Assault weapons ban round up
Nope, no hysteria here:
But that doesn’t diminish ominous reminders of a vulnerability posed to everyone, particularly police officers, by Dugan’s easy acquisition of a military-style, semiautomatic, high-powered rifle to execute his plan, police believe. A weapon powerful enough to rip through bulletproof vests worn by most police officers.
If they’re semi-auto, they are not military-style. They are military-looking. And any rifle cartridge will penetrate a vest.
The FBI said last week that Dugan purchased a ROMARM assault rifle. The semiautomatic, a Romanian-built knockoff of the more widely known AK-47, fires a 7.62 x 39-caliber round, the FBI said, the same shell made for the AK-47. The FBI had originally reported that Dugan purchased an AK-47.
No matter the nomenclature, it’s a gun with a lot of firepower “that broadens the risk to people as well as police officers,” Chandler Police Chief Sherry Kiyler said.
The type of weapon used in many military arsenals, including those of terrorists, according to news reports.
Militaries use machine guns, which this weapon (probably a Robarm, not ROMARM) is not. And I’d like to see a cite on terrorists in this country using AK clones. Last I checked, they used fertilizer and box cutters. Meanwhile, it seems that military personnel are importing real AK47s.
Also, Peter Hamm (the resident liar for the Brady Campaign) issued a press release that uses the word extreme or extremist in reference to the NRA seven times. Sorry Peter, but the extremist is the group that must continually lie in an effort to convince people of their point of view. And that would be you.
November 10th, 2004 at 1:16 pm
And the 7.62x39mm round is underpowered compared to most rounds in a similar caliber. It’s similar in performance to the 30-30 round that Winchester introduced in 1893, and has lower muzzle velocity than most newer rifle rounds.
The Russian army used a 7.62×57 round mostly in bolt action rifles from the 1890’s through the first part of WWII. During WWII their weapons designers went to the x39 length (with a shorter bullet and smaller powder load) for the semi-auto SKS and full-auto AK47, apparently because it was easier to get reliable feeding with a short round. This reduces the effective range, but by that time few soldiers other than the designated snipers could hit a target at long range anyhow. It also reduces the penetrating capability – but it’s still able to penetrate anything the average man can and still move quickly.