower energy is friendly to many aspects of designing a weapon with forgiving tolerances. That said, the 5.56 round doesn't preclude a battle rifle which is easy to use and maintain. But the preference for 5.56 was driven by the same kinds of technical considerations which didn't take enough account of practical combat. Many people prefer AR-15 rifles simply because it is "American". I don't fault that anymore than a love of Browning designs for the same reason.
But insurgents and paramilitaries the world over have relied on the AK-47 for a reason, and nationalistic feeling isn't high on the list.
all this math is bull to prove whatever point you want to make as to witch round will do the most damage. I have a much easer way, take two frozen pumpkins and set them out at 150 yards. shoot one pumpkin with the best hand loaded ar 15 round you can build and then do the same thing with a sks round. Now go and check the damage and ask yourself witch round you would rather be hit with.
I've actually killed people with the 5.56 bullet, and it works as advertised. Rubber, meet Road. All the techs and all the numbers mean nothing, when it comes to that. Both will kill, and are highly effective at it. All the hair splitting in the world can add nothing to that.
Barrier penetration also comes into play in combat....
This test will cost you all of $1.08 at Home Depot. Buy a concrete block. Shoot block with FMJ 55 gr. M193 and any old 122-124 gr. FMJ x39 round both out of 16" bbls.
If you were pinned down behind that wall, which round would you hope your enemy was firing at you?
Higher energy and more exacting ballistics allow some good armor-piercing tricks using specialized ammo (which is of course prohibited to us lowly commoners).
Which is just another thing for the guy behind the weapon to worry about in a firefight. And we can blame that guy all we want for not being adequately trained to remain cool and collected under fire, that won't change the fact that most people won't because they can't. A rifle that's just a bit simpler to use, and responds well to angry swearing and a bit of abuse in a tight spot, is a big force multiplier because it multiplies the fraction of your force that actually is fighting back rather than forgetting how their gun works.
The ability to reliably engage and neutralize targets at 300+ yards is nice, and I have nothing against it. It isn't always the same thing as having a rifle that still works for everybody when the enemy is 50 yards away. I like single shots at range, but I don't mind having a few extra guys able to watch my back while I'm at it. Whatever works for those few extra guys is fine with me.
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