Hi Cap Mag Used in Colorado

Seems that the Aurora shooter used a 100 round drum mag in his attack. **UPDATE** To be clear it just says the police FOUND a drum mag, no direct word if that magazine was USED in the event.

First let’s lighten things up a bit by showing Jeff Zimba having some good clean fun with them:

Now of course they want us to be transfixed and horrified by this, because they want to make another attempt to ban magazines above a certain size.

First let’s just have a quick peek at recent shootings. Most recently we have the Tuscon shooting, 6 killed, 14 injured, and a 32 round magazine used. Less than the 12 killed and 70-some injured at the movie shooting. Still compare it with the Virginia Tech shooting with 32 killed and 23 injured….oh and all but two of the magazines that were 10-round ban-compliant magazines… of course we also have The University Texas shooting from the 60s, 16 killed 32 injured, all of them with low capacity magazines, most of the damage done by a 5-shot Remington hunting rifle.

Really the weapons and tactics don’t seem to readily point in any direction, and it seems that dumb luck factors into things. Hell the Trolly Square shooter took out nearly as many people as Loughner in Arizona, but with a low-capacity shotgun and revolver…and he was shot by an off-duty police officer (as citizens were barred from carrying in the mall).

You can ban magazines, which of course will do nothing for criminals wanting said magazines, as anything can be acquired through the black market, but even when the shooter complies with such laws (like Cho in Virginia) it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. Hell even the reaction of the people doesn’t seem to make much difference. Loughner was attacked by his intended victims and was stopped….but the Colorado and Virginia tech shooters experienced no resistance from the victims, and in this case the more heavily armed shooter got a lower body count. Dumb luck.

I thought I’d just close with the genius of this article:

A shotgun would do more damage among a tightly packed theater audience because its ammunition comes out of the weapon in a reverse funnel shape and would disperse across a wider area, according to Howard.

In a theater scenario, he said, “so many people’s heads are lined up next to each other that if you fire down these rows of people … one blast is going to kill or seriously injure 10 or 15 people, depending on a number of variables.”

Only in Hollywood, sorry buckshot just doesn’t spread like that.

AR-15 rifle: A rifle that commonly fires bullets .223 inches in diameter (**Update** Found an older version here). Originally manufactured by Colt before its patent ran out, but now also made by others. Cost: around $900 and up. Its military version is a machine gun, which allows a shooter to fire continuously by holding the trigger down. The nonmilitary AR-15 is a semi-automatic which shoots one bullet at a time, with each squeeze of the trigger. Ammunition magazines for the AR-15 commonly hold five to 15 rounds.

Crap the editor got tipped off, last night it was “.223 millimeter” which is hilariously small. Still this blurb is still almost completely fact free. M16s aren’t “Machine Guns”, $900 seems a bit steep for a stripped AR. And 5-15 round magazines? 10 round magazines became common when magazine capacities were limited to 10, many states limit hunting rifles to 5 rounds (hilariously, that limit is because the magazine of the Mauser K98 and the Springfield M1908 military rifles hold five rounds, and these rifles and variations of them were common hunting rifles back in the early 20th century when the laws were drafted) so those magazines are around now that more people are hunting with ARs (What was that antis about not coming after our hunting rifles?), but 15 round mags are a bit of an oddity, they exist, but they’re rare. Really 20 and 30 round mags were the first magazines made for this rifle.

870 Remington 12-gauge shotgun: One of the most popular shotguns in history. It can be modified to have a short or long barrel.

Or you can simply swap out various barrels….your point is?

40-caliber Glock handgun: Common weapon for police. Similar in size to other popular handguns.

And one of the more popular handguns out there….again, your point?

Carpeted walls, which are common in movie theaters would reduce the risk of ricochets, said ballistics expert Jon Nordsby. Bullets that have first passed through objects such as theater chairs might cause worse wounds. The bullets start tumbling after they first penetrate the object. A tumbling bullet will tear more flesh when it hits, he said.

First his name is Nordby, and while I respect his qualifications, I’m not 100% sure if I agree with his analysis. First carpeted acoustic walls really won’t give much more in ballistic penetration and ricochets than bare walls. The only possibility depending on the thickness of the carpeting it MIGHT limit penetration of tumbling or fragmenting rounds on the back side as the carpet stretches. There is a similar effect in human terminal ballistics where the stretchy skin on the back side of the target will often adsorb a lot of ballistic energy, so frequently in hunting and homicide the bullets are recovered under the skin on the back side of the target. Still that’s a stretch as well.

A tumbling bullet WILL do more damage than a stable bullet simply punching through targets….but a bullet tumbling IN AIR, is losing a LOT of energy BEFORE it hits the target.

So yeah, GREAT article, you should be proud!